Shed 7 - Everyone's third favourite band.

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One of the unanswered mysteries of the 90s for me is why wasn't Shed 7 a bigger band than they were? 
They are always spoken of favourably now for those of us who remember that time if music keenly. 
But why weren't they bigger in the 90s? Don't get me wrong, people like them in the 90s, but they were not many people favourite band. Third favourite maybe, but never quite at the top of the pile. 
They had the hits. Thumping great singalong tunes like going for gold, disco down, getting better, chasing rainbows to name just a few.  So what was the issue? 
Was there something amiss with the band itself? 
The initial press attention was highly positive reviews of their live shows, coupled with complimentary comparisons to The Smiths. 
In March 1994, an article by Dave Simpson of MelodyMaker, stated that "...Shed Seven's beautifully posed, epic music is different. Not so much New Wave of New Wave as post-Smiths, they're taking the insular bedsit angst of Morrissey's early music and subverting it with a brash and insensitive sexual narcissism."
The first negative press reviews began to emerge in August 1994. John Mulvey, writing in the NME said that She'd 7 were "four clumsy blokes trying to come over all sensuous, fragile and complex."
Were they lacking in sincerity? I never found this. In interviews, Rick Witter and the band always came across as intelligent and humorous, the same with their music. 
Maybe it was just timing? In 94 when Shed 7 were building momentum,  so were other bands. In 1994, some of the biggest UK bands included Oasis, Blur, and Suede. Oasis's debut album, "Definitely Maybe," was a massive success, as was Blur's "Parklife". Suede also released "Dog Man Star" that year, contributing to the Britpop landscape. Other notable bands included Pulp and Manic Street Preachers. 
To use a football analogy,  its like Newcastle trying to win the league. They have all the ingredients there to be a great team, but when you are preforming again the Man City's and Liverpools of this world, teams at the top of their game, it's always going to be difficult to reach the very top.
But there were those of us that really liked them, and perhaps the fact they weren't as big, and as known to the general public made us like them all the more. 
But just not the most. 
Thirty years on from 1994, in 2024, Shed Seven released Liquid Gold, their seventh studio album, consisting of re-imagined/re-recorded versions of their songs. This was to become the band's second number 1 album in the Official Charts, and their second number 1 album in the same year following the success of A matter of time. 
Two number 1 albums in one year is something achieved by few artists, putting Shed 7 in the same company as the likes of The Beatles, Elton John, Diana Ross, Queen, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and ABBA, who have also managed two or more Number One albums in a year.
Good things sometimes come to those who wait, in fact, its getting better all the time...

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