The Verve - Slide Away

This is where it all began for me.  This is the song that tripped the shoegazing switch in my brain.

I was working as a movie critic in 1994, when Slide Away appeared in the soundtrack of a film called "The New Age" which I was required to review.  The movie is worth a look—a pitch-black comedy about the vacuousness of fin de siecle Los Angeles.  Now simultaneously dated and timeless, it perfectly captures the hollow aspirations and vain posturings of the denizens of the City of Angels.

The scene in which this song appears is a classic that I still rewatch to this day.  It's worth watching the whole movie just for that scene.

This was back in the days of VHS tapes, and the resolution was so low that I couldn't make out the goddam music credits in fine print at the end.  But I was obsessed with finding out the source of this song.  Eventually, through a combination of squinting and divination, I surmised that the band's name might be The Verve.  

I set off to my local record store (remember those?) where I found a used copy of a CD called A Storm in Heaven.

My life was changed.

For more than a decade it remained my all-time favorite rock album.  Period.

It's still in my top five.  

Hell, it may still be number one.