My mention of The Verve a couple of entries ago got me thinking about their demise. They were a great band, and it’s a shame they called it a day.
Personally, I blame it all on Allen Klein. Arguably, the peak of The Verve’s success was their hit single Bittersweet Symphony, which reached #2 in the UK and #12 in the US. The song used a sample from a version of the Rolling Stones song The Last Time, for which The Verve had obtained permission. However, once the song became a massive hit, Allen Klein (the former Rolling Stones manager, who owns the rights to their pre-1970 work) claimed that The Verve had used a ‘longer sample’ than had been agreed, and promptly sued them.
The sample used was not from the Rolling Stones record The Last Time (UK #1, US #9) – which was itself based on a recording of the same name by the Staples Singers (who were never credited or paid royalties as the Stones claimed it was a ‘traditional’ – and therefore un-copyrighted – song). It was taken from a ‘symphonic’ version of the song recorded by ‘The Andrew Oldham Orchestra’ (Andrew Loog Oldham is another ex Rolling Stones manager) and released on the album The Rolling Stones Songbook (Amazon.com ranked 56,687, vs. Urban Hymns‘ 4,796).
Furthermore, the sample is not the main melody in Bittersweet Symphony (which everyone recognizes, and which makes the song a classic) – that was orchestrated by The Verve themselves. Instead, the sample in question is a five-note refrain buried in about 50 levels of orchestration on the song, and only audible in the chorus. Furthermore, most people fail to recognize anything from Bittersweet Symphony in the sampled version of The Last Time. It is therefore unrealistic to assume that the success enjoyed by Bittersweet Symphony was purely because it used this sample from The Last Time.
But despite all of this, the judge ruled against The Verve and, in an act of pure madness, ordered The Verve to hand over 100% of the royalties for the song (around $1.7 million at the time – probably more by now) and full publishing rights to Allen Klein. Now The Verve may or may not have been in it for the money, but losing that kind of money (especially after several years of very minor success) has got to hurt. To rub salt in the wounds, The Verve had always refused to license the song for commercials, but then had to watch Klein (who now had publishing rights) license it to both Nike and Vauxhall – and pocket the fees. As if that wasn’t bad enough, when Bittersweet Symphony was nominated for two Grammys, the nominees were listed as Jagger and Richards (writers) and The Andrew Oldham Orchestra (performers)!
Now, no matter how much you love doing something, there can come a point when it simply stops being fun; when the bullshit just gets too much to deal with. For The Verve (whom, lest we forget, had already been forced to add the “The” to their name by jazz label Verve) this point undoubtedly came following Klein’s lawsuit. So for me, Klein killed The Verve – the most interesting thing to come out of Wigan since the pier. And for that, I wish him deaf (no, that’s not a typo – this would be worse).
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