Noah and the Whale

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Noah and the Whale
General information
Genre (s) Folk rock , indie rock , indie folk
founding 2006
resolution 2015
Website http://www.noahandthewhale.com/
Founding members
Charlie Fink
singing
 Laura Marling (until 2008)
Doug Fink (until 2009)
Urby Whale
Tom Hobden
Last occupation
Vocals, guitar
 Charlie Fink
Bass, xylophone
 Urby Whale
violin
 Tom Hobden
Guitar, keyboard
Fred Abbott (since 2009)
Drums
 Michael Petulla
former members
Drums
 Jack Hamson (2009)
singing
 Emmy the Great
Noah and the Whale 2010 at Somerset House
Lead singer Charlie Fink in Austin in 2011
Noah and the Whale 2007 at Bristol Thekla
Noah and the Whale in March 2012

Noah and the Whale were a folk rock band from London . The group has sold over a million albums in its career. The band name Noah and the Whale refers to the film The Squid and the Whale and its director Noah Baumbach .

Band history

The band was founded in late 2006 and originally had five members. In addition to the Fink brothers, former child actor Urby Whale and Tom Hobden, Charlie Fink's girlfriend Laura Marling . They played at numerous festivals in 2007 and had many other appearances. In September of the same year, their first single Five Years' Time was released on the indie label Young and Lost Club . The single 2 Bodies 1 Heart followed shortly thereafter.

Laura Marling had meanwhile recorded her own album in which the band members participated and which was produced by Charlie Fink. Her own success, however, meant that she is no longer a main member of the band due to lack of time.

The two singles had earned Noah and the Whale no chart success, but still enough popularity to perform at festivals such as Glastonbury and South by Southwest . In addition, the band changed to Vertigo Records , which belong to the major label Universal. There they saw bigger hit potential in the happy, catchy ukulele melody of Five Years Time and decided to re-release it. The single, with which Marling can still be heard as a background singer, entered the top 40 of the British charts in July 2008 solely because of the downloads. In addition, the album Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down was recorded for the new label . The single and album reached top 10 spots in the UK and the album went gold. For the wind arrangements on the album, John Carvell trombone and Sam Kinrade trumpet were hired. For a short time , Emmy the Great, active in the singer-songwriter genre, sang with the band, and Lilly Flynn (the sister of the singer Johnny Flynn ) and Rebecca Taylor ( Slow Club ) took over the role of the singer during various tours.

For their second album, The First Days of Spring , released in 2009 , the band made a 47-minute short film in which the songs on the album are translated into a continuous plot. Charlie Fink decided not to hire a female singer on the album, as he had recently split from Laura Marling. The separation is the main theme of the album, all songs are written in first-person narrative form. The style of the band changed with the album from indie folk on the debut album to indie rock . Three days before the album was released, Charlie Fink's drummer and brother, Doug Fink, left the band to focus on his career as a doctor. He was replaced by ex- Pull Tiger Tail drummer Jack Hamson.

The First Days of Spring was generally well received, the New Musical Express called it "immense" and rated it nine out of ten points, and the Times even gave it the full five-star rating. Also Sputnik Music , the Allmusic Guide and the Observer praised The First Days of Spring . The Guardian listed the album at number seven of the best albums of 2009, and the Times at number nine. It reached sixteenth place on the British album charts. The single Blue Skies reached 95th place in the British charts.

In 2009, Noah and the Whale performed on the main stage at the Reading and Leeds Festivals .

On September 30, 2009, BBC News reported that some of the band's instruments had been stolen, including guitars, bass instruments, and a drum kit. The theft took place in a parking lot in Manchester . The perpetrator surrendered on September 29th, and the instruments were found in December 2009.

In 2011 the third studio album, Last Night on Earth , was released, which brought them the greatest success in the album charts and reached platinum status . It reached eighth place on the UK, 17th on the Irish , 20th on the Billboard Alternative charts and 35th on the Billboard Rock charts. It also reached the Top 100 in Australia , Belgium and the Netherlands , and it placed 135th in the Billboard Top 200. In 2011 alone, 261,000 copies of Last Night on Earth were sold. In the band's style, a further step in the direction of indie rock emerged , which had already started with the previous album, e.g. B. Synthesizers are being used more and more. The original album title was Old Joy , but the decision was ultimately made for Last Night on Earth .

The decoupled singles Life is Life , Tonight's the Kind of Night , LIFEGOESON and Waiting for My Chance to Come reached positions 172, 67, 14 and 185 in the British charts, making LIFEGOESON their biggest hit since Five Years Time . LIFEGOESON and Tonight's the Kind of Night were able to place themselves in the Belgian charts on positions four and 66, the first song reached 26th place in Ireland.

Last Night On Earth was generally well received, the New Musical Express awarded eight out of ten points, Spin seven out of ten. The Allmusic Guide rated the album three and a half stars out of five.

The song Give a Little Love was used in an episode of the TV series Cougar Town in 2009 . That same year, Blue Skies was featured in an episode of One Tree Hill . The First Days of Spring was used in the Youtube documentary The Gay Rights Movement by Ryan James Yezak, which reached over two million page views. The song was also used in a trailer for the Oscar- winning film The Descendants .

In Austria , the song Five Years Time became famous when the mobile operator ONE was renamed to Orange , as Orange uses the song as the background melody for their advertising.

In January 2013, the band announced that their fourth studio album, Heart of Nowhere , would be released on May 6, 2013. The singles There Will Come a Time and Lifetime were released from the album . A short film was made for the album, directed by Charlie Fink.

On April 1, 2015, the band announced their breakup after 8 years.

Discography

Studio albums

year title Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
US US UK UK IE IE
2008 Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down - UK5
gold
gold

(10 weeks)UK 		IE32 (7 weeks)
IE
First published: August 11, 2008
2009 The First Days of Spring - UK16
gold
gold

(3 weeks)UK 		IE19 (4 weeks)
IE
First published: August 21, 2009
2011 Last Night on Earth US135 (1 week)
US 		UK8th
platinum
platinum

(62 weeks)UK 		IE11 (46 weeks)
IE
First published: March 7, 2011
2013 Heart of Nowhere - UK13 (5 weeks)
UK 		IE18 (2 weeks)
IE
First published: May 6, 2013

swell

  1. ↑ Chart sources: US UK IE

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