The story is very simple: Texas have been away for a while in order to make an incredible album. And they've done just that.
That's it.
You can spin the story out a bit, mind - and if you do the new music Texas have produced becomes just as fascinating as it is unashamedly daring and modern. Try this version for size: You are 18 years old, your name is Sharleen Spiteri and you're living in a rented flat in Glasgow. The first song you ever write is called "I Don't Want A Lover;" ten years later it will still be played at least once a week on most of Britain's major radio stations.
By the time you are 20, your first album has been hanging out healthily on the Top Ten of the British album charts, while escalating sales overseas are knocking your record company sideways. Sure, your best friend and songwriting partner Johnny McElhone has penned hits for both Altered Images and Hipsway, but this really is something else. All around the world people are coming to the same conclusion: that "the girl in Texas is a brilliant singer." You are the first British band asked to play acoustic for an MTV Europe special.
There are a couple of band changes here and there, but you go on to follow the path that is now laid out for you - three albums of polished well-crafted songs fusing pop, soul, rock and country. They sell by the bucketload. Your third LP is the best yet. Featuring vocal sparring with Sly And The Family Stone's Sister Rose, it sees catalog album sales pass a million in France alone. In the U.S. your band is attaining the kind of hip reputation that all great British exports now dream of (before Oasis have even written their first single, you have already been given George Harrison's guitar pick and Ringo is proclaiming himself a 'huge fan' in the press). The homeboy's favorite designer, Tommy Hilfiger, wants to sponsor your tours and Ellen Degeneres, star of the massive U.S. sitcom Ellen, pays serious money to use a section of one of your songs, "So Called Friend," as her program's intro music.
Meanwhile, back in Britain, your last big chart hit is a cover version of the Al Green song, "Tired Of Being Alone." The soul tune has only been released following a surprisingly rapturous reception at London's Ronnie Scotts club. Something strange is going on. The music you and your band are now drawing on is more likely to have descended from the houses of Shrine, Stax or Salsoul than from the corporate empires of AOR, yet you're still playing packed-out venues around the world, to diehard fans crying out for polished, up-tempo Scot Pop. Time to withdraw and to redraw the game plan.
In 1994, Texas started writing and recording a fourth album. At the time of its inception, their sound was potentially a musical muddle - rock or soul? Po or roots? - yet there was also the potential for things to be taken to another level altogether. Sharleen had been spending a lot of time living in Paris, while the rest of the band had completed a home studio back in Glasgow. The band now buried themselves there, constantly writing and recording and heatedly debating the relative production merits of DJ Premier versus The RZA. This was the first time Texas had really rethought their sound, although events were hardly slowing to anything like a crawl. In one week late in 1995, for example, Sharleen Spiteri found herself flying to Hollywood to record a personal appearance for Ellen (the show was now using snatches of Texas music throughout episodes), before jetting back to Manchester to work with her band alongside the young, dynamic Grand Central crew (on a collaborative hip hop/soul project), then driving across the country to Glasgow to appear at a farewell gig by acclaimed country rockers The Jayhawks (Sharleen had provided vocals for one song on their second and final album). This was a schizophrenic work schedule by anyone's standards.
As Sharleen wrote yet more songs for the upcoming fourth Texas album, White On Blonde she was drawing on an incredible array of experiences - this wasn't the life of some indie Britpop babe, but could those other spikey sirens really compete?
And so on to the big questions: Texas, just a band of angular, modern contradictions, or a modern band now ready to contradict the preconceptions of all the rest? From a comfortable list of more than twenty killer new songs, Texas have shaped a commercial album of classic proportions.
Spanning the full spectrum of their musical world, from Marvin Gaye to John Lennon, from the Wu Tang Clan and TLC to Fleetwood Mac and The Pretenders, this is an album to be reckoned with. Recorded and produced largely in Glasgow, it also features collaborative work with producer Mike Hedges (responsible for the fantastic strings on the recent Manic Street Preachers LP), with the Grand Central duo Rae & Christian and with Dave Stewart (the ex- Eurythmic beardie). And yes, those styles and flavors can all co-exist on one record.
During the week this bio was written, one new Texas track, "Good Advice" got its first airing on promo, on Manchester's Kiss-FM. "Is that really the same Texas?" quizzed one panelist on the Drivetime Hit or Miss? slot. He and his colleagues then pronounced the tune a unanimous hit. Interestingly, that same day, one member of Texas (guitarist Ally McErlaine) was in Paris appearing in a celebrity-studded Pret-a-Porter catwalk show, while back in London, the new issue of THE FACE magazine was just hitting the stands with Texas' contribution to the hyped new Central Heating LP listed as the record's highpoint. The return of Texas is ready and the word is already out. Now go figure.
Biography Provided By IMusic