British Sea Power Drop British 2021-08-27 by Mad. | 31 Comments | British Sea Power have changed their name to 'Sea Power.'
The best explanation for this comes directly from the band themselves, who have released a full statement in The Guardian:
This week our band announced we were modifying our name from British Sea Power to just Sea Power. This announcement was soon trending on Twitter and triggered more news coverage than we imagined possible – from the Guardian and NME to the Express and Telegraph. TV interview requests came in from GB News, Russia Today, Channel 5 and Good Morning Britain, which we declined. There was broad support from our audience, alongside some disappointment and a fair bit of general flak on social media. The coverage surprised us, being a modestly successful rock group – albeit one with the occasional Top 10 album and a Mercury nomination, plus a BAFTA in 2020 for our soundtrack to the big-selling computer game Disco Elysium.
We haven’t undertaken this name-change lightly. It’s something we’ve been thinking about for years. We of course originally chose the name, circa the year 2000, because we liked it. Others did too. Elbow frontman Guy Garvey said, “Not only do British Sea Power own the best name in history, they’re fucking great.” But this name came with some fairly intricate thinking behind it. As we explained in a statement on our website: “There were at least two lines of thought behind it. There was, literally, sea power – the elementary power of the oceans. Alongside this was the historical idea of ‘British sea power’ – Britannia ruling the waves; the naval power that allowed Britain to dominate the world. When we came up with the original band name, Britain no longer ruled the seas. The name was intended with a kind of wry humour.”
In retrospect, our original name was intended with something of the spirit of 1950s situationism – turning a slogan back on itself, looking to give it new meaning. Recently, we’ve been thinking more about the name in relation to history. The idea of British sea power is almost synonymous with the British empire – many nations subjugated by one nation. Yet British sea power could clearly also be on the right side of history. Without it, Nazi occupation of these islands would’ve been much more likely. In our statement, we emphasised that we are in no way ashamed of being British: “Removing the word ‘British’ does NOT indicate any aversion to the British Isles whatsoever. We all feel immensely fortunate to have grown up in these islands. We love these lands.” Indeed, the band now live along the length of Britain – from the Sussex coast to the Inner Hebrides.
If we were called British Motorcycle Club we wouldn’t be changing our name. It was the combination of “British” and “Power” that no longer worked for us. We imagined a youngster at a European festival in the 21st century looking at the programme and seeing a band name including the word “Hungarian” or “Russian” alongside “Power”. It would likely send your mind in a certain direction – quite possibly to the isolationist, adversarial nationalism that has recently taken a hold around the world. We’ve always wanted to be an internationalist band – as heralded in our track Waving Flags, a song of pan-European idealism.
We are in no way disowning our past – we remain proud of the British Sea Power discography. We remain proud of our soundtrack to the 2012 film From the Sea to the Land Beyond, an extended audiovisual love letter to this maritime nation. But becoming simply Sea Power feels like a new start. Now maybe we can just connect with that elemental power of the sea, something that increasingly seems both awesome and frightening. We’ve touched on climate change and green energy in the past. Our 2005 song Larsen B glancingly alighted on global warming via a love song to a collapsing Antarctic ice shelf. In 2011, we played on a boat on the Thames, alongside the Houses of Parliament in aid of an environmental group lobbying for wave-generated energy – lobbying, that is, for sea power.
Some of our audience have expressed sadness at our modification of a beloved name. It has to be said, our fans are amazing – quite a few of them have seen the band over a hundred times; several have attended 400-plus concerts. We hope we can dilute any sadness here, by remaining the band they’ve so kindly invested their time and money in. We feel confident in this – we think our new album is a good one. It’s called Everything Was Forever, set for release next February. Track titles include Green Goddess and Lakeland Echo. The latter is based around the times when our two singers, brothers Hamilton and Jan, would leave their Cumbrian council home on their paper-round, delivering the newspaper of the title. We really do love the places where we grew up. We really do love the British Isles – the physical beauty, our diversity, our people, our culture and much of our history. But now we are just Sea Power – staring out at the wonderful waves, a pastime this island nation understands more than most.
See the Guardian article here: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/aug/13/sea-power-why-we-dropped-british-from-our-name?fbclid=IwAR25x_vQadrO3X0rGsLkffftlutZTz21uOFA VIr8xW2JynC6t8UtVVlcg6Y
The band's next LP, Everything Was Forever will be released on 11th February 2022.
|
Tagged: Sea Power
|
|
Tldr
| | | Tldr: British Sea Power was a sorta ironic name, but sounds like some national pride-too-much-ery is afoot, Sea Power is cooler, move on
| | | Yeah that didnt need an essay
| | | commendable decision, glad it wasn't british sea power -> bsp
| | | British Sea Weakness
| | | Tldr: British Sea Power are a bunch of anti-British globalist cucks
Not surprising since they did a soundtrack for Disco Elysium, a game made by literal marxists that mocks nationalists and conservatives.
| | | Cry more
| | | Cry more [2]
| | | Still not as embarrassing as Viet Cong and Andrew Jackson Jihad changing their names.
| | | Bunch of wankers
| | | shit band no one cares
| | | Also the new name is just lame, British Sea Power sounds way cooler.
Like imagine if Judas Priest named their album Steel instead of British Steel
| | | soy boy beta cucks
| | | Tldr: British Sea Power are a bunch of anti-British globalist cucks
Not surprising since they did a soundtrack for Disco Elysium, a game made by literal marxists that mocks nationalists and conservatives.
| | | Tldr: British Sea Power are a bunch of anti-British globalist cucks
Not surprising since they did a soundtrack for Disco Elysium, a game made by literal marxists that mocks nationalists and conservatives.
| | | Coldplaz
| | | New name is fine. Old name was fine. This is much ado about nothing. When is Bombay Bicycle Club changing its name?
| | | Viet Cong changing their name was cringe. The Viet Cong (in reality the NLF, 'Viet Cong' was the imperialist name for them) were fucking great -- and not connected to the Stalinists in the north.
| | | 'anti-British globalist cucks...a game made by literal marxists that mocks nationalists and conservatives.'
lol is this satire or actually serious?
| | | Like I can't believe someone intelligent enough to become a staff reviewer would unironically come out with something like that.
| | |
Tldr: British Sea Power are a bunch of anti-British globalist cucks
Not surprising since they did a soundtrack for Disco Elysium, a game made by literal marxists that mocks nationalists and conservatives.
| | | "Viet Cong changing their name was cringe"
Yeah agreed
| | | "Like I can't believe someone intelligent enough to become a staff reviewer would unironically come out with something like that."
we're just copypasting an earlier comment but i wouldn't assume staff reviewers are intelligent
| | | Tldr: British Sea Power are a bunch of anti-British globalist cucks
Not surprising since they did a soundtrack for Disco Elysium, a game made by literal marxists that mocks nationalists and conservatives.
| | | Yeah that didnt need an essay [2]
| | | i feel like if anyone is allowed to write screeds about the change of a band name it should be the band itself i appreciated the write up at least
| | | Tldr: British Sea Power are a bunch of anti-British globalist cucks
Not surprising since they did a soundtrack for Disco Elysium, a game made by literal marxists that mocks nationalists and conservatives.
| | | should have changed their name to Sea Fuck Power
| | | "Tldr: British Sea Power are a bunch of anti-British globalist cucks
Not surprising since they did a soundtrack for Disco Elysium, a game made by literal marxists that mocks nationalists and conservatives."
Oh fuck off
| | | Sea Power sounds lame and its lost all its identity. But thats the future we are headed, no identity, these guys just decided to be a head of the curve.
| | | the future is no identity what the fuck do you mean?
| | |
| |
• Jesse Lacey Allegations • Jayyvon Opens Up About Abuse • The Fall of Troy bassist melts do.. • The Story So Far's vocalist dropk.. • Deftones stream new single • R.I.P. Lemmy • Killswitch Engage debut new single • Scott Weiland dead at 48 • Nothing But Thieves accusations • Lil Peep Dead At 21
• Eye of Mensis drop new EP • My Epic's Northstar • In Aevum Agere stream new LP • Motley Crue returns • Dysrhythmia tease upcoming album • Knocked Loose x Poppy • Burzum announces new LP, single • Lotus Eater Machine on hiatus • Eye Release Second Single • Typhuzz kick off their jam • Hard Times for David Byrne • Conifere stream debut LP • Alcest release Flamme Jumelle • (Julie) Christmas in June • Amusi re-release Adapt in Codes
» see all news
|