The Boy with No Name

The Boy with No Name
Studio album by Travis
Released	7 May 2007
Recorded	December 2004 – January 2007
Studio	British Grove Studios, London The Hospital, London Kensaltown Studios, London Mayfair Studios, London Mercer Street, New York City RAK Studios, London The Weston Park Hotel Westside Studios, London The Zeppelin Studios, London Hampstead Heath, London Washington Square Park, New York City[1]
Genre	Indie pop, alternative rock
Length	52:54
Label	Independiente, Epic
Producer	Travis, Steve Orchard, Nigel Godrich, Mike Hedges, George Tandero
Travis chronology
Singles (2004)Singles2004 The Boy with No Name (2007) Ode to J. Smith (2008)Ode to J. Smith2008
Singles from The Boy with No Name
"Closer" Released: 23 April 2007 "Selfish Jean" Released: 9 July 2007 "My Eyes" Released: 17 September 2007

The Boy with No Name is the fifth studio album by Scottish rock band Travis. The album was released on 7 May 2007 through Epic Records. The album sold over 442,900 copies worldwide.

Background

The name of the album came about when lead singer Fran Healy and his partner Nora were deciding on a name for their newly born son. During this time, he sent a photo of his son to a friend by email and labeled the photo "The Boy with No Name". Healy revealed this on The Chris Moyles Show during an interview. Healy has also revealed in pre-album release performances that some tracks are influenced by his developing family status, such as "My Eyes" being about his new son or "Battleships" referring to ups and downs of relationships.

Travis dedicated this album to the Abbey Road Studios chief master engineer Chris Blair and British world champion rally driver Richard Burns, who died of a brain tumour at the age of 34 in 2005.^[2]

During recording the band discovered they were nearby British band Feeder in the same studio both in different recording rooms. Feeder were recording what would be their fifth studio album Pushing the Senses. It soon occurred that Fran and Dougie helped out Feeder with some recording of the album; their voices appeared as backing vocals for the final chorus of the track "Tumble and Fall" and was its first single.

For the track "Under the Moonlight", backing vocals were recorded by singer-songwriter KT Tunstall, and the song "Battleships" features backing vocals by Julia Stone.

Release

The Boy with No Name entered at #4 on the UK Album Charts. In the U.S., the album debuted at number 58 on the Billboard 200, selling 12,000 copies in its first week.^[3] The album went gold in the UK. "Closer" was released as the first single from the album in the United Kingdom on 23 April 2007, and peaked at #10 in the UK Singles Chart (see 2007 in British music). Second single "Selfish Jean" made #30. The final single, "My Eyes", reached #60 - their lowest chart placing during their career at the time. The full album was available to purchase at the Virgin Megastore at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California over the weekend of 27 April 2007 – 29 April 2007.

Reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	57/100[4]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[5]
BBC	favourable[6]
Digital Spy	[7]
NME	2/10[8]
New York Daily News	favourable[9]
Pitchfork Media	5.6/10[10]
Philadelphia Inquirer	[11]
Rolling Stone	[12]
Q
PopMatters	6/10[13]

The Boy with No Name received mixed reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 57 based on 20 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews".^[4] NME gave the album 2 out of 10 and labelled it "impotent aural gruel" with "all the soul of a platform announcement".^[14]

Track listing

Chart

Personnel

References