The Libertines’ Up the Bracket has been my favourite album of all-time since I first heard it in January 2005…and I really wish I hadn’t arrived so late to the party. As I had discussed in the AFIN feature on Andrew Kendall, it was spotting some of his photos of the Libertines in December 2004 at The Killers Network in some users’ avatars and signatures that caused me to check them out. I had never heard of them before.

My music listening pre-Libertines, and pre-Killers really, was not nearly as varied (or, in some ways, focused) as it became afterwards. I didn’t know about the NME and the huge assortment of British bands that were to become my primary listening for 2005-2006. I had already been quite familiar with the bands my parents liked (see Momma’s Mix Tapes for more on this) since I was born, slipping out of touch in the late 90s/early 2000s to focus primarily on Japanese music and video game soundtracks. I had begun to listen to all of the CDs and tapes in the house around 2003-2004, because of working on a book idea/movie script that I wanted to make a soundtrack for. A list of fav songs I’ve found from this time period includes: The Doors - “I Looked at You”, The Strokes - “Alone, Together”, Outkast - “Happy Valentine’s Day”, The Cars - “Cruiser”, “Cherub Rock” - Smashing Pumpkins, The Beatles - “Tomorrow Never Knows”, The Killers - “Andy, You’re a Star”, Modest Mouse - “Satin in a Coffin”, and The White Stripes - “Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine”

It was a chance viewing of The Killers on Hard Rock Live (MTV) in on December 8th, 2004 that threw me into a brand-new dimension. I had heard “Somebody Told Me Before”, though I felt somewhat ambivalent about it. Seeing live footage was something else altogether! I ended up getting Hot Fuss for my 15th birthday on December 13th and joined The Killers Network forum. Though it was later taken down, for a few months 2004-2005, an mp3 thread turned up tracks by bands like The Smiths, The Fall, Le Tigre, The Departure, Kaiser Chiefs, The Bravery, Bloc Party, Depeche Mode, Happy Mondays, and Tom Waits. Afterward, I discovered music blogs, Amazon.com free mp3s, Free Napster, and other avenues of music discovery (I knew of Last.fm, but didn’t get an account until November, 2007, when I finally got high-speed access). Though tracks were not posted from the Libertines, as stated earlier, their good-looks drew me in as soon as I saw them.

The first track from the Libertines I located was “The Man Who Would Be King”, from their second, self-titled album that was released in August, 2004. Intrigued as I was with the band, it didn’t take long for me to find out that they had just officially played their last show on December 17th, 2004, and without Pete Doherty…noooooooo!! Though I was crushed by this new information, I proceeded to buy Up the Bracket (originally released October 14th, 2002; the US version includes “What a Waster” and “Mockingbird / Mayday”) and The Libertines on my next trip to Best Buy.

At the time, while The Libertines seemed to be a bittersweet reflection of the band’s turmoil, Up the Bracket sounded somehow like the purest, most undiluted rock music I had ever heard up to that point. It was later that I uncovered that there was a distinct Clash aesthetic (the album was produced by Mick Jones, after all), and the myriad of influences that were at work in this album, because it was this album that led me to listen to The Clash and an assortment of musicians that front-men Carl Barat and Pete Doherty had cited as being influential; Carl Barat’s picks for his July 2005 Under the Influence compilation alone introduced me to the Small Faces, Supergrass, The Jam, and Pulp. The now-defunct fansite Spirit of Albion, a sort of heaven for fangirls, was the main source of Libertines-related news, interview transcripts, and boatloads of images.

It wasn’t long before I declared Up the Bracket as being my favourite album ever, because I dug their style and because of the doors to other bands it opened. As calculated and shamelessly derivative as their ‘punk-poets’ aesthetic may seem by description (and that they’ve been accused of by nay-sayers), there is something endlessly appealing to me about the songs here…and it’s tricky for me to pin down what exactly it is. The early 2000s saw a resurgence back to real rock music (it appears to have taken its leave again lately, in favor of the post-punk revival and electronic music), which the Libertines were certainly a part of; I don’t know how anyone could listen to “Vertigo”, “Boys in the Band”, or “I Get Along” and not hear that! There was something Beatle-esque in the songwriting partnership of Barat and Doherty, too, “Radio America” being a fine example of this. Of Up the Bracket, Spin said: “This is music to play in dark, velvety, womblike bars; this is music to play while buying cigarettes; this is music for well-dressed poor people.”

I think, to understand and appreciate the Libertines fully, you have to take in the members’ personalities, too- I got to meet Carl Barat and his post-Libs group Dirty Pretty Things (which included Libertines drummer Gary Powell, along with members Didz Hammond on bass and Anthony Rossomando on guitar) at Amoeba Records in San Francisco in August 2006, after their acoustic set, during a signing for their Waterloo to Anywhere album, which was like a dream for me! Carl had just broken his collarbone, but went on with the US gigs anyhow. I bought a ‘get-well’ bouquet at a flower-shop nearby, and gave them to an Amoeba personnel member to take backstage before the show. During the signing, I asked Carl if he had gotten the flowers, because they were from me, and he went around the table and gave me a kiss on the cheek! *swoon* Their gig at Slim’s afterward was brilliant, with the band even doing some Libertines tracks, including “I Get Along” and “France”.

Pete’s post-Libertines group Babyshambles released Down in Albion (2005) and Shotter’s Nation (2007), amid Pete’s legal and personal troubles. As fractured as they are, both yield some quality tracks, though his March 2009 album, the solo release Grace/Wastelands is the most realized music he’s put out, sans-Barat, yet. Pete and Carl have reunited for a few gigs since the Libertines break-up, leading to some speculation that they might make music together again in the not-so-far off-future; time will tell.

Though Up the Bracket may appear to some as an ‘entry level indie rock’ choice, particularly since the Libertines were big-time NME darlings, this album means quite a lot to me, especially because of how important it proved to be in my journey through music overall.