Toronto – Welcome back to MP3UK, a new series on the Panic Manual which will focus on bands I have discovered thru the now defunct MP3UK group on Efnet that I was a part of back in the late 90s.
Debuting in 1998, Rialto was a Britpop band that was about five years too late. Their brand of melodic pop tunes arrived just as Britpop was dying. Pulp was committing commercial suicide with “This is Hardcore”, Blur had already taken a step in a more stripped down direction and Oasis had tired everyone out with the constant squabbles and the excess album known as “Be Here Now”. People were ready for a change (queue Travis, haha) but seriously, at the time, another Different Class sounding band was just the last thing people needed.
Rialto only existed for about five years, but they did put out two pretty solid Britpop albums, especially the self titled debut, which included quality songs like “Monday Morning 5:19″, “Untouchable” and “Summers Over”.
I think they were big in Korea as well.
I asked my MP3UK correspondent Nick for a comment on Rialto, here was what he said:
Nick: they were basically Suede/Pulp’s own version of Hurricane #1
He then said no one would understand what he meant. Haha
I was gonna post some youtube videos, but they are pretty horrible, so I will post a song instead.
