In American English, collective nouns usually take a singular verb. In British English, the same nouns generally use a plural verb. As a result, you can't debate the relative merits of Radiohead versus Blur without first determining whether Blur are or merely is. Now, Supergrass aren't (isn't?) the most self-conscious bunch of apemen, but the title of their new "best of" collection clearly adopts the Americanized diction. While this Oxford trio will never pass for American, they're not trying to. A decade after "Caught by the Fuzz", Supergrass look to break the surly bonds of Britpop and establish themselves in the rock 'n' roll pantheon, borders and oceans be chuggered.
What's striking about Supergrass Is 10 is its revelation that, despite the occasional stabs of Parklife rhythm guitar and music-hall tinges, Supergrass never really belonged to the scene from which they sprang. Liam and Noel wanted to be The Beatles. Damon wanted to be admired. Jarvis wanted to be clever. Thom wanted everyone else to be miserable, too. Meanwhile, the Cornelius-faced Gaz Coombes, the man with the mutton chops? He just wanted to feel "Alright." So while Noel attempted rewrites of Abbey Road and Menswe@r became the punchline to this joke, Supergrass built up a catalog of raucous, jubilant, unrepentant unpretentiousness-- influenced by The Kinks and Buzzcocks, yes, but increasingly tapping into the swagger and immediacy of early rock and Delta blues, as channeled through the Rolling Stones and T.Rex.
"I'm a rock 'n' roll singer in a rock 'n' roll band," Coombes declares in "Seen the Light", his voice strangled in an apparent Elvis impression that makes Graham Coxon's American accent for Blur's "Rednecks" sound authentic. The song's scraggly boogie could serve as an object lesson for more recent Bolan adherents like The M's. "Strange Ones" is a bizarre, brilliant mash-up of British punk and obscene blues. Old "Lenny" B-side "Wait for the Sun" is dead-on acoustic Zep. Even "Pumping on Your Stereo", the closest thing Supergrass had to an American hit, sounds more like the faux-Southern rock of "Rocks Off" than "Common People".
The band's more Britpop-tinged hits hold up, too. The punky sturm-und-drang (and goofy backing vocals) of "Caught by the Fuzz" are still worth getting arrested over. The sublime "Moving" glides comfortably along like the Acela Express, with sleepy strings that might have appeared in Mancini's score for Silver Streak, before bursting into its brilliantly jerky "chorus" (if that's what you'd even call it in a song that doesn't really have verses, per se, just hooks). "It's Not Me" provides one of the album's rare respites; its electronic burps and effects sound more like Moon Safari than I ever realized.
And what of new single "Kiss of Life"? Well, it won't resuscitate the group's stardom, which apparently is waning in the U.K. (they never really broke the States). The song sees the band reborn under punchy percussion, as the funky jam of cleverly sequenced preceding track "Sun Hits the Sky" gives way to the new one's Talking Heads-style polyrhythms. It could be great, too, if the best lyric weren't "your love's like a heart attack" and if Bono hadn't already used the verse melody in "Mysterious Ways". The other new song, "Bullet", is a dark bit of Goth about, uh, bullets, that has Coombes wondering, "I'm in a world of marching soldiers and who am I?" Hey, didn't we just slam Joan of Arc for that kind of nonsense?
If you already own the original albums, Supergrass Is 10 runs a bit long at 71 minutes. And there's no reason it couldn't be in chronological order, really. The American edition will add a live disc, but it will be tough to improve on the album's defining track, "Richard III", from In It for the Money. Yes, it's the most blatantly British title on a collection that I've just said proves Supergrass's significance beyond cloistered Britpopdom. But listen: It starts slow-- just some warm-up sounds-- before exploding into stern alarums of distorted guitar and a barbaric "whoop!" from Coombes. The melody is as catchy as ever for this group and then something happens, something otherworldly. Is that a... theremin? Somewhere in those good vibrations, Supergrass become one of the funnest bands of the 90s, singular or plural.
