People Move On is the debut studio album of English singer-songwriter Bernard Butler that was released on 6 April 1998 through Creation Records.
Following a brief period with Sony LRD in early 1996, by the end of that year, Butler had signed to Creation and switched managers from Geoff Travis to Gail Colson.
The album, which is described as a pop, rock, and folk release, has been compared to the work of Jeff Buckley, Neil Young, and Wilco.
Between the late 1980s and 1994, Bernard Butler served as a guitarist of British rock band Suede, whose self-titled debut studio album won the 1993 Mercury Prize.
The duo split due to personal issues before their debut studio album The Sound Of... McAlmont & Butler was released the same year.
[1] Butler spent some time collaborating with Bryan Ferry, Neneh Cherry, and Aimee Mann, and produced Hopper's sole album, English and French (1996).
[8] By March 1996, Butler was in the process of writing material for his first solo album, which Sony LRD tentatively expected to release in early 1997.
[11] By this point, he was being managed by Rough Trade Records founder Geoff Travis, who restricted the time Butler spent collaborating with other artists.
[4] Shortly after the signing, Butler went to Air Studios to visit labelmates Teenage Fanclub, who were working on their album Songs from Northern Britain (1997).
In July 1997, Butler took a two-week break from the studio to write extra material; he had planned to start mixing during this time but recorded four new songs instead.
[20] Shilling and Butler mixed the recordings in September 1997, and the album was mastered by Chris Blair at Abbey Road Studios, London, the following month.
[1] MTV's Dakota Smith referred to it as a "collection of love ballads, symphony-backed anthems, catchy pop refrains and pared-down guitars and lyrics".
"[22] The album marked Butler's first attempt at singing, which Gail Worley of Ink 19 called "sweet, clear, and highly emotive".
[15][27] Consumable Online writer Robin Lapid found Butler to be baring his "soul and seems to allude to the fruition of recent personal highs, including marriage and new fatherhood".
[16] Sakamoto did drums, and the Brilliant Strings played violin, cello, and viola on the songs "Woman I Know", "People Move On", "Autograph", "Not Alone", and "When You Grow".
[11] The opening track, the psychedelic soul of "Woman I Know" recalls the sound of All Things Must Pass (1970) by George Harrison and the work of Spiritualized, and deals with his relationship with his wife.
[25][27] Butler wrote "People Move On", which was compared to After the Gold Rush (1970) by Young, about the time he sold papers in Leicester Square, London.
[27][34] The blues rock of "Autograph" showcases Butler's guitar-playing abilities, recalling "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" (1971) by Traffic.
[2][21] Butler wrote the track in a Parisian hotel room after watching MTV and witnessing videos for "all of these crap pop records.
[46] His backing band for these performances included guitarist Andy Miller of Dodgy, and keyboardist Terry Miles of Denim, bassist Chris Bowers of Hopper, and Sakamoto on drums.
[53] The shows marked the appearance of Neil Halstead of Mojave 3 as Butler's touring guitarist, replacing Miller, who was busy with Dodgy.
While reviewing his body of past work, Demon asked again and Butler accepted the offer provided he could re-record his vocal tracks.
[49] The introduction to "A Change of Heart", which Butler thought was "boring", was shortened, and "People Move On" and "In Vain" were given extra miniature-guitar solos.
[76] Bradley Smith of Nude as the News said Butler has a "beautiful voice – almost angelic" and that the album displays "a songwriter coming into his own", which Lapid agreed with.
(1995) as Butler leans into "an emotional and musical directness, taking in muscular riffs, big melodies, luscious ballads, undulating slide guitar fills".
[80] The Independent's Andy Gill alluded to the album's classic rock influences aside from the intermittent "ponderous moment ... it is a notable, and welcome, success".
[81] Montreal Mirror writer Mireille Silcott called it a "thickly varnished, highly emotive production with lightly cheesed melodics that only an Englisher can manage".
[82] Reviewing the 2022 reissue, Terry Staunton of Uncut said for the majority of the album, the "maniacal guitar riffs" heard in Suede "take a back seat, only occasionally cutting loose and never overwhelming the innate simplicity of some elegantly persuasive songs".
[83] Martin Aston of Mojo said there is a "palpable shedding of tension underpinned these 63 minutes [which] centred on the creamiest vibrato guitar since Mick Ronson".
[85] Far Out Magazine's Eoghan Lyng said the reissue shows the "unbridled creativity" that was "laced with splashes of distress and concern", and that the new vocals provide not "enhancement, but conviction, and by doing so, help to validate the feelings once deemed unworthy of a movement".