The Divine Comedy

Neil Hannon, 2007

The Divine Comedy is a British pop group with lead singer Neil Hannon.

history

The band originally formed in 1989 in Enniskillen . Neil Hannon named her The Divine Comedy at the age of 18 when he and two school friends came up with a new name for their band. He found this name by chance when he saw the epic verse by Dante Alighieri on his parents' bookshelf. In 1990 the band got a recording contract with Setanta Records and in the same year released the mini album Fanfare for the Comic Muse on this label , after the band members had left Northern Ireland and moved into an apartment in London . After the EP Europop , the band initially broke up. In the 18 months that followed, Neil Hannon wrote many songs that were influenced by artists such as Jacques Brel , Scott Walker , Michael Nyman and William Wordsworth . Some of these songs can be found on the two albums Liberation (1993), which Neil Hannon calls the band's first real album, and Promenade (1994). Liberation contains both a song influenced by F. Scott Fitzgerald's story Bernice bobs her hair and the song-turned poem Lucy , originally by William Wordsworth. There are also numerous allusions and references on Promenade , for example Jules and Jim and some writers in the song The Booklovers . In 2004 the album Absent Friends was released , on which he worked with the French musician Yann Tiersen . In 2006 the album Victory For The Comic Muse was released. It won the Choice Music Prize for Best Irish Album of 2006. In the same year Neil Hannon also worked with the French band Air on their album Pocket Symphony and on the album 5:55 by the French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg . In 2010 the album Bang goes the Knighthood was released , which contains a small edition of a bonus album with French-language cover versions, recorded live in Paris in 2008. The band's most recent album, Foreverland , which has been best placed in the German charts to date , was released in autumn 2016. A special edition of the CD is accompanied by the concept album In May , on which the band set fictional letters from a dying man to his father to music.

In 2009 Hannon and Thomas Walsh, singer of Irish pop group Pugwash , released an album of the same name, dedicated to the game of cricket , under the name The Duckworth Lewis Method , followed by a second album, Sticky Wickets , in 2013 .

Discography

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	IE
1996	Casanova	-	-	-	UK48 gold (17 weeks)UK	-
1997	A Short Album About Love	-	-	-	UK13 silver (8 weeks)UK	-
1998	Fin de siècle	-	-	-	UK9 gold (16 weeks)UK	-
1999	A Secret History - The Best Of	-	-	-	UK3 gold (15 weeks)UK	IE13 (28 weeks) IE	compilation
2001	regeneration	-	-	-	UK14th silver (4 weeks)UK	IE15 (9 weeks) IE
2004	Absent Friends	-	-	-	UK23 (4 weeks) UK	IE6 (9 weeks) IE
2006	Victory for the Comic Muse	DE83 (1 week) DE	-	CH87 (1 week) CH	UK43 (2 weeks) UK	IE22 (3 weeks) IE
2010	Bang Goes the Knighthood	-	-	-	UK20 (2 weeks) UK	IE8 (5 weeks) IE
2016	Foreverland	DE41 (1 week) DE	AT65 (1 week) AT	CH36 (2 weeks) CH	UK7 (2 weeks) UK	IE3 (4 weeks) IE
2019	Office Politics	DE51 (1 week) DE	-	CH78 (1 week) CH	UK5 (2 weeks) UK	IE9 (2 weeks) IE

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

More albums

• Fanfare for the Comic Muse (1990)
• Liberation (1993)
• Promenade (1994)
• Live at Somerset House (Live album, 2011)
• Loose Canon (Live album, 2018)

Singles

Unless otherwise stated, all chart songs were written by Neil Hannon.

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)		Remarks
		UK	IE
1996	Something for the Weekend Casanova	UK14 (5 weeks) UK	-
	Becoming More like Alfie Casanova	UK27 (2 weeks) UK	-
	The Frog Princess Casanova	UK15 (2 weeks) UK	-
1997	Everybody Knows (Except You) A Short Album About Love	UK14 (4 weeks) UK	IE23 (4 weeks) IE
1998	I've Been to a Marvelous Party Twentieth-Century Blues: The Songs of Noël Coward	UK28 (3 weeks) UK	-	Author: Noël Coward ; Split -Single with Someday I'll Find You by Shola Ama feat. Craig Armstrong as the second song
	Generation sex fin de siècle	UK19 (3 weeks) UK	IE24 (3 weeks) IE
	The Certainty of Chance Fin de siècle	UK49 (2 weeks) UK	-	Authors: Neil Hannon, Joby Talbot
1999	National Express Fin de siècle	UK8 (8 weeks) UK	IE18 (4 weeks) IE
	The Pop Singer's Fear of the Pollen Count A Secret History	UK17 (4 weeks) UK	IE24 (2 weeks) IE
	Gin Soaked Boy A Secret History	UK38 (2 weeks) UK	-
2001	Love What You Do Regeneration	UK26 (3 weeks) UK	IE48 (1 week) IE
	Bad Ambassador regeneration	UK34 (2 weeks) UK	-
	Perfect lovesong regeneration	UK42 (2 weeks) UK	-
2004	Come Home Billy Bird Absent Friends	UK25 (2 weeks) UK	IE34 (3 weeks) IE
	Absent Friends Absent Friends	UK38 (2 weeks) UK	-
2006	Diva Lady Victory of the Comic Muse	UK52 (2 weeks) UK	IE36 (1 week) IE
	To Die a Virgin Victory of the Comic Muse	UK67 (1 week) UK	-

More singles

• Timewatch (1991)
• Lucy (1991)
• Jerusalem (1991)
• Your Daddy's Car (1993)
• Indulgence No. 1 (1993)
• Promenade Companion (1994)
• Indulgence No. 2 (1994)
• Fan Club CD (2001)
• A Lady of a Certain Age (2006)
• At the Indie Disco (2010)
• I Like (2010)
• Catherine the Great (2016)
• How Can You Leave Me On My Own (2016)
• To the Rescue (2017)
• Norman and Norma (2019)

EPs

• Europop (1992)
• Bavarian EP (2005) (download from the official website)

Video albums

• Live at the Palladium (2004)

Web links

• Official Homepage (English)
• The Divine Comedy at laut.de
• A Short Site About the Divine Comedy
• Interview with Neil Hannon at :: exit.music :: Switzerland

swell

1. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: DE AT CH UK UK IE1 (until 1999, singles) IE2 (from 2000)
2. ↑ Gold / platinum database of the BPI (Great Britain, search for "Divine Comedy")