
In the BBC TV mini-series The Singing Detective, the character Philip Marlow calls the word “elbow” the loveliest word in the English language.
When Guy Garvey, Craig Potter, Mark Potter, and Pete Turner heard this in 1997, they immediately changed the name of their band. 20 years, and seven albums later, Elbow is one of Engand’s most eduring bands. You might not have heard of them here in the U.S. but they’ve had seven singles make the top 40 on the British charts and wrote the theme for the 2012 London Olympics.
Thanks to the departure of their drummer, on their newest record, Little Fictions, Elbow incorporates drum loops and dance beats that give a new energy to their normally down tempo songs. If you like U2, Coldplay or even Radiohead, you should give Little Fictions a try.