''Ignore the Ignorant'' is the fourth studio album by

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

indie rock Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produc ...

band

The Cribs The Cribs are a British indie rock band originally from Wakefield, West Yorkshire, that formed in 2001. The band consists of twins Gary and Ryan Jarman and their younger brother Ross Jarman. They were subsequently joined by ex-The Smiths guit ...

, released via

Wichita Recordings Wichita Recordings is an independent record label located in London, founded in 2000 by Mark Bowen and Dick Green. Its most notable signees include Bloc Party, The Cribs, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Bright Eyes, My Morning Jacket, Yeah Yeah Ye ...

on 7 September 2009, following the release of first single '

Cheat on Me "Cheat on Me" arrived in August 2009 as the first single taken from the fourth studio album by British indie rock band the Cribs. The song provided listeners with the first batch of new material from the four-piece incarnation of the band, with th ...

' on 31 August.

Warner Bros. Records Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc.) is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the ...

released the album one day later on 8 September in North America as a digital download, then given a physical outlet later in the year on 10 November.

Background

After a chance meeting with Johnny Marr in

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, the band invited the guitarist to join as a touring member in February 2008, with the prospect of recording together proposed for the future. The remainder of year found the band writing new material in

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and

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...

, with a short UK tour that took place at the ABC,

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, the Manchester Ritz for two nights, St. George's Hall, Bradford and Heaven,

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used to roadtest some of the new songs before recording commenced.

Recording

Sessions for the album began first with rehearsal/pre-production in January 2009 at a rented, rural barn in Oregon City, OR. However, the band soon relocated to record the majority of the LP at Seedy Underbelly Studios,

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with producer

Nick Launay Nicolas Launay is an English record producer, composer and recording engineer. He is one of the most sought after record producers in the world due to his success with recent albums by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Anna Calvi, IDLES, Black Re ...

throughout spring and summer 2009. The main body of the recording found completion in three separate weeks, with another seven-day stretch spent on overdubs and mixing. Launay oversaw the mixing process too, with assistance from Atom and engineers Nick Veitbakk and Erick Phillips. Additional mixing took place at British Grove Studios,

, with Tim Young mastering the final recordings at Metropolis.

Composition

As per previous Cribs releases, Nick Scott provided the cover and inlay artwork, assisted on this occasion by Nell Frizzell amongst others. The four-piece line-up of the band included Gary on vocals and bass, Ross on drums and percussion, Ryan on vocals and guitar and

Johnny Johnny is an English language personal name. It is usually an affectionate diminutive of the masculine given name John, but from the 16th century it has sometimes been a given name in its own right for males and, less commonly, females. Varian ...

on guitar and backing vocals. However, some songs featured additional instrumentation. Gary played Hammond organ on ‘ We Share the Same Skies’ and 'Victim of Mass Production'. For 'Save Your Secrets', Gary played guitar and kalimba piano, with Ryan on baritone, and in turn, Gary takes on the latter instrument and mellotron for 'Stick to Yr Guns' whereas Ryan features on violin and additional mellotron.

Singles

Initially, opening track 'We Were Aborted' received a debut on the Radio 6

Steve Lamacq Stephen Paul Lamacq (born 16 October 1964), sometimes known by his nickname Lammo (given to him by John Peel), is an English disc jockey, currently working with the BBC radio station BBC Radio 6 Music. Early life He attended The Ramsey Academ ...

show, becoming available for free download that day. Two singles found release to promote the album. The first single arrived on 31 August 2009 with '

', while 6 November brought ' We Share the Same Skies'.

Critical reception

''Ignore the Ignorant'' has received generally favorable reviews from music critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 75 based on 17 reviews. Robert Earle of ''Stereola'' gave the album 9 out of 10, describing ''Ignore the Ignorant'' as "a masterpiece from start to finish." In December 2009, ''

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'' magazine placed the album at number 11 in their 'Albums of the Year' chart, '' The Fly'' ranked it at 7 and ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' ranked it at 30. In Japan, ''Crossbeat'' magazine placed it at 8 in their 'Albums of 2009' list, whilst ''Music Magazine'' ranked it at number 1.

Accolades

''The Roses Edition''

A special, deluxe box set edition of the record, nicknamed ''The Roses Edition'', found release in areas local to the band. Originally, ''The Roses Edition'' was only available from record stores in

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and

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. However, due to demand, many record stores stocked this version of the album. The box contains ''Ignore the Ignorant'', a live CD of the band performing in February, ''Live at the Ritz, Manchester'', a DVD documentary of the recording of the album, ''Secrets Saved'', and a

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized Sound recording and reproduction, recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) ...

titled ''The Serpent and the Peach'', recorded predominantly on a hand-held camera by Ryan.

Track listing

Charts

The album reached number eight on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

, the highest-charting release for the band. Released the same week as all of the deluxe Beatles re-issues, ''Ignore the Ignorant'' outsold all but two of them in the first week. The band described this in various interviews at the time as "surreal".

References

{{Authority control 2009 albums Albums produced by Nick Launay The Cribs albums Wichita Recordings albums