The Coral
British musical group
The Coral are an English rock band, formed in 1996 in Hoylake on the Wirral Peninsula, Merseyside. The band emerged during the early 2000s. Their 2002 debut album The Coral, from which came the single "Dreaming of You", was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize and listed as the fourth best album of the year by NME. Their second album, Magic and Medicine (2003), produced four UK Top 20 singles, including "Pass It On". In 2008, after guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones left the band, they continued as a five-piece.
History
1996–2000: Early years and breakthrough
In 1996, school-friends Ian Skelly and Paul Duffy began jamming together in the basement of Flat Foot Sams pub in Hoylake. Over the following months they were joined by Bill Ryder-Jones on lead guitar, Ian's older brother James Skelly on vocals and main songwriting duties, and then Lee Southall on rhythm guitar. The band were known briefly as Hive before choosing the name "The Coral", and the line-up was completed with the addition of Nick Power, who joined as keyboard player in 1998. All six original members were attending Hilbre High School when the band formed.
According to Deltasonic head Alan Wills, he first encountered the band from a gig poster they had made of their 'granddads head exploding', and decided to go and see them live. At that point the band had not released any records.
“The Coral” enters the record as british musical group. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Coral, British and musical can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1777045. VIAF identifies the subject as 153007682. The Library of Congress control number is no2003026130. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996, 2002, 2003 and 2008.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Coral” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.