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Reef

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Reef (Music)
Reef is an English rock band from Glastonbury, best known for the song sometimes perceived as their One-Hit Wonder "Place Your Hands" and for singer Gary Stringer's distinctive — and divisive — sandpaper yowl of a vocal style.

They first formed in 1993 and broke through with their second chart single "Naked" in early summer 1995, which reached no.11 in the UK Top 40 and propelled their first album Replenish into the Top 10 soon afterwards. Riding the cresting Britpop and Britrock wave, they hit their highest peaks in late 1996 and early 1997 with their second album campaign: after the immediately iconic "Place Your Hands" reached no.6 and almost equally catchy followup "Come Back Brighter" went to no.8, the album Glow smashed its way to Number One.

Their place in British popular culture of the era was assured when the insistent "Put your hands on, put your hands on" refrain of "Place Your Hands" was reimagined as the "It's your letters, it's your letters" jingle accompanying the viewers' letters segment on DJ and presenter Chris Evans' popular weekly TV show TFI Friday for the rest of its run throughout the late '90s.

The band never hit such chart heights again, though third album Rides also reached the top 3 and they scored seven Top 20 singles in all across a span of five years. After splitting up in 2003, they would reunite in 2010. They eventually recorded a comeback LP Revelation after an 18-year gap since their last, and in 2022 returned to the albums Top 20 for the first time in twenty-two years.


Band Members:

  • Gary Stringer (vocals)
  • Amy Newton (guitar)
  • Jack Bessant (bass)
  • Luke Bullen (drums)

Discography

  • Replenish (1995) — UK no.9
  • Glow (1997) — UK no.1
  • Rides (1999) — UK no.3
  • Getaway (2000) — UK no.15
  • Together: the Best of (2003) — UK no.52
  • Revelation (2018) — UK no.26
  • Shoot Me Your Ace (2022) — UK no.20

Put your tropes on, put your tropes on:

  • Breaking Old Trends: Shoot Me Your Ace is their first album to not be a One-Word Title.
  • Broken Record: The outro of "Naked", which repeats "I'll blow you away!".
  • Incoming Ham: OH PLACE YOUR HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANDS, ON MY HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE!
  • NO INDOOR VOICE: As shown above, Gary tends to sing rather loudly, notably shown in "Place Your Hands".
  • One-Word Title: All of their albums played this straight, until subverted 27 years into their chart career with Shoot Me Your Ace.
  • Yarling: Gary Stringer has one similar to Eddie Vedder.

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