The Art of Longevity Season 5, Episode 1: Everything Everything

The music journalist Paul Lester described Everything Everything as “a riot in a melody factory”, a perfect description for a band positively clattering with ideas, yet on the new album Raw Data Feel, I get the sense that the band has learned the craft of what to leave out. Judge for yourself but do apply the usual rule - listen three times first!

On longevity, singer and co-writer Jonathan Higgs felt that Everything Everything crossed the rubicon on the band’s third album Get To Heaven (2015) after which “we can probably stop worrying about being in a band as a job, that we’ve woken enough people up to us that we could probably sustain. We always approached the band as a long-term thing but we see our longevity as a lasting cult rather than a big band that once had a few big hits”.

Indeed, Everything Everything is one of those bands that have carved out a fruitful, lasting existence without ever having ‘a hit’. The band's following is diverse, from ‘prog dads’ to teenage girls to electronic music fans. With four top five albums and two Mercury Prize nominations, the band has earned its place on the cultural landscape. However, it was telling that the day after my conversation with Jonathan, the Everything Everything was due to sit down with their management for a ‘brand strategy meeting’ in which the main topic on the agenda was “how are we doing as a band, because it’s really difficult to tell”. 

Somehow, I feel like Raw Data Feel has the potential to move the band up a notch or two, even if it is hard to know exactly what that means these days. 

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