So Much for the City

So Much for the City is the debut album of the Irish indie/pop band The Thrills. It was released on 27 May 2003 and quickly achieved success in Ireland, spending 61 weeks in the top 75 of the Irish Albums Chart. The album also won 'Album of the Year' at the national music awards. It gained significant popularity in the UK, debuting at number 3 and remaining in the UK Albums Chart for 25 weeks. The single "Big Sur" reached number 17 in the UK Singles Chart, which remains their highest charted position in the country to date.

In an interview, lead singer Conor Deasy explained the band's inspiration for the song material:

Those songs are our ways of picking us up because we were kind of miserable. We were dropped by our label. And the towns are put [in the songs] as a way of escapism, as opposed to documenting little tales about what happened when we went there. When we put in a title like "Santa Cruz (You're Not That Far)," it would literally pick us up a bit.

The album was nominated for the 2003 Mercury Prize but lost to Dizzee Rascal's Boy in da Corner.