Music
Plus One
The 11 best Kasabian songs
Why have a top 10 when you can have one more? Here we rank the 11 greatest Kasabian tracks ahead of their summer run
You have to go back to Blur and Oasis to find a British band who can rival Kasabian for consistent success.
Ever since the release of their self-titled debut album in 2004, the Leicester indie collective have been a fixture at the top of festival bills and in arenas, selling over five and a half million albums in the process. Led by guitarist, sole songwriter, and latterly turned frontman Serge Pizzorno, they’ve channeled psychedelia, acid house, hip-hop and classic indie into a formula that’s become all their own. Sometimes short and to the point, other times shaggy and meandering, they’ve melded together diverse influences, always morphing from album to album.
Over the years, the band have developed, somewhat unfairly, a reputation for being a meat and potatoes rock band. And yes, the choruses might be skyscraper-sized; the melodies might feel like they’ve been precision engineered for the biggest of fields; and every hit might well have a perfect moment for a pint of warm lager to be hurled into the air – but there are a lot of subtleties to Kasabian that go unnoticed.
Which other band could craft three massive hits from a concept album about the inmates at a West Yorkshire psychiatric hospital in the early 1800s? Or dedicate one of their earliest singles to the memory of a Czech freedom fighter from the late 1960s? There’s always been a lot more to Kasabian than meets the ears.
Now they’re back with Happenings, their eighth studio album, and a big UK tour to support it. To celebrate their return, we’ve had a look back over their career so far and picked out their 11 greatest tracks.
11. ‘Switchblade Smiles’
(Velociraptor!, 2011)
After three consistent albums, 2011’s Velociraptor! was the band’s first to prove somewhat divisive. Stripping back the fuzz and sonics that their early work had been wrapped up in, the band embraced a cleaner, more aggressive and direct approach. The album is the band’s heaviest and certainly most guitar-focused. Sometimes that works really well, certainly on ‘Switchblade Smiles’ – a lean, muscular, menacing and thumping piece of rock.
10. ‘Shoot The Runner’
(Empire, 2006)
The band’s second album, Empire, signalled the start of their dabbling in experimentation and full-on wig-outs, but it did offer up some more straightforwardly styled bangers too. ‘Shoot The Runner’ is one such offering – a galloping rocker that hooks you in after a couple of seconds and never lets up.
9. ‘Processed Beats’
(Kasabian, 2004)
The first entry on this list from the band’s formidable debut. A swaggering bass line, a monstrous groove and a slick chorus all come together for ‘Processed Beats’; an early perfect illustration of what would come to define Kasabian’s ethos. Confidence, power, pop and a quirk that belongs only to them.
8. ‘Empire’
(Empire, 2006)
After the huge success of their self-titled debut, most expected that the band would continue their formula of meshing together indie rock and rave-powered psychedelia. But, instead, the band’s reposte was this. ‘Empire’ feels like three songs in one. It starts as a snarling jagged rock song before morphing into a strange tribal military chant before going way off piste into a psychedelia groove. Somehow, it works, and the world learned that Kasabian would probably always do the exact opposite of whatever everyone expected them to do.
7. ‘Where Did All The Love Go?’
(West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, 2009)
The first entry from their 2009 third LP, West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, ‘Where Did All The Love Go?’ is a departure from that album’s widescreen sensibility. This is a slick piece of indie rock with a smoothness to it that you wouldn’t typically associate with Kasabian. It really works though.
6. ‘Days Are Forgotten’
(Velociraptor!, 2011)
The other entry from Velociraptor! is the album’s undisputed highpoint. Another lean and mean effort built round a chugging guitar riff and minimal production, it gives way to a dynamic swaggering chorus; a chorus that has since seen many, many pints chucked upon its arrival.
5. ‘Underdog’
(West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, 2009)
West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum is the album where Pizzorno decided to paint in the broadest strokes. There’s so much going on sonically; all anchored by the album’s concept of each track detailing the life of a different inmate at the notorious psychiatric hospital from the early 1800s.
‘Underdog’ perfectly encapsulates the album’s wayward outlaw spirit, channelling The Stooges and The Rolling Stones at their most far out into a siren call that’s all Kasabian.
4. ‘L.S.F.’
(Kasabian, 2004)
It normally takes bands two albums and countless tours before they can write the kind of call-to-arms anthems that Kasabian deliver right off the bat. A Top 10 single from their debut, it’s a swirling and hypnotic piece of indie rock with a gigantic chorus. From this moment on, the band were marked out for the very biggest of stages.
3. ‘Bless This Acid House’
(For Crying Out Loud, 2017)
For Crying Out Loud isn’t beloved in the way the band’s earlier work is, but it produced the outstanding ‘Bless This Acid House’. The perfect good time rock song, this is the band channelling The Stone Roses with a dollop of Abbey Road era Beatles on top.
2. ‘Club Foot’
(Kasabian, 2004)
The opening track from the band’s debut album, and what a way to kick off your career. A moody intro quickly gives way to a dynamic guitar riff and an almighty gut punch of a chorus. It’s a searing moment, one that still makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand to attention from the moment the intro comes in. There’s a good reason it’s the song so many football teams run out to – delivering an instant blast of energy and snarl.
1. ‘Fire’
(West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, 2009)
The banger to end all bangers. ‘Fire’ is everything that makes Kasabian Kasabian, all dialled up to 11. Beginning as a windswept, melancholic and oddly gentle thing, it then transcends into an arms aloft stadium rocker with a chorus every songwriter dreams of writing.
Kasabian headline Latitude festival at the end of July before supporting Liam Gallagher’s Definitely Maybe gig in Belfast. The band then return in November for a full UK tour. Find Kasabian tickets here
