Tellin’ Stories by The Charlatans

Tellin' Stories, the Charlatans' fifth studio album, is the record the band finished through grief. Tim Burgess and guitarist Mark Collins wrote it at a cottage near Lake Windermere after the tour for the self-titled fourth album wound down, tried the songs out at Rockfield, then settled in at Monnow Valley Studio from Easter 1996, producing it themselves with engineers Dave Charles and Ric Peet. Partway through the sessions, keyboard player Rob Collins died in a car crash, and Martin Duffy of Primal Scream stepped in to help them get it done early in 1997.

You'd never guess it from the swagger. This is Britpop with a loose, hip-hop-soul roll in its hips and a rootsy, Neil Young-ish grain, Burgess sounding like a man with nothing left to lose. "One to Another", the lead single out in August 1996 after they'd opened for Oasis at Knebworth, and "North Country Boy" are pure bounce. Critics mostly warmed to it, and it went to number one in the UK and Scotland.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.