The Corrs

The Corrs is an Irish folk/pop band, comprises of the 3 sisters and one brother from the Corr family, Andrea (lead vocals, tin whistle), Sharon (violin, vocals), Caroline (drums, piano, bodhrán, vocals) and Jim (guitar, piano, vocals).

They are in an ongoing hiatus due to Jim and Caroline starting their own families, whilst Sharon and Andrea took the time to create solo albums.

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Discography:

• Forgiven, Not Forgotten (1995)
• Corrs Live (1996)
• Talk On Corners (1997)
• Two songs for the original soundtrack of Warner Bros animated feature Quest for Camelot, with Andrea giving the singing voice of the female lead, Kayley. (1998)
• The Corrs Unplugged (1999)
• In Blue (2000)
• Best of The Corrs (2001)
• VH1 Presents: The Corrs, Live in Dublin (2002)
• Borrowed Heaven (2004)
• Home (2005)
• Dreams: The Ultimate Corrs Collection (2006)
• The Works (2007)
• Original Album Series (2011)

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Tropes used by the band include:

• Album Title Drop: Most albums are titled for a song on the album or a lyric from it.
• Award Bait Song: Looking Through Your Eyes from Quest for Camelot has all the characteristics, altough another song from the movie, The Prayer, was the one that got a Golden Globe.
• Boxed Set: The Original Album Series, released in 2011. Contains the 5 studio albums.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: Looking Through Your Eyes, although not as big as 'The Prayer, still got a decent popularity, while the movie both songs come from isn't precisely fondly remembered.
• Breakup Breakout: Averted. During their hiatus Andrea Corr released an album titled Ten Feet High but it failed to achieve much success, charting at it's peak at 38 in the UK and 24 in Ireland, with very little success elsewhere. A second album Lifelines, which was a Cover Version album was less successful than the first (and if it was released overseas it failed to chart anywhere). Sharon released her own album Dream Of You which was about as successful as Lifelines.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Andrea is phlegmatic, Jim is choleric, Sharon is supine, Caroline is sanguine.
• Greatest Hits Album: As you can see above, they have three from a discography of five albums. Although once you start adding the high quality live albums and unplugged albums (and oddly great tracks hidden away on B-sides or bonus discs) which have their own specific songs it looks far more reasonable. A buyer also gets more value for money from each subsequent release. The first was made after their 3rd album was released and has 18 songs. The second Dreams contained 21 songs and was released after their 4th and 5th albums were released as well as several unplugged and live albums. The Works was released as a three CD set with 56 tracks.
• "I Want" Song: On My Father's Wings from Quest for Camelot.
• Live Album: They have two.
• No Export for You: Inverted. The first live album The Corrs Live was released in Australia as 2nd disc along with Forgiven Not Forgotten. Then released stand alone year later in Japan. It eventually received a modified release in Europe.
• New Sound Album: Each of their albums skirt a line from pop to pop-folk, pop-rock and folk. To what extent can differ drastically:
  • Forgiven, Not Forgotten, is a roughly 50-50 split between instrumental folk and pop-rock.
  • Talk On Corners ditched the instrumental songs almost completely (only Paddy Mccarthy was instrumental, it does contain minor vocals and is more dance than folk-instrumental; there's also a quite prominent instrumental outro on When He's Not Around). The other songs being straight pop, which lead to the BBC radio changing their classification of the band from Folk to Pop, which moved them to a different, more popular radio station which itself started to play their songs, beginning their rise to fame.
  • In Blue was slightly different to Talk On Corners, except that songs like Breathless and No More Cry are more pop-rock than straight pop. It became their first success in the United States. (The bridge between the two albums was a special edition release of TOC, which included several much dancier remixes of some of the earlier tracks.) The pseudo-instrumental Rebel Heart truly felt like a tacked-on token effort.
  • Borrowed Heaven had a more edgy, guitar based sound than In Blue, and some of the songs, like Confidence, are closer to straight rock than pop-rock. And this time, for Rebel Heart read Silver Strand.
  • Home, is comprised almost completely of folk songs, and includes a pair of songs sung in Irish. It also brought back the instrumental songs.
• Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness: The heaviest they get is Level 2 as Soft or Pop Rock. Only When I Sleep, Secret Life, Breathless, I Never Loved You Anyway and Love In The Milky Way and Angel being the most prominent examples of their more mainstream Soft Rock sound. Much of their work wouldn't chart, being pop, folk-pop or pure folk. Their acoustic stuff would hit Level 1 as would some of their more folk-rock stuff, their cover of Dreams, Borrowed Heaven, All In A Day, Forgiven Not Forgotten for example.
• The One Guy: Jim.
• Self-Backing Vocalist: Heavily inverted. All 3 of the girls perform the vocals and backups, and are all good enough singers that they could all perform lead vocals if they had too.
• Step Up to the Microphone: And do, on several occasions. (You have to try quite hard to hear Jim, though; he does occasionally get a noticeable vocal part, particularly on No Good For Me.)
• Sibling Team
• Signature Song: They have two. Runaway for those who were into the group before it became mainstream. Breathless for those after that song became their breakout hit in the USA.
• Unplugged Version: At least one version of In Blue came with a bonus disc featuring acoustic versions of many (though not all) of the songs on the album. The Corrs Unplugged was part of the MTV Unplugged series.