Released: 2002
There’s an argument that whenever it actually was, physical music’s death (before rebirth) was long overdue. Who really cared about three slightly different variants of a CD single? A gatefold sleeve? Artwork put through a slightly different version of photoshop? True, all of these industry tactics and more are still more blatantly employed now everyone is rebuying what they already have six copies of, but you can be assured that nobody was crying when the compact disc got it’s blindfold and bullet.
Then (as now) what remained the guiding principal was that whoever used gimmicks to flog their product was by implication admitting that the stuff wasn’t good enough to stand on it’s merits. There are exceptions to every rule though as Doves – three childhood friends from Manchester satellite town Wilmslow who were initially proteges of New Order‘s late manager Rob Gretton – proved with the release of There Goes The Fear.
For whatever reason – singer Jimi Goodwin seemed happy at the time to lay the blame with the band’s management – this first single from their second album The Last Broadcast was deleted on the same day it was released. Plainly, this qualified as a massive disservice to a song which melded Radiohead‘s sense of unobtainable horizons and Morrissey’s pre-wig out knack for psycho-dramatic glamour. On it Goodwin carried a torch for those who thought the iPod was a hotel room and Napster an insomnia cure; with life now lived on the shelf, their inevitable journey to follow was from bar to street to bookie. Twenty years on copies of There Goes The Fear, with more than a twist of irony, sell for far less than it’s worth.
The Voice Of Unreason 