In early 2021 Billboard magazine invented another con-genre: Minivan Rock, the sort of tune released around the turn of the century. From the end of Oasis’ golden years to when Coldplay’s third album knocked Oasis’ sixth off the top, along with the rise of MySpace rock from the likes of Arctic Monkeys. Instead of selling minivans, in the UK such songs would sell Land Rovers.
Minivan Rock was made up of songs, said the rubric, that ‘were likely to be fun for the whole family’, particularly the suburban family (ie – yes – Caucasian). The list chose to ignore the big three because ‘they didn’t rock enough’: Smooth by Santana, Norah Jones’ first album and Jack Johnson’s smooth surfer vibes.
The Top 50 was topped by Hanging by a Moment by Lifehouse, a song whose second chorus iteration comes before a minute of the song has elapsed. In the peloton are the likes of Complicated (Avril Lavigne), Story of a Girl (Nine Days, never a hit in the UK), Slide (Goo Goo Dolls), All You Wanted (Michelle Branch), Never Let You Go (Third Eye Blind, never a hit in the UK), Everything You Want (Vertical Horizon, a US number one hit!), A Thousand Miles (Vanessa Carlton), Wherever You Will Go (The Calling), 3AM (Matchbox 20) and No Such Thing (John Mayer).
If you need more of a clue: Kiss Me by Sixpence None The Richer; the output of Semisonic, New Radicals, Fastball, Jason Mraz, Barenaked Ladies and (surprisingly low down in the list) Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus. All of these songs can be screamed, to quote John Mayer, ‘at the top of my lungs’ from a van doing 80mph on a freeway.
What shocked me about the list was how Yankocentric it was. Two tracks from UK acts – White Flag by Dido and Clocks by Coldplay – made the list, which is natural for an American top 50 but less than ideal for patriotic purposes. We’re the land of Adele, The Beatles and Ed Sheeran! Only Coldplay and Dido broke through in the States between 1997 and 2004. Oasis struggled to gain traction and Blur almost split up after a disastrous tour of grunge-loving America in 1991/92. They will feature in this list of Land Rover Rock.
Here are 40 songs I think would pass muster for a comparable list of tunes to be yelled at while cruising down a provincial road somewhere in the Home Counties or The North. Plus:
1. The song must have been released after Be Here Now came out in August 1997 and before X&Y by Coldplay, which came out in June 2005
2. The song must be performed by acts from the United Kingdom or Ireland
Except in one case, I have limited myself to one track per artist.
Caveats:
1. The likes of Sound of the Underground by Girls Aloud, the early songs of McFly and Reach by S Club 7 are all omitted on grounds of them being more Smash Hits! than smash hits
2. Smile by The Supernaturals was originally released in 1996, ditto Hedonism by Skunk Anansie, but they would both be near the top of the list were it not for the cut-off
3. Because woke-ism didn’t exist in 2003, I apologise for the awful lack of female voices – I tried to include Groovejet as sung by Sophie Ellis-Bextor – but if you remember, a lot of guitar rock in the Land Rover Era was bloke-led
4. Aside from Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke and Tajinder Singh of Cornershop, the list is entirely white. Again, don’t shoot the chronicler
Hear every track in one handy Spotify playlist here.
1 U2 – Vertigo. Everything about this song brings together the motifs of Land Rover Rock: the riffing from The Edge; Bono’s meaningless ad lib ‘Turn it up, Captain’; the short, sharp first verse; the ‘hello hello!’ in the chorus; the strain on Bono’s voice on ‘feel’; oh-ohs in the second verse; a middle eight with a pithy solo; ‘ramping up’ to the final chorus; lots of yeahs in the last seconds. It’s U2’s last truly great song and they are the world’s biggest rock’n’roll band for a reason.
2 Blur – Song 2. Speaking of songs that say nothing in words…The Woo Hoo Song was written in about six minutes as a grunge pastiche (much like Man on the Moon by REM, with its many ‘yeah’s). Song 2 became the band’s hit that broke America and accelerated the departure of Graham Coxon. It is the perfect ski slopes song.
3 Coldplay – Clocks. As one of the two British acts in the Minivan Rock playlist, Coldplay are here with Clocks, the song with the piano riff and a wordless chorus. Honourable mentions to Speed of Sound, Politik and In My Place, but none of them have that feature of Land Rover Rock: a chorus that says nothing in words and everything in music.
4 U2 – Beautiful Day. So good they’re here twice. Their songs include anthems of universal brotherhood (One, Still Haven’t Found) and love of one another (With or Without You, I Will Follow). In 2000, U2 returned with a new single that was the most wide-open rock song they’d ever written. The song is rather ruined by the ‘what you don’t have you don’t need it now’ bit, but the Abbey Road version from 2017 (with a small choir and an interpolation of Starman by David Bowie) emphasises what a fine song it is. Coldplay owe most of their career to it.
5 Ash – Burn Baby Burn. The Walker Brothers-borrowing Candy is sensational too, while There’s a Star and Shining Light are essentially the same, brilliant pop song. Burn Baby Burn, however, was the smash, to which resistance is futile: two-note riff, bass, drums, bigger riff, verse, chorus, solo, middle eight, chorus. Perfect power-pop from the heirs to the Undertones. The verses are about being ‘almost at the point of no return’ and having ‘feelings that I can’t disguise’, and the melody is stunning. Tim Wheeler’s best three minutes in a superlative catalogue.
6 Feeder – Just a Day. Assisted by a video which featured tons of fan-made footage, this anthemic slice of rock is driven by the ‘doo doo’ hook, where the vocal doubles the guitar. The chorus is stunning, and the verses are all about dealing with a hangover after a busy night out. Yet there’s some melancholy in the line ‘I don’t want to drag you down…cos you’re a friend’. Feeder are still going, with their 2022 album Torpedo landing in the top five of the UK charts.
7 Stereophonics – Dakota. The shortlist included Pick A Part That’s New and The Bartender and the Thief, but the structure of this song is pure rock’n’roll. Intro, riff, vocal, hook, vocal, hook and THEN the chorus, which I bellowed along to after I learned to drive in 2005. Underappreciated in the extreme, Stereophonics are still going 25 years into a fine career.
8 Doves – Pounding. A snare hit on every beat gives this track its name, as Jimi Goodwin sings a melancholic lyric about it being hard to ‘get by’. The middle section, with the pulsating guitar, is stunning. Even better than There Goes The Fear, which I never liked.
9 Supergrass – Pumping on Your Stereo. They know how to write a pop song, even if this is 99% Rebel Rebel, with a bubblegum chorus. It means nothing at all, and that’s the point.
10 KT Tunstall – Suddenly I See. I apologise for the paucity of women in this list but that was how the industry worked in the Land Rover Rock era. KT plugged away for years before she hit the mainstream with Eye to the Telescope. This song has a nagging hook and great production, with a crescendoing middle section.
11 Hard-Fi – Hard To Beat. Another song that is 99% attitude, straight outta Staines (home of Ali G), this song ushered in ‘Landfill Indie’ and was omnipresent in summer 2005 thanks to a chonk-chonk riff and Richard Archer’s snarling vocal. The band are touring in 2022, bringing back their Land Rover Rock sound.
12 Travis – Why Does It Always Rain On Me. Alan McGee unfairly derided Travis and Coldplay as bedwetter rock, but after the nights out of the Britpop era, men needed to grow up, douse their hangover and mellow out. This song from The Man Who will be sung in 100 years’ time as it will always feel like we live under ‘the lightning’, asking where the ‘blue sky’ went and finding it tough to see ‘the tunnel at the end of all of these lights’. Fran Healy’s vocal is fragile but anthemic.
13 Basement Jaxx – Where’s Your Head At. The third in the group of great dance-rock acts (after Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy), Basement Jaxx could be here with Red Alert, Romeo, Do Your Thing or Jus 1 Kiss. The song where the monkeys take over the asylum in the video, which would be banned today in the Woke Era, gets my vote. Driven by that three-note riff and surrounded by production wizardry, it’s another song which is 99% attitude, a key tenet of Land Rover Rock.
14 Robbie Williams – It’s Only Us. ‘Rock me Amadeus!!’ The theme for video game FIFA 2000, this song is about it all ‘kicking off’ and drives on and on to its final crazy chord. Like The Beatles and Oasis, even Robbie’s non-album singles were sublime. He was in his Imperial Period before he was ‘RICH BEYOND MY WILDEST DREAMS!’ which rather wrecked his career.
15 Garbage – Cherry Lips. Again, I’m sorry there are so few women in this list but Shirley Manson proves herself a fine rock vocalist regardless of gender with this stunning song. It starts with a dig-dig-dig-dig hook, explodes in the chorus and tells the tale of a ‘delicate boy’ who dresses up as a lady, based on the fake story of JT Leroy. It’s a power-pop classic, with handclaps and a proper middle eight which recalls Phil Spector. Butch Vig, who produced Nevermind for Nirvana, works his magic touch on the production. You don’t even need to hear the lyric to be swept away by the melody.
16 Gorillaz – 19/2000 Soulchild Remix. Feel Good Inc came out in spring 2005 but De La Soul’s rapping precludes it from being included in this list. 19/2000 was on the band’s 2000 debut album, and I love the remixed version: it changes the key, speeds it up and adds the ‘it’s the music that we choose’ hook and the ‘la la’ section. It’s one of Damon Albarn’s best tunes, based on a repeated chord loop and featuring stream-of-consciousness lyrics like ‘If time’s elimination then we’ve got nothing to lose’. Fun fact: Chris and Tina from Talking Heads and Miho Hatori from cult indie band Cibo Matto are on vocals and ought to get credit.
17 The Coral – Dreaming Of You. The bass riff, the organ, the guitar, the vocal by James Skelly, the harmonies, the structure, the solo, the repeated chorus at the end, the fact it’s all over in about two minutes. Almost perfect Land Rover Rock, Scouse style.
18 Manic Street Preachers – You Stole The Sun From My Heart. Written in memory of the missing, presumed dead, Richey by Nicky Wire, this has one of the band’s best choruses on an album full of them: The Everlasting is more melancholic, If You Tolerate This… has the word ‘fascist’ in the second line and Tsumani is saturated in strings. James Dean Bradfield is an underappreciated pop melodist.
19 Melanie C – On The Horizon. Why is a Spice Girl here? Gregg Alexander of New Radicals (a Minivan Rock act) wrote this song – you can tell! – which is delivered with passion by Melanie C, who only sees ‘sweet love’ in the air. The middle eight (remember them???) is sublime, as is the chorus, which features the famous ‘oh yeah’.
20 Kaiser Chiefs – Na Na Na Na Naa. Ruby is outside the cut-off point, so I have to pick something from their debut album, produced by Stephen ‘Parklife’ Street. I Predict A Riot is the obvious one but I’ve gone for track four, driven by a wordless chorus, which is characteristic of Land Rover Rock.
21 Bloc Party – Little Thoughts. The only black singer on this list is Kele Okereke, who is openly gay. Can you tell why Bloc Party haven’t enjoyed the same renaissance as the likes of The Kooks, The Wombats and The Courteeners? I remember being thrilled by this song when I saw it on MTV2, home of Zane Lowe before he moved to California. (This song is not on Spotify so I’ve put the mighty Helicopter on the Top 40 playlist instead.)
22 The Libertines – Don’t Look Back Into the Sun. I never got them because it was more soap opera than band, but this song is undoubtedly smashing. Pete Doherty’s vocal snarls and shouts, while Gary’s drums are worth the price of admission. The riff is rivalled by Chelsea Dagger (too late to be let into this list) and Seven Nation Army (which is by a couple from Detroit).
23 David Gray – Babylon. This took two years to become a hit and chimed with the millennial tension in the air. ‘The love that I was giving you was never in doubt’ is the lyric that makes this a super love song, sung by the wobbly headed Irishman. The final chorus is awesome.
24 and 25 Snow Patrol – Spitting Games and Keane – This is the Last Time. Every day without fail for about 18 months, Virgin (now Absolute) Radio would rotate Keane and Snow Patrol hits, with a smattering of Coldplay. I’ve chosen the lesser singles from the first two bands, each with soaring instrumentation and Coldplay-reaching choruses. It’s impossible not to join in.
26 Embrace – Gravity. A Chris Martin cast-off given to Embrace as they moved into Coldplay’s market, this is a nothing song about Newtonian physics, driven by piano. Ashes is good too, but Gravity has the Coldplay seal.
27 Kasabian – Reason Is Treason. Everyone knows Clubfoot and LSF but I prefer this one, driven by a beat and the familiar ‘ahhs’. Serge can write a tune, former vocalist Tom Meighan can sing one and this track deserves wider exposure. It’s also perfect for car adverts.
28 Toploader – Dancing in the Moonlight. As evidenced in the film Four Lions, this is a perfect song to shout in a van. The vowel sounds in the chorus are great, while the verses are how dancing is a ‘supernatural delight’. Yes it’s a cover but I cannot not put this in. Toploader are now on the nostalgia circuit because they don’t get songwriting royalties from their biggest hit.
29 Chemical Brothers – Let Forever Be. Drums, backwards guitar, bass, Noel Gallagher singing about nothing. Better than Hey Boy Hey Girl, which is more of a club song, this is a perfect synthesis of rock and dance music that recalls the best of the Madchester era. Check how Noel sings ‘gutter’ and the extraordinary Michel Gondry-directed video.
30 The Prodigy – Shoot Down. The third of the threesome, I wanted to put in a Prodigy song because they are a rock act disguised as dance music. Shoot Down features the Gallagher brothers on guitar and vocals, as Liam repeats the words ‘bang bang bang’ with the attitude of his best work. The production pummels the listener and it was a highlight of The Prodigy’s difficult fourth album.
31 Dido – Don’t Think Of Me. White Flag is a Minivan Rock song but I’ve always liked this kiss-off where Dido tells an ex not to think of her when he sees his new woman smile. I love how she hangs on ‘when you see-ee’ and ‘it’s too-oo late’. It’s also a much better song than White Flag.
32 New Order – Crystal. The original line-up of the band returned in 2001 with a heck of a rock song that means nothing but sounds great. 60 MPH is decent too, but Crystal is sensational, especially the way the intro builds.
33 The Thrills – Big Sur. West Coast rock from a group of Irishmen who in this song quote The Monkees and shrug that the city and street lights won’t ‘guide you home’. Great vocal, great riff, great chorus.
34 Turin Brakes – Pain Killer (Radio edit). Removing the line ‘giving me head’, as the radio edit does, makes this safe for all the family. Not many pop songs begin ‘Batten up the hatches’, while the ‘summer rain’ chorus is wonderful, especially the falsetto last line.
35 Idlewild – You Held the World in Your Arms. When I saw Idlewild in 2007 they started their set with three stunning singles. This was the best, with strings and Roddy Woomble going on about things changing. The verses are verbose but the chorus is scruff-of-neck-grabbing direct: ‘What if you held the world in your arms?’
36 Muse – Time Is Running Out. This just pips their version of Feeling Good (written by Anthony Newley, which I didn’t know). I hate the inhalation of breath but it mimics how Matt Bellamy is ‘drowning, asphyxiated’ while his time’s running out. A fine rock song which moved them into the stadium act roster.
37 Ronan Keating – Life is a Rollercoaster. Another tune written by Gregg ‘New Radicals’ Alexander, this just pips Lovin Each Day as Ronan’s entry. ‘Hey baby!’ is the second hook in the song, after the opening ‘na na na na na’.
38 Cornershop – Brimful of Asha (remix). Remixed by Norman ‘Fatboy Slim’ Cook, this ode to Asha Bhosle is the most successful song by a British Asian act, helped by the line ‘Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow’. Three chords are all you need.
39 Gomez – Whippin Piccadilly. Tom Gray has spent the last few years campaigning for songwriter rights via his Broken Record efforts. Back in 1998 he and his fellow blues merchants had a hit about ‘a day out in Manchester’. They lamented that there wasn’t ‘enough hours in our life’, while I love the line ‘looking like a lunatic’.
40 Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out. I bought this single because I wanted it to get to number one. It stalled at three. It starts with an A section, moves to the B section and repeats the hell out of it. One of the best rock riffs of all time. Check the ending too, which emphasises how desperate the song is: Alex won’t be ‘leaving here with you’ after all.
So how can I write a Land Rover Rock song? It has to be in a major key and has to be urgent and propulsive. There must be an instrumental hook, so it has to pass the Old Grey Whistle Test, and the vocal has to inspire a singalong. It doesn’t have to be about anything either, as it’s mostly attitude.
The Land Rover Rock playlist can be found on Spotify here.
You can hear Concorde as part of the Songs playlist here.