Sleeper (band)

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Sleeper
Origin United Kingdom
Genre(s) Indie rock, Britpop
Years active 1993 - 1998
Website Louise Wener.com
Former members
Louise Wener
Jon Stewart
Diid Osman
Andy Maclure

Sleeper were a British Britpop band in the 1990s fronted by Louise Wener. The band had eight UK Top 40 hit singles and three UK Top 10 hit albums. They were also featured in the soundtrack of Trainspotting.

Contents

[edit] Career

Jon Stewart met Louise Wener at Manchester University in 1987 in a political philosophy class. They played in a number of bands at university, then after graduating they moved to London and advertised for new band members in the Melody Maker ("Bass player and drummer wanted. Influences The Pixies and The Partridge Family.") which is how they met Deed Osman and Andy Maclure.

At one point the band took their name from the smoke trail in the sky telling Dorothy to surrender during a key scene in the Wizard of Oz movie, but they had to ditch this idea after discovering that several other bands had done the same thing. They subsequently chose the name Sleeper after the Woody Allen movie, and because it has a number of different meanings (a spy, an unexpected hit, etc).

After moving to Camden and receiving interest from record labels, Sleeper signed to BMG/RCA offshoot Indolent Records in 1993 and released three EPs and singles before their breakthrough release, "Inbetweener".

Certain parts of the promo video for "Inbetweener" parodied the grocery store-set ITV game show Supermarket Sweep and featured the programme's presenter Dale Winton.

Prior to the release of "Inbetweener" Sleeper had been the opening band for Blur on their well received tour to promote the Parklife album, and they became closely associated with Britpop as a result.

Sleeper recorded three studio albums for Indolent and BMG/RCA: Smart, The It Girl and Pleased to Meet You.

Smart was one of the first Britpop albums to hit the charts and won the band a BPI gold disc for sales of over 100,000 copies. It was followed by the platinum-selling release The It Girl which was arguably the band's finest moment and included "What Do I Do Now?", "Lie Detector", "Sale of the Century" and "Statuesque" as the defining tracks.

Sleeper recorded a cover of the Blondie song "Atomic", which was used as in the film Trainspotting, after Blondie refused to allow the use of the original version. Their track "Statuesque" also features in the movie during one of the bar scenes.

"The It Girl", like the band's subsequent release "Pleased To Meet You", was produced by Stephen Street who was then famous for his contributions to The Smiths, Morrissey and Blur, and is since renowned for his work with Kaiser Chiefs and others.

Louise Wener was arguably, along with Elastica's Justine Frischmann, Britpop's biggest female star. She was even something of a sex symbol, placing highly in Melody Maker's and NME's "Sexiest Woman" polls several years running.

Wener enjoyed significant media coverage, including an NME front cover and a slot as guest presenter of Top Of The Pops. Arguably one of Britpop's stronger lyricists and melody writers, her song "What Do I Do Now?" was covered in a low key version by Elvis Costello in 1997.

After the band split in 1998 following the demise of Britpop, Wener went on to have a career as a novelist. She will release her fourth book for Hodder & Stoughton in 2008. Wener also features prominently as an interviewee in John Dower's definitive feature film documentary on Britpop, Live Forever (2003).

A Greatest Hits compilation, with tracklisting and artwork by the band themselves, was released on Sony/BMG in 2007.

[edit] "Sleeperbloke"

The band was the inspiration for the phrase "Sleeperbloke", referring to the disparity between the glamorous singer Wener and the other frequently ignored members of the band (who tended to be far more anonymous and stood at the back). This pejorative term was used by music press journalists and musicians, to refer to any person of limited standing within a band or an especially drab and unremarkable individual. The "Sleeperblokes" themselves were highly amused by the phrase, and even produced an ironic "Sleeperbloke" T-shirt to go with Louise's "Just Another Girl Fronted Band" T-shirt, both of which sold well.

The real-life Sleeperblokes were:

After Sleeper split Jon Stewart moved to Los Angeles where he played with West Coast band UFO Bro and contributed as a session guitarist to k d lang's album Invincible Summer (2000). He now lectures in music business and music history at the Brighton Institute of Modern Music (where he taught members of The Kooks, The Ordinary Boys, Rich Fownes from Nine Inch Nails and Kate Walsh). He is also the author of a long-running column on the music industry ("Rock Climbing") in Guitarist magazine.

Andy Maclure also teaches at BIMM and runs Steve Lamacq's Punk Rock Karaoke.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

Title Release
date		 U.K. Album Chart
Smart Feb 1995 5
The It Girl May 1996 5
Pleased to Meet You Oct 1997 7
Greatest Hits Oct 2007 -

[edit] Singles

Title Release
date		 U.K. Singles Chart Album
Alice EP 1993 - Smart
"Swallow" Jan 1994 76
"Delicious" May 1994 75
"Inbetweener" Jan 1995 16
"Vegas" Apr 1995 33
"What Do I Do Now?" Oct 1995 14 The It Girl
"Sale of the Century" May 1996 10
"Nice Guy Eddie" Jul 1996 10
"Atomic" (DJ promo) 1996 - Trainspotting Soundtrack
"Statuesque" Oct 1996 17 The It Girl
"She's A Good Girl" Oct 1997 28 Pleased to Meet You
"Romeo Me" Dec 1997 39

[edit] References

[edit] External links