Trivia / The Verve

• Black Sheep Hit: "Bitter Sweet Symphony" and their first single "All in the Mind."
• Chart Displacement: "Bitter Sweet Symphony" was #2 in the UK, while follow-up single "The Drugs Don't Work" wound up a chart-topper.
• Creator Backlash: Nick McCabe thinks that The Verve's albums are inferior to their demos, and Ashcroft regrets bringing Nick back to record Urban Hymns and wishes he would have released it as a solo album. Later interviews for Urban Hymns' 20th anniversary seem to imply at least McCabe has mellowed on things a bit, admitting that relistening to their first three albums 20 years later, more removed from the process of creating them, has caused him to genuinely appreciate them - even calling "Forth" the best album they ever did.
• Creator Breakdown: Richard Ashcroft suffered from depression for a long time, and had to use meds frequently to cope with it. Hence some of the music and lyrics sound depressed.
• One-Hit Wonder: The band is usually reduced to just "Bitter Sweet Symphony", which was even their only song to chart in the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, though they would also score a second hit on the US rock charts with "Lucky Man".
• Screwed by the Lawyers: A famous instance with "Bitter Sweet Symphony." The Rolling Stones' lawyer gave Ashcroft permission to sample an orchestral cover of "The Last Time" with no qualms until the song got popular and the band were sued for using "too much" of the sample, a lawsuit called out by the Stones themselves as "bullshit." The band were forced to co-credit the song to Jagger/Richards and did not receive royalties for 22 years until May 2019 when it was announced that Richard Ashcroft reached a deal with Jagger/Richards which had them provide the Verve their share of the royalties from that song, with Jagger/Richards waiving their credit on the song completely.

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