Idles score UK Number One album with ‘Tangk’: “It’s a beautiful feeling”
Idles’ new album ‘Tangk’ has gone straight in at Number One on the Official UK Album Chart.
The Bristol quintet’s fifth LP was released last Friday (February 16) and marks their second Number One album following 2020’s ‘Ultra Mono’. Altogether, 85 per cent of its opening week sales were in a physical format.
‘TANGK’ has also topped the Official Vinyl Albums Chart, as well as the Official Record Store Chart, making it the week’s best-selling album in UK independent record shops.
“Thank you very much to all of you that’ve supported us, bought our album and got us to Number 1. It’s a beautiful feeling,” the band told Official Charts. “We know, without any doubt, that it’s you that got us here.”
The band’s frontman Joe Talbot had emphasised that ‘Tangk’ was an album full of love songs in the run-up to its release.
Speaking to NME In Conversation, he said: “I’m interested in showing the different facets of love that are not so conventional, but are very fucking important: empathy, patience, honesty, communion, hard work, recovery, forgiveness. That’s what I wrote about. I’m still there. I’m still going to need to go through it, and I’m still very much interested in writing about love forevermore. I find it fascinating and empowering.”
He added: “Yes. If you act with love, if you act with empathy, if you act with compassion, then hopefully you will see that there is no love in voting for the right. It’s a loveless act, but we’ll see. This is what I’m coming to terms with: my music will not make a difference in that way, other than me. I’m comfortable with that. As long as I sleep at night knowing that I’m doing the right thing for me, I’m cool with that. I’m always going to be a cheerleader outwardly. I’m lucky that I’ve been gifted a life that I’m very, very grateful for. I’m going to celebrate that, and that’s how it comes out in ‘Tangk’.”
Talbot also commented on the likelihood of Idles stepping up to headline Glastonbury or Reading & Leeds in the future.
“Do I want it? It was the first and only festival I went to for six years. Headlining Reading would be sick, yeah,” he said. “Things like that, you build them up in your head and it goes wrong. Every show is important, but yes, that has a history with me.”
“I don’t like all that ‘Museum Of Rock History’ stuff where you’re like, ‘This is where Kurt Cobain sneezed’. Who the fuck cares? He didn’t care, why would I care? All the great people I’ve met like Kenny Beats, Nigel Godrich, [Foo Fighters‘] Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins, [The Strokes‘] Julian Casablancas – all people I’ve looked up to – when you meet them, it’s not like they’re humble and all ‘namaste’ or any of that shit, but they work hard. They understand why they are where they are. They’re like, ‘I have purpose and I am working’.”
He continued: “I like that thing where you see people who have worked hard, stuck to their game and have got purpose. It’s a beautiful thing to see, and I want to sustain that myself. Yeah, I’m here because of what I’ve been doing! I’ve worked hard for this and I’m not going to apologise!”
IDLES are set to tour ‘TANGK’ throughout 2024. Visit here for tickets and more information.
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Emma Wilkes
NME
