Guld- och Platinacertifikat − År 1987−1998" (PDF) (in Swedish). IFPI Sweden. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 May 2011. New Zealand album certifications – The Verve – Urban Hymns". Recorded Music NZ . Retrieved 21 June 2020. The Top 200 Artist Albums of 2006" (PDF). Chartwatch: 2006 Chart Booklet. Zobbel.de. p.42 . Retrieved 29 June 2021.

Sealing the deal, though, were the big-hitting singles; they, ultimately, are the reason why Urban Hymns is the eighteenth best-selling record of all time in the UK. “Bitter Sweet Symphony” neatly encapsulates the album’s sonic ingenuity, sampling as it did an orchestral cover version, unrecognisable from the original, of The Rolling Stones’ “The Last Time” and creating one of the most genuinely iconic string parts in modern music history. The Top 200 Artist Albums of 2001" (PDF). Chartwatch: 2001 Chart Booklet. Zobbel.de. p.36 . Retrieved 29 June 2021. a b Kot, Greg (26 December 1997). "The Verve: Urban Hymns". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved 1 January 2017. Courtney, Kevin (15 August 1998). "Bitter sweet rise to glory". The Irish Times . Retrieved 8 December 2022. European Top 100 Albums of 1998" (PDF). Music & Media. 19 December 1998. p.8. OCLC 29800226 . Retrieved 27 June 2021.Berman, Stuart (2 September 2017). "The Verve: Urban Hymns". Pitchfork . Retrieved 17 December 2017. Discos de oro y platino" (in Spanish). Cámara Argentina de Productores de Fonogramas y Videogramas. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011 . Retrieved 19 December 2012.

Italian album certifications – The Verve – Urban Hymns" (in Italian). Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana . Retrieved 8 October 2018. Hits of the World – Eurochart". Billboard. Vol.109, no.46. 15 November 1997. p.53. ISSN 0006-2510 . Retrieved 27 June 2021. With their star firmly in the ascendant, The Verve scheduled their first UK gigs for two years in September ’97, just as the album’s second single, the glorious orchestral swell of “The Drugs Don’t Work,” furnished them with their first UK No.1. Urban Hymns’ majestic trailer singles were inevitably singled out for praise when the album emerged, yet the record seamlessly ebbed and flowed between the band’s customary psychedelic wig-outs (‘The Rolling People’, “Catching The Butterfly,” the valedictory “Come On”) and expansive, existential laments such as “Space And Time’,” “Weeping Willow” and the elegant “Sonnet.” Barely a second seemed superfluous. Those two tunes [‘Sonnet’ and ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’] were written in a much more definitive way… more of a singer-songwriter approach,” Ashcroft says today. “For me, I wanted to write concise stuff at that point. That opened up a well of material and melodies.”The Top 200 Artist Albums of 1999" (PDF). Chartwatch: 1999 Chart Booklet. Zobbel.de. p.40 . Retrieved 27 June 2021. Potter receives credit in the liner notes for "additional production and mixing" on the songs that the band recorded with Youth. "The Verve – Urban Hymns HUTLP 45". Discogs . Retrieved 1 April 2017. This twentieth anniversary reissue of the album is suitably epic in its presentation, although anyone who doesn’t consider themselves a Verve diehard may find much of it to be extraneous. The fourth of the five discs is the highlight; for the first time, we get the entirety of the band’s massive homecoming set in front of 30,000 people at Haigh Hall Park in Wigan in May of 1998. It finds them at the absolute height of their powers; after all, Urban Hymns was a record that was supposed to be played to crowds of that size.

Proof, if it were needed: included in the album’s expanded six-disc edition is the band’s legendary homecoming show at Wigan’s Haigh Hall. A juggernaut performance in front of over 30,000 fans on May 24, 1998, it confirms what many have known for years: that The Verve circa Urban Hymns was a force of nature. a b c d Woodward, Will (29 April 1999). "Bittersweet success as the Verve split". The Guardian . Retrieved 20 January 2017. The best-selling albums of all time on the Official UK Chart". Official Charts Company . Retrieved 26 March 2020.

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Year in Focus – European Top 100 Albums 1997" (PDF). Music & Media. Vol.14, no.52. 27 December 1997. p.7 . Retrieved 27 June 2021. Beaumont-Thomas, Ben (23 May 2019). "Bittersweet no more: Rolling Stones pass Verve royalties to Richard Ashcroft". The Guardian . Retrieved 14 July 2022. The Official Swiss Charts and Music Community: Awards (The Verve; 'Urban Hymns ')". IFPI Switzerland. Hung Medien. Disc five, meanwhile, provides as good a primer as any on the group’s earlier work across the course of three shows in Manchester, Brixton and Washington D.C. - there’s a particularly incendiary version of “A New Decade” that tells you a lot of what you need to know about McCabe’s penchant for oceans of reverb pre- Urban Hymns. Discs two and three comprise BBC session material as well as all of the album’s B-sides, which are interesting for their tonal similarity to the rest of the record - there’s no regression to the bombast of A Storm in Heaven or A Northern Soul. a b Scribner, Sara (12 October 1997). "The Verve 'Urban Hymns' Virgin". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 1 March 2016.