Like most people, I first heard Teenage Fanclub when the cheerfully discordant anthem “The Concept” hit MTV; like most people, I (erroneously) figured they had more or less sunk without a trace as (again, erroneously) Glasgow’s response to grunge, cranking out similar-sounding albums from then on; like most people, I rediscovered the band through Nick Hornby’s Songbook, for which Hornby picked two songs.

Songs from Northern Britain is an album of transcendent beauty; the fact that it’s composed of the simplest four-minute love songs makes it even more of a marvel. (Which makes it a different kind of transcendent beauty than that of, say, Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, but I digress.)

I will cop out and quote instead some anonymous music fan, who wrote this review on Amazon.com:

Part of the grandeur of this record is a point which nearly everyone has missed: many of these songs are hymns to God. Listen to the first line of the record: “I don’t know if you can hear me, I’m feeling down and can’t think clearly….” This is not written for a girlfriend; it is written to God; a bare human call to his creator. And they are beautiful songs. There are none about drugs, none about being in Teenage Fanclub; but all are about what it is to be a spiritual being on this earth… If you think it is about girlfriends, you miss the point and much of the majesty. “I can’t feel my soul without you.” I could go on—this record brings tears to my eyes. It is staggering and epic.

I don’t necessarily agree with all of it — of course it’s about loved ones too — but the writer perfectly captures the spiritual core of the not-incompatible pulls of yearning and contentment throughout the album’s teenage symphonies to God. Musically, Teenage Fanclub draws from the three B’s (the Beatles, the Byrds, and Big Star), and they stand with those three on the strength of this album alone.

In any case, Teenage Fanclub’s Songs from Northern Britain was my favorite album of 2005. Sometime this summer I started living with it, listening to it before I went to sleep, or when I woke up in the morning, I went running with it, I played it in the car and sang at the top of my lungs, all with an ache and joy in my heart. It must be what it’s like to be in love again.