Marchin' Already

Product Information

Marchin’ Already is just one of those albums where the singles released from it overshadowed the vast majority of the album, with only the instrumental “All Up”, “Foxy’s Folk Faced” and the aforementioned “It’s a Beautiful Thing” avoiding that fate. Marchin’ Already is OCS’s only album to hit the top of the charts, displacing the charmless bloated mess that was Oasis’s Be Here Now as it did so. For the Marchin’ Already box (which will also be issued as a two-CD deluxe), the original album takes up the first disc and is joined by a second CD of B-sides, radio sessions and previously unreleased demos.

It’s a great way to sign off a mixed bag of an album that inspires wows and indifference in equal measures. It’s also an album which confirms the belief of some that at least two thirds of Britpop acts were capable of great singles, but struggled when it came to album-length statements (that said, there’s a truly great multi-artist box set of the Britpop Years still waiting to be compiled). Anyone who has read more than a handful of my reviews will be familiar with my oddly conflicted attitude to the mid-90s Britpop movement. On 4 February 2014, Marchin' Already was reissued as a two disc deluxe version, with the second disc containing B-sides from previous singles.

This inevitably resulted in a lot of mediocre acts getting signed and ultimately a lot of tepid music that were then shoved down the collective throats of my generation. Having been burnt badly by the experience, half of OCS eventually looked up and found themselves backing Paul Weller, while the band as a whole circulated a newly recorded demo-tape. A more subdued version of "Traveller's Tune" originally appeared as a B-side to "The Day We Caught the Train".

One of the few acts that genuinely deserved their moment in the Britpop sunshine was Ocean Colour Scene, a West Midlands quartet whose previous record label had remixed their debut album without their consent in a cynical attempt to jump on the baggy bandwagon of the early 90s.In 2007 the song "Get Blown Away" was covered by British indie band The Enemy as a B-side to their single "It's Not OK", albeit just a piano and vocal version. Fresh off the heels of announcing their first album in 15 years, Happiness Bastards, legendary rock band The Black Crowes today announced their 2024 headline tour – set to hit 35 cities in North America and Europe this Spring in support of their forthcoming studio album.