The Charlatans frontman Tim Burgess has spoken to Headliner about the legendary UK band’s 30thanniversary, the runaway success of his Twitter Listening Parties and new music.
To mark the band’s 30th birthday, a commemorative box set entitled A Head Full Of Ideas has been released chronicling The Charlatans greatest hits, some choice unreleased demos and an assortment of show-stopping live performances.
“We were all at The Charlatans studio and there was a Bob Dylan box set lying around and it was there shouting at me that we should do one of these,” Burgess told Headliner. “I thought it’d be a nice thing to put together and we convinced ourselves it was a great idea! So we started going through the archives, restoring things and opening the box set up into different elements – greatest hits, live and unreleased. And we just had a lot of fun arguing about what should go in.
“There was a lot of sulking but a lot of happy parties too!”
Burgess also discussed the phenomenal popularity of his Twitter Listening Parties, which launched at the beginning of the pandemic. Inviting fans to start playing a particular album at the same time, the relevant artists would Tweet about the tracks and respond to questions in real-time, the sessions featured some of the biggest names from across a variety of genres, as well as some of the most exciting new acts in music. Among the artists who joined in with the Listening Party festivities are The Cure, New Order, Paul McCartney, Liam Gallagher, Culture Club, Sleaford Mods, Tears for Fears, Japan, the Smiths, the Go-Go's, Iron Maiden and many, many more.
“There’s been so many ‘oh my God’ moments,” he said of the Twitter Listening Parties. “It’s been heady days! I loved all the Cure and New Order ones and the SOPHIE one was really great too.”
You can watch Headliner’s interview with Burgess in full below.