You know, if you'd said to me yesterday, "so, then, what's the best selling album of the year so far?", I have to say there is next to no chance I'd have said, "well, Snow Patrol's 'Eyes Open' obviously". Though Caro says the news "doesn't surprise her", whatever that means. Still, it's a long way from the days when the words "Snow Patrol" were always preceded by the line "Belle & Sebastian label mates" - days when CMU and Eddy Temple Morris (then an MTV presenter) seemed to be the only people with any air time for Mr Lightbody et al.
So, well done them, because, yes, 'Eyes Open' has apparently just snuck (yes, that's right, snuck, not sneaked) past the Arctic Monkeys' 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' to become the best selling album of the year, having sold over 1.2 million copies since its May release. Not that we wouldn't prefer an indie signed band to have the 'best seller' title, but let's not forget, the Snow Patrol boys put in a lot of work before they got their Polydor deal and deserve their more recent success.
Elsewhere in Snow Patrol news, the aforementioned Gary Lightbody and the band's guitarist Nathan Connolly have both confirmed they are considering solo projects, but both stress this does not mean the end of the band. According to the NME, Lightbody is considering a more electronica project, which could be interesting. But despite solo ambitions, he stresses: "We'll always be together - just like the end of Grease". Yes, just like that.