The Verve were an English rock band formed in Wigan in 1990 by lead vocalist Richard Ashcroft, guitarist Nick McCabe, bass guitarist Simon Jones and drummer Peter Salisbury. The guitarist and keyboard player Simon Tong became a member at a later date.
First of all, I want to say that I was not around during the glory days of The Verve, I only learned about them a couple of years ago so I guess many things may remain unclear to me.
I've studied the band's history and overall I'm well aware that The Verves were never as successful as the big four of Britpop. But as far as I can understand, in the history of the group there was definitely a period of peak popularity, which occurred at the time of the release of Urban Hymns. Bittersweet Symphony is comparable in YouTube views to songs like Wonderwall and SLTS, which are probably the most popular rock songs of the nineties. As far as I understand, The Drugs Don't Work, Lucky Man and Sonnet were also quite popular songs at that time. And what's more, in the 2000s Love Is Noise was also a big hit, probably more popular than all the singles that were released at that time, for example, by the band Oasis.
I understand that the band broke up a long time ago. I understand that there was no real news from the members of The Verve, just like there was no really good music (Richard Ashcroft’s solo albums are quite a debatable topic for me). But today it looks as if the band's entire legacy has faded into time. Even if you compare the community The Verve and the Oasis community, the difference is immediately visible.
Why is that? Am I missing something really important? I’m very upset, because The Verve’s music is truly special, and I’m very sorry that today there’s no one to even really discuss it with.
And yes, I apologize for my English, I wrote this post with Google Translate.
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In terms of exposure, I just don't they they were very commercial outside of the few singles you've mentioned. All their best tunes are more psychedelic and interesting.The Verve were much broader than Britpop and were actually really fucking good musicians inspired by a whole range of stuff. It doesn't matter to me that many people don't see that, when I know the real fans feel the same as me. Richard Ashcroft nowadays just distances himself from the other band members and choose not to be in the public eye as much as his peers. Nick has been putting out some amazing ambient work on Bandcamp, including a collaboration with Pete, who has been the drummer in the Charlatans for a while. Si has been busy running a recording studio and mentoring new talent.