Senior Project Articl #4: Ride

Ride exploded as the band at the forefront of the shoegazer movement with hook-filled, Byrds inspired harmonies, and chaotic, distortion drenched guitars.  The band would come to define the sound and style of the genre with their early first two albums and early e.p.'s, then changing their sound and imploding; all while bookending their catalog with slices of perfect, driving noise-pop. 

Ride formed while attending the Oxfordshire School of Art and Design in 1988, and consisted of rhythm section Steve Queralt on bass and drummer Laurence Colbert, along with Mark Gardner and Andy Bell sharing guitar and vocal duties.  The band quickly signed with Creation Records, and would become the labels most successful band until the label signed Oasis in 1994. 

Ride would garner critical acclaim and crack the UK top 75 (the first release from the Creation label to do so) in January 1990, with their self-titled debut e.p.  "Take me for a ride away from places we have known...," Gardner sings on the e.p.'s opener, "Chelsea Girl," a hazy noise-pop gem that captures the longings of youth.  "Drive Blind" is a methodical psychedelic drone, while "All I Can See" and "Close My Eyes" close out the e.p., building to an epic climax with reckless abandon.  This would quickly be followed by the Play e.p. a couple of months later, featuring the whirring rush of “Like a Daydream.”

October 1990 would see Ride release both the Fall e.p., as well as their debut album Nowhere.  The vinyl release of Nowhere feature eight songs, including the epic “Dreams Burn Down” from the Fall e.p.  The cassette and CD editions would add the remaining three songs from the e.p., “Taste,” “Here and Now,” and the psychedelic title track “Nowhere” to the end of the album.  The album would catapult Ride to the top of the list of bands to watch in music circles, and has since appeared on several best albums of the 1990’s lists for various publications.  Opening with “Seagull,” a noisy, swirling tribute to The Beatles “Taxman” riff, the album veers between noisy hallucinogenic jams, chaotic blasts of power-pop bliss, and gentle, melodic ballads, like the single “Vapour Trail,” which would become the band’s best known song.

The following year, Ride would release the Today, Forever e.p., while recording their second album and promoting Nowhere, touring the U.S. with fellow Oxford shoegazers Lush.  As 1991 gave way to 1992, the British music press began a short-lived love affair with the shoegazer genre, bringing attention to bands like Lush, Slowdive, Chapterhouse, My Bloody Valentine, Blur, Catherine Wheel, and The Verve.  The press had high hopes for the genre and all eyes were on Ride with high expectations for their second album.

Going Blank Again, the follow up to Nowhere was released in March 1992, and would reach number five on the UK album charts.  It features a less murky, more accessible sound, while not shortchanging the experimental elements of their first record.  Going Blank Again is a more diverse album than Nowhere, in both sound and influences, taking inspiration from both their noise-pop contemporaries, as well as 60’s and 70’s-era rock music ranging from Pink Floyd and The Who, to The Beach Boys and The Byrds.  The album opens with “Leave Them All Behind;” a jittery keyboard, reminiscent of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” gives way to a driving drum and bass groove; then... the guitars.  The guitars blast open in a dizzying kaleidoscope of sound and color, building and layering before Bell and Gardner come in singing in perfect harmony.  The song ends with guitars roaring like jet engines, before giving way to the perfect ‘60’s pop of “Twisterella.”  “Chrome Waves” features lush, sweeping keyboard lines over ringing acoustic guitars, while “Cool Your Boots” finds the band paying tribute to the British cult film Withnail and I.  “Never been so far away / Just lost the last thought in my head / What happens now? / Some fantasy you’ve been / Pick up the pieces in my mind / I’m going home” Gardner sings on the albums closing number “OX4,” as the album gallops off into the sunset, and with it, so went the collaborative efforts by the band.

As Ride entered the studio for their third album, they sought changes in style and sound.  They replaced Alan Moulder, the producer of Nowhere and Going Blank Again, with John Leckie, who was known for his work with The Stone Roses.  The band also approached writing differently, with Bell and Gardner writing separately, and then bringing their works to the band, rather than the group effort of their previous albums.  Tensions within the band started to build between the two singers over who’s songs would get top billing; the compromise being reached to feature Gardner’s songs on the first half of the album, and Bell’s on the second, another change from the first two albums, which feature the respective songwriters songs interspersed amongst each other.

The resulting album, Carnival of Light, released in 1994, was an uneven album that attempted to move the band away from the shoegazer label, embracing the emerging Britpop sound.  Though the album does feature some of the band’s best work: the epic psychedelic opener “Moonlight Medicine,” the driving groove of “From Time to Time,” and the guitar assault of “Birdman,” the album overall lacks cohesiveness, and fails to capture the magic of their early works.

By 1995, Ride had one album left on their contract with Creation Records, but tensions were so high between Bell and Gardner that they agreed to split up before their final album had even been finished.  Tarantula was released in 1996, and might as well have been titled “Contractual Obligation;” it is the sound of a band who has no interest in working together any longer.  In a perfect statement on the bands lack of cohesiveness, Gardner only contributed one song to the album, the unimaginative “Deep Inside My Pocket.”  The album is largely a bland collection of mediocre 70’s rock songs, with riffs lifted here and there from The Faces and Lynyrd Skynyrd.  The album’s lone bright spot is the punk-fueled opening track “Black Night Crash,” which brings the band around to their beginnings full circle, fitting perfectly alongside “Chelsea Girl,” from their debut e.p.  Tarantula was initially only in print for only a week, as Ride had announced their split two months before the album’s release.  However, their early albums remain some of the most highly acclaimed British albums of the 1990’s.