I think I echo many critics when I say this has been a funny year musically. The ebb and flow of coverage has centred around 'impact' releases, at times it seemed that labels had colluded more than normal to ensure that everyone got a bite of that month long blanket coverage for their showcase release. Leading the pack on wall to wall media was Bowie, who made the cover of every music title for his release and even infiltrated radio programming without actually saying a word. Earl Slick had a very good middle of year as the official spokesman for all things David. Nick Cave, Daft Punk, Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys and Haim all became part of this whirl of blitzkrieg media, squeezing the oxygen supply to such an extent that there was precious little room for anything else to breathe around their album releases.
And yet, looking back over the year my favourite records and stand out moments are notably without any of these 'must-have' releases. Parquet Courts, Matthew E White, Daughter and Lorde all crept up on us a little but have ended the year lined up as things to notice for 2014.
As ever my list includes precisely no bands on the roster. this is for two reasons. Firstly it seems churlish to suggest that I like the music and bands that Loudhailer represents, that is very much a given and secondly, were I to include them there would be no room for anyone else. That said, and here's the little plug, particular Loudhailer highlights of 2013 were Night Engine's sold out Borderline show, Editors UK tour and a fourth album of quite remarkable consistency and daring, returning to the fold of The Polyphonic Spree after a long time away and their phenomenal Village Underground show and working with Matt Berry on 'Kill The Wolf', an album I fully expect to be attracting attention for years to come.
The summer took me to Glastonbury (which provides some of my live highlights of this year), Latitude (which supplies the rest and which will forever be remembered by me for Molly headbanging along to Bloc Party on my shoulders) and Reading (which has none, though Night Engine were remarkable - rules, schmules).
So, in time honoured fashion and to add to a teetering pile of 'Best Ofs' here we go
Albums of 2013
1. Savages - Silence Yourself
I have kept coming back to this throughout the year. A rare new band that seemed to have more than a fleeting agenda, whilst some of their interviews made me cringe at times (a Guardian chat in particular sticks in my mind), for a debut 'Silence Yourself' is genuinely remarkable, a musical statement of intent unrivalled by any.
2. Parquet Courts - 'Light Up Gold'
Big thanks to Tim Hall of (then) PIAS for turning me on to this. The first three songs are the best opener to an album I have heard all year and 'Socrates died in the fucking gutter' still makes me smile.
3. Laura Marling - Once I Was An Eagle
Loved her since the debut album. Amazing to watch this career progression and this is, to my mind, her best yet. Wonderful, talented long term artist that the whole country should be proud of. A genius in the making.
4. Primal Scream - More Light
I grew up with Primal Scream. I wanted to be Bobby Gillespie in JAMC days. I own 'Velocity Girl' and its one of those things I would save in a fire. But I thought me and the Scream had parted company of recent times. Then I heard '2013' and I was back in the club immediately. Please god let this be a run of good stuff and not a one-off.....
5. John Grant - Pale Green Ghosts
I liked The Czars and vaguely knew his solo stuff but this, well this was quite an eye opener.
Shows of 2013
1. The Rolling Stones at Glastonbury
Fuck being clever here. I was so excited about this i didn't quite believe I was going to see it until I was in the field and then I don't remember much apart from grinning and dancing until the end of the set. 'Happy', Jumping Jack Flash' 'Paint It Black' were particular highlights, reminding me of my dear departed mum but the whole thing was a proper moment to remember and tell the grandkids. Others thought it was flat, guess we stood in the right place - noatble thanks to Tom Smith for the suicidal but successful (how did he get back into the field?) drinks run - God was on our side etc. Or perhaps my mum had a little hand in it....
2. Bobby Womack at Latitude
It's not often you get to put your four year old daughter in a position where, in later years, she can say 'I saw that legend'. Latitude Sunday afternoon offered just that chance and Bobby Womack was immense. The family Jamieson had a good dance, the kids field didn't matter and everyone had smiles on their faces. Legend.
3. I Am Kloot at Glastonbury
I still say there's no justice that this set wasn't in all the reviews of the weekend. Kloot were stately, funny, thought provoking and downright groovy that afternoon. But those of us who saw it know and that's what really counts. Fuck lost gems, this lot should be up there every album.
4. Savages at Electrowerkz
Like their debut Savages shows are an exercise in totality. The most compelling new band I have seen (outside Loudhailer) by a country mile.
5. Matthew E White at Latitude
I like 'Big Inner' a lot but I like it live a lot more. Country soul revue time. Made our afternoon.
The single that got me this year
Lorde - 'Royals'
Out of nowhere, no hype as such, just a great track with sharp lyrics and a real sense of self. Proof that good music can cut through.
The book I loved
Morrissey - Autobiography
Possibly the least controversial thing I will ever say (if you know me, you'll know this was no contest). the opening 20 pages are some of the finest writing period, the rest is genuinely engaging, even the court stuff has a certain interest to it. Much as I try I can't let go of my love for Morrissey, now Molly is stealing my Smiths cds it seems like the curse has been passed down a generation.
Friday, 13 December 2013
Tuesday, 3 December 2013
Sound And Fury Signifying Nothing
Bands are dead. Critics are dead. Music is dead. And so on. After the dissection of the Mercury Prize we move on to the BBC Sound Of list in the annual carnival that is the death grip relationship between the media and the music industry.
I’ve been part of the shrug dressed up as fanfare that is the Sound Of List on a couple of occasions. Times were different when The Ordinary Boys and then The Twang found themselves part of the list. Both bands went on to healthy sales, in the case of the (then) much maligned Twang more than healthy sales and two of the biggest radio hits of the year in ‘Wide Awake’ and ‘Either Way’. Would either have succeeded without their inclusion? Yes. Did their inclusion make a major difference? Not at press, in my world, the press were already on it hence the inclusion. Possibly at radio. What you can say without any shadow of doubt is that their inclusion was a small part of the first stage of what, for want of a better word we shall call their ‘career’. And wildly divergent their paths were since then. The Ordinary Boys went on to a singer on celeb tv, a massive hit and then a void, one that I understand all have come out of ok, which is good news. The Twang were hung out to dry but have simply continued and now find themselves out of the other side, happily making records (Rory Attwell produced the latest one so clearly they aren’t poison in the way that some would imagine) and touring to a dedicated and loyal fanbase, playing to numbers that many of those in later Sound Of Polls could only dream of at their height and certainly will never see in the future.
The debate this time is centred around the make up of the list. Bands are notable by their absence, QED bands are dead. The media loves to declare extinction in music, in the last decade or so I can recall dance music, hip hop, rock and indie all being ‘dead’ at some point, normally just before the chosen corpse rises Lazarus like to dominate the discussion if not the charts. The Sound Of List is, to a greater degree, no better or worse than all the other ‘Tips for the next year’ pieces that drop like portents of doom / the chimes of the future (*delete according to pessimism) around the close of one year and the start of the next. No great surprise there given that many of the writers and broadcasters of such pieces are themselves part of the quasi illuminati voting panel that declare the 15 to watch for the national broadcaster.
What ‘The Sound Of’ and its ilk really represent is an agenda setter for the media to fill up the first month or so of any given new year. In essence, and despite many ‘failures’ across the lists over the years, the bulk of those chosen are guaranteed airplay on Radio One and therefore will undoubtedly achieve some kind of position within the national consciousness for that short window of time. Clever record companies will tie their appearance into the release of debut albums in a quiet month scoring higher chart placings than would otherwise be the case on lower sales allowing folk like me to add the epithet ‘Top Ten album’ to the press release announcing the post album single release. To pretend otherwise is to amplify a media construct to national discussion.
As for bands being dead, a dispassionate look across the music landscape reveals this to be, frankly, utter bollocks. Chvrches look very much like a band to me, as do Palma Violets, Parquet Courts, Savages, Fat White Family etc ad nauseum. One commentator on The Guardian’s outlet for bile and tosh suggested that record companies had devised some Machiavellian pact to stop signing bands on the basis that they are ‘too expensive’. He has clearly never paid session musicians to replicate the job of a signed (and therefore free) musician. What the list may reveal to us is that Radio One are not particularly keen on bands but when did we ever look to Radio One to break anything of note? Those writing obituaries should beware, history tells us that premature declarations of ‘facts’ often leave their makers looking less than intelligent.
I’ve been part of the shrug dressed up as fanfare that is the Sound Of List on a couple of occasions. Times were different when The Ordinary Boys and then The Twang found themselves part of the list. Both bands went on to healthy sales, in the case of the (then) much maligned Twang more than healthy sales and two of the biggest radio hits of the year in ‘Wide Awake’ and ‘Either Way’. Would either have succeeded without their inclusion? Yes. Did their inclusion make a major difference? Not at press, in my world, the press were already on it hence the inclusion. Possibly at radio. What you can say without any shadow of doubt is that their inclusion was a small part of the first stage of what, for want of a better word we shall call their ‘career’. And wildly divergent their paths were since then. The Ordinary Boys went on to a singer on celeb tv, a massive hit and then a void, one that I understand all have come out of ok, which is good news. The Twang were hung out to dry but have simply continued and now find themselves out of the other side, happily making records (Rory Attwell produced the latest one so clearly they aren’t poison in the way that some would imagine) and touring to a dedicated and loyal fanbase, playing to numbers that many of those in later Sound Of Polls could only dream of at their height and certainly will never see in the future.
The debate this time is centred around the make up of the list. Bands are notable by their absence, QED bands are dead. The media loves to declare extinction in music, in the last decade or so I can recall dance music, hip hop, rock and indie all being ‘dead’ at some point, normally just before the chosen corpse rises Lazarus like to dominate the discussion if not the charts. The Sound Of List is, to a greater degree, no better or worse than all the other ‘Tips for the next year’ pieces that drop like portents of doom / the chimes of the future (*delete according to pessimism) around the close of one year and the start of the next. No great surprise there given that many of the writers and broadcasters of such pieces are themselves part of the quasi illuminati voting panel that declare the 15 to watch for the national broadcaster.
What ‘The Sound Of’ and its ilk really represent is an agenda setter for the media to fill up the first month or so of any given new year. In essence, and despite many ‘failures’ across the lists over the years, the bulk of those chosen are guaranteed airplay on Radio One and therefore will undoubtedly achieve some kind of position within the national consciousness for that short window of time. Clever record companies will tie their appearance into the release of debut albums in a quiet month scoring higher chart placings than would otherwise be the case on lower sales allowing folk like me to add the epithet ‘Top Ten album’ to the press release announcing the post album single release. To pretend otherwise is to amplify a media construct to national discussion.
As for bands being dead, a dispassionate look across the music landscape reveals this to be, frankly, utter bollocks. Chvrches look very much like a band to me, as do Palma Violets, Parquet Courts, Savages, Fat White Family etc ad nauseum. One commentator on The Guardian’s outlet for bile and tosh suggested that record companies had devised some Machiavellian pact to stop signing bands on the basis that they are ‘too expensive’. He has clearly never paid session musicians to replicate the job of a signed (and therefore free) musician. What the list may reveal to us is that Radio One are not particularly keen on bands but when did we ever look to Radio One to break anything of note? Those writing obituaries should beware, history tells us that premature declarations of ‘facts’ often leave their makers looking less than intelligent.
Tuesday, 12 November 2013
Welcome to the age of Buzzfeed politics
It had to happen I guess. I have just finished reading a Buzzfeed post by walking hate figure Grant Shapps explaining in the standard 12 points why the Tories are looking after our energy bills and how horrid Labour are to blame for the mess we are in.
Aside from the nonsense points ('Ed Milliband switched his bill, the hypocrite', 'switching is the way to do it') that can be either dismissed or knocked down in a second - on the latter, switching within a closed market really doesn't help much) the very existence of this post both challenges Buzzfeed's validity as anything other than a glorified Twitter come Instagram AND marks yet another moment where the idea of political debate as a meaningful exercise capable of change takes another step towards the exit.
In 24 hours we have had our Prime Minister in white tie and tails pronounce the endless drive of austerity whilst sitting down to a god knows how many courses meal with the business masters of our country, Iain Duncan Smith fail to show up to face the music of his miserable (and counter productive) bedroom tax to discuss youth unemployment across a Europe his party want to leave and now this piece of pseudo youth culture grabbing nakedly corporate pr nonsense splashed across social media.
Meanwhile, George Monbiot in the last two weeks has explained in calm, reasoned and, crucially, researched pieces how our country and our money is being taken from us by business interests in cahoots with the very politicians that push defence of corporate interests, austerity for the poor and ethnic cleansing of high cost residential areas. Even that Tory hate figure, the EU, is part of the problem.
Its an age of Buzzfeed politics. 12 Reasons why you should vote Douche. Or Turd
Aside from the nonsense points ('Ed Milliband switched his bill, the hypocrite', 'switching is the way to do it') that can be either dismissed or knocked down in a second - on the latter, switching within a closed market really doesn't help much) the very existence of this post both challenges Buzzfeed's validity as anything other than a glorified Twitter come Instagram AND marks yet another moment where the idea of political debate as a meaningful exercise capable of change takes another step towards the exit.
In 24 hours we have had our Prime Minister in white tie and tails pronounce the endless drive of austerity whilst sitting down to a god knows how many courses meal with the business masters of our country, Iain Duncan Smith fail to show up to face the music of his miserable (and counter productive) bedroom tax to discuss youth unemployment across a Europe his party want to leave and now this piece of pseudo youth culture grabbing nakedly corporate pr nonsense splashed across social media.
Meanwhile, George Monbiot in the last two weeks has explained in calm, reasoned and, crucially, researched pieces how our country and our money is being taken from us by business interests in cahoots with the very politicians that push defence of corporate interests, austerity for the poor and ethnic cleansing of high cost residential areas. Even that Tory hate figure, the EU, is part of the problem.
Its an age of Buzzfeed politics. 12 Reasons why you should vote Douche. Or Turd
Thursday, 3 October 2013
In defence of music critics
A fascinating exchange over Twitter today with Angus Batey, Dan Cairns and Martyn Young has got me thinking about where critical writing is headed.
The basic tone of the conversation travelled from the low quality of some music criticism on well known music sites raised by Dan into the lack of support (financial in the main) available to writers by Angus to my thoughts on the 'first not best' culture driving so much of the media in general these days. See The Mail calling the Amanda Fox verdict early in big newspaper world or my comments on the mistaken identity of Matt Willis of Busted / Matt Willis who manages Tricky for a music version of that. We were bemoaning the lack of sub-editors leading to inferior copy in print and on the web via lack of strict editorial controls (especially on the web) when Martyn; not one of those I would bracket in the poor online writers, popped up to shine a light on the lack of actual wages or payment available to those who generate much of the copy about popular music in all its forms. What really surprised me was his assertion that he 'has never been paid for any work'. Leaving aside an observation about the Tories new under 25's 'work or get fucked' policy and the wider culture of 'free work' I will merely permit myself to look at this in context of the music criticism.
Critical appreciation is a necessary part of a civilised society. Like many roles in society it is easy to demean, critics serve no immediate quantifiable purpose to society (nor do half the City Of London but we will refrain from going into that) and so, in a culture defined by 'usefulness' as a unit of production, the serious critic is not a figure that engenders immediate massive public support. Yet the history of public art in all its forms is one that travels from the margins to the centre of society with the aide of critics. This is as true of the novel as it is jazz and is especially true of popular music.
The process of critical unravelling, in essence the devaluation of music criticism and discussion to mere 'content', has been gathering pace for the last decade. No one in the process, from the critics themselves through the magazines and papers that employ them to the music industry and prs that supply them is blameless in this journey to the hole in which we now find ourselves.
The first misconception was that the internet would be a place for greater critical appreciation. The monetisation of the internet, driven by access and non word based delivery forms has resulted in a landscape of untrained enthusiasts mingled with sites that are more interested in traffic driving than unique content delivery. This is not a catch all, there are many great writers and devoted sites out there as previously there were fanzines, but the sheer scale of the financial opportunities involved for the large media companies and their ability to push into markets has both marginalised the 'enthusiast' community and driven down standards as a whole. Alongside the 'first not best' dictum has come churnalism and a slackening of editorial oversight that delivers not just massive clangers (see the Vampire Weekend album sleeve story for a more amusing example) but a steady drip drip of 'print it as soon as you can' stories that range from puff piece press releases to half baked 'news' featuring a big hit name in the middle. Competition being what it is, it is inevitable that standards across the board dive as sales of print fall, endless new players enter the market undercutting the existing players and margins disappear. The internet will not be the saviour of the written word.
The second misconception was that to survive the written word had to compete on the same platform with video and audio. Video in particular cannot deliver serious and considered critical opinion. Those of us who love culture can count on the fingers of one hand the cultural discussion programs that have worked over the years. As a starting point to considering any art they serve a purpose but I cannot accept that to come to a considered opinion on a work of art (and I firmly place my chosen popular music in that category) a video can deliver that experience. Similarly audio is limited by delivery. Only the written word can really allow you to consider and appreciate a work of art outside of the work itself. The ability to return to the arguments and opinions, to pause and consider, to control the pace of your understanding and to internally rebuke or concur with the critic, all these are only possible with the written word. Thus, the music website template, of video this and on tour that detracts from the writing and devalues it, delivering a portion of your attention span to the work that should demand such attention in its entirety.
The third misconception is that of the role of the critic and their relationship with the music industry. Dan highlighted the label's schedules and concerns over album delivery to critics in our discussion. Whilst I have sympathy with the labels and the artists given their product is so insecure and those stealing are unlikely to face any sanction, the work of the critic should be based on immersion, not casual acquaintance. We need critics to be ahead of us in their thoughts and reasoning. As a pr I despise an ill thought out review, I accept a bad one well argued. As a human, I accept that receipt of an album days before copy is due is not a position of strength from which to deliver the perfect prose. Further, the increased reliance on digital delivery of albums may well be a money saver and deliver some vague ecological message on a par with those 'please do not print out this email...' footers but the truth is that listening to a well crafted album on a compressed stream or a download does not give the music its best setting at the very least. As for the other elements of an album that matter, cover image, sleevenotes, its very existence as a physical thing, these are long since casualties of that 'quantifiable value' theory that permeates our culture.
The fourth misconception is that the public are better at choosing art than critics. Whether a product of human ego or, more likely, the logical endpoint of an individualism that encompasses Ann Raynd, 'Because You're Worth It', 'There is no such thing as society' or the 'respect' agenda of the stereotypical UK gangsta, the truth is that if you choose art on the basis of public appreciation your culture will undoubtedly wither. The list of things that now define the UK that were outside public taste, indeed hated by the public, is so obvious I won't bother to list it. Further, releasing albums by massive acts one week early only feeds into this idea that the public should be on a par with the critics. That is a nonsense. As Angus pointed out, if the web is awash with fan reviews of a record the week before release why would a publisher bother to pay for a reviewer to do it properly?
The best critic is, with no exaggeration, a prophet. If you feel uncomfortable with that in the current context of music criticism, choose one of the obvious past masters and reconsider that phrase. Their actions give deeper meaning and understanding to the music that, for many, is more than just a background. Their words can help to build new communities of strength that take music as the starting point for a meaningful cultural journey that can (and does) change the very way that society works; its relationships, power structures, values and behaviour, for the better. Their slow removal from our music culture leaves it with less meaning and depth and weakens the foundations of our wider culture. Whilst we celebrate the stories of the past we risk the destruction of the stories of the future, whilst we point to the generational progress soundtracked by popular music but interpreted by its critics and celebrants we risk reducing new expression to a clutch of short lived headlines and ill thought out reaction, devoid of wider meaning.
The basic tone of the conversation travelled from the low quality of some music criticism on well known music sites raised by Dan into the lack of support (financial in the main) available to writers by Angus to my thoughts on the 'first not best' culture driving so much of the media in general these days. See The Mail calling the Amanda Fox verdict early in big newspaper world or my comments on the mistaken identity of Matt Willis of Busted / Matt Willis who manages Tricky for a music version of that. We were bemoaning the lack of sub-editors leading to inferior copy in print and on the web via lack of strict editorial controls (especially on the web) when Martyn; not one of those I would bracket in the poor online writers, popped up to shine a light on the lack of actual wages or payment available to those who generate much of the copy about popular music in all its forms. What really surprised me was his assertion that he 'has never been paid for any work'. Leaving aside an observation about the Tories new under 25's 'work or get fucked' policy and the wider culture of 'free work' I will merely permit myself to look at this in context of the music criticism.
Critical appreciation is a necessary part of a civilised society. Like many roles in society it is easy to demean, critics serve no immediate quantifiable purpose to society (nor do half the City Of London but we will refrain from going into that) and so, in a culture defined by 'usefulness' as a unit of production, the serious critic is not a figure that engenders immediate massive public support. Yet the history of public art in all its forms is one that travels from the margins to the centre of society with the aide of critics. This is as true of the novel as it is jazz and is especially true of popular music.
The process of critical unravelling, in essence the devaluation of music criticism and discussion to mere 'content', has been gathering pace for the last decade. No one in the process, from the critics themselves through the magazines and papers that employ them to the music industry and prs that supply them is blameless in this journey to the hole in which we now find ourselves.
The first misconception was that the internet would be a place for greater critical appreciation. The monetisation of the internet, driven by access and non word based delivery forms has resulted in a landscape of untrained enthusiasts mingled with sites that are more interested in traffic driving than unique content delivery. This is not a catch all, there are many great writers and devoted sites out there as previously there were fanzines, but the sheer scale of the financial opportunities involved for the large media companies and their ability to push into markets has both marginalised the 'enthusiast' community and driven down standards as a whole. Alongside the 'first not best' dictum has come churnalism and a slackening of editorial oversight that delivers not just massive clangers (see the Vampire Weekend album sleeve story for a more amusing example) but a steady drip drip of 'print it as soon as you can' stories that range from puff piece press releases to half baked 'news' featuring a big hit name in the middle. Competition being what it is, it is inevitable that standards across the board dive as sales of print fall, endless new players enter the market undercutting the existing players and margins disappear. The internet will not be the saviour of the written word.
The second misconception was that to survive the written word had to compete on the same platform with video and audio. Video in particular cannot deliver serious and considered critical opinion. Those of us who love culture can count on the fingers of one hand the cultural discussion programs that have worked over the years. As a starting point to considering any art they serve a purpose but I cannot accept that to come to a considered opinion on a work of art (and I firmly place my chosen popular music in that category) a video can deliver that experience. Similarly audio is limited by delivery. Only the written word can really allow you to consider and appreciate a work of art outside of the work itself. The ability to return to the arguments and opinions, to pause and consider, to control the pace of your understanding and to internally rebuke or concur with the critic, all these are only possible with the written word. Thus, the music website template, of video this and on tour that detracts from the writing and devalues it, delivering a portion of your attention span to the work that should demand such attention in its entirety.
The third misconception is that of the role of the critic and their relationship with the music industry. Dan highlighted the label's schedules and concerns over album delivery to critics in our discussion. Whilst I have sympathy with the labels and the artists given their product is so insecure and those stealing are unlikely to face any sanction, the work of the critic should be based on immersion, not casual acquaintance. We need critics to be ahead of us in their thoughts and reasoning. As a pr I despise an ill thought out review, I accept a bad one well argued. As a human, I accept that receipt of an album days before copy is due is not a position of strength from which to deliver the perfect prose. Further, the increased reliance on digital delivery of albums may well be a money saver and deliver some vague ecological message on a par with those 'please do not print out this email...' footers but the truth is that listening to a well crafted album on a compressed stream or a download does not give the music its best setting at the very least. As for the other elements of an album that matter, cover image, sleevenotes, its very existence as a physical thing, these are long since casualties of that 'quantifiable value' theory that permeates our culture.
The fourth misconception is that the public are better at choosing art than critics. Whether a product of human ego or, more likely, the logical endpoint of an individualism that encompasses Ann Raynd, 'Because You're Worth It', 'There is no such thing as society' or the 'respect' agenda of the stereotypical UK gangsta, the truth is that if you choose art on the basis of public appreciation your culture will undoubtedly wither. The list of things that now define the UK that were outside public taste, indeed hated by the public, is so obvious I won't bother to list it. Further, releasing albums by massive acts one week early only feeds into this idea that the public should be on a par with the critics. That is a nonsense. As Angus pointed out, if the web is awash with fan reviews of a record the week before release why would a publisher bother to pay for a reviewer to do it properly?
The best critic is, with no exaggeration, a prophet. If you feel uncomfortable with that in the current context of music criticism, choose one of the obvious past masters and reconsider that phrase. Their actions give deeper meaning and understanding to the music that, for many, is more than just a background. Their words can help to build new communities of strength that take music as the starting point for a meaningful cultural journey that can (and does) change the very way that society works; its relationships, power structures, values and behaviour, for the better. Their slow removal from our music culture leaves it with less meaning and depth and weakens the foundations of our wider culture. Whilst we celebrate the stories of the past we risk the destruction of the stories of the future, whilst we point to the generational progress soundtracked by popular music but interpreted by its critics and celebrants we risk reducing new expression to a clutch of short lived headlines and ill thought out reaction, devoid of wider meaning.
Wednesday, 29 May 2013
Anyone for Kool AId?
It was always strange. That first night in the UK at the Royal Festival Hall when the power cut and they played on and the power cut back in at exactly the right moment. The endless festivals where rainclouds would part as they walked onstage to dazzling sunshine, the guy who crashed his bike watching them being pictured in Hyde Park and woke up surrounded by people in white robes with Texan accents. It was always strange and it was always brilliant.
It was many of the things I thought rock n roll should be. The cultish vibe, the drive of Tim Delaughter and Julie, the choir's endless energy, the post rave vibe of the shows. The Union Chapel with Tim walking over the pews in suitably challenging mode, collisions of cult and God and irony, the humour and intelligence at the heart of it all. And a sense of family, 23 really good friends rolling into town and making everything technicolour.
So I am most pleased to say, once again, that I am the pr for The Polyphonic Spree.
News on album and tour soon.
Monday, 20 May 2013
Here Comes The Summer
Been a trying week so let's start with something to cheer me up then I will tell you all about what Loudhailer folk are up to in the next few weeks.
So now that it's all a bit cheerier, what's happening?
Half the roster was in Brighton last weekend for The Great Escape. Loudhailer was unfortunately called to sick child duties so missed such great moments as the Towns / Velcro Hooks joint show, Tripwires getting Sticky at Mike's, Night Engine wowing The Guardian and The Independent's Sunday and daily alongside four rather sweaty shows, Balthazar bringing the wonders of 'Rats' to the south coast, The Elwins making their first seaside steps and Mary Epworth on a Saturday afternoon, which sounds a hell of a lot more fun than my actual Saturday afternoon.
Back in London town, Matt Berry was ending his UK tour with a big show at Islington's Academy, another which duties cancelled for us but which is all over Youtube.
Looking forwards brings two album in June. Matt Berry's quite astounding 'Kill The Wolf' which remains one of the most musically unafraid albums I have heard this year, a rare case of going for the tune rather than an approved approach and all the better for it and Tripwires melding of US alt rock, late 60's whiteout and 90's sonics into whole new shapes on their debut 'Spacehopper'. Both are out on the 17th June. July shapes up with another two, Editors 'best yet' 'The Weight Of Your Love' and The Elwins 'And I Thank You' debut of sparkling pop with a dark underbelly. On the former I remain open mouthed. Having worked with the band since the beginning, the progression to this album underpins both why I continue to do this (sometimes stupid) job and my continual awe at the abilities of some musicians and writers. The latter has a purity which shines through its arrangements, taking traditional sounds but playing them with such dedication and joy that it renders the album timeless.
Editors debut their live shows at Glastonbury in June as well. Now that's something to look forward to i would suggest.
Let's pretend they didn't cancel Snub TV and play video half hour
So now that it's all a bit cheerier, what's happening?
Half the roster was in Brighton last weekend for The Great Escape. Loudhailer was unfortunately called to sick child duties so missed such great moments as the Towns / Velcro Hooks joint show, Tripwires getting Sticky at Mike's, Night Engine wowing The Guardian and The Independent's Sunday and daily alongside four rather sweaty shows, Balthazar bringing the wonders of 'Rats' to the south coast, The Elwins making their first seaside steps and Mary Epworth on a Saturday afternoon, which sounds a hell of a lot more fun than my actual Saturday afternoon.
Back in London town, Matt Berry was ending his UK tour with a big show at Islington's Academy, another which duties cancelled for us but which is all over Youtube.
Looking forwards brings two album in June. Matt Berry's quite astounding 'Kill The Wolf' which remains one of the most musically unafraid albums I have heard this year, a rare case of going for the tune rather than an approved approach and all the better for it and Tripwires melding of US alt rock, late 60's whiteout and 90's sonics into whole new shapes on their debut 'Spacehopper'. Both are out on the 17th June. July shapes up with another two, Editors 'best yet' 'The Weight Of Your Love' and The Elwins 'And I Thank You' debut of sparkling pop with a dark underbelly. On the former I remain open mouthed. Having worked with the band since the beginning, the progression to this album underpins both why I continue to do this (sometimes stupid) job and my continual awe at the abilities of some musicians and writers. The latter has a purity which shines through its arrangements, taking traditional sounds but playing them with such dedication and joy that it renders the album timeless.
Editors debut their live shows at Glastonbury in June as well. Now that's something to look forward to i would suggest.
Let's pretend they didn't cancel Snub TV and play video half hour
Monday, 13 May 2013
Will we ever see their like again - what happened to the pop star?
Of course it was all so much simpler at the beginning. If you were a boy like Elvis, dirt poor, and the world opened up for you like that, you’d take it. More to the point if you saw it happen to Elvis, it could happen to you. That story didn’t change for some time, by 1962 The Beatles had set the prototype for the ‘hard working’ band with their sojourn in Hamburg. Rock ‘n’ roll was born on a very specific promise. That of not living like your parents, of breaking moulds and redefining what was important. An immediacy, an us (youth) against them (squares and parents), that was about modernity, newness, glamour and fun. Until the late ‘60’s that didn’t change much. The fans wanted to see their band at the top of the charts, their band kicking against the pricks and changing their world.
When the likes of Pink Floyd came along to queer the ‘working class boy’ (or girl once Motown really got into swing and the likes of Dusty and Sandie Shaw got into gear in the UK) made good story there was a new narrative. This was pushing the boundaries, not about making money but about making art. Nonetheless the fans wanted the band to succeed, even if, with many of the late 60’s into early 70’s middle class art bands (see King Crimson and friends for starters) it was in a cult sense, an ‘I’m cleverer than you with your pop stars and their big houses and their big cars and jets’. Some, like the Stones and more so The Beatles, managed the two in tandem now and then (but then the former had Keith and Charlie and a whole sense of mixed bag ‘rags to riches’ meets ‘art school boy’ to play with). Perhaps we should have seen what was coming when Dylan was called ‘Judas’ but for now, fans still wanted bands to succeed, the media wanted bands to get bigger, it made sense. Bigger bands equals more fans equals more buyers for stories about and interviews with those bands.
Quite where that story ran out of steam is hard to tell. You want to say punk but then think about the likes of Soft Cell , Human League, Echo & The Bunnymen and Smiths of the 80’s. They were ‘art’ and ‘big’. Even Spaundau Ballet got their name from a dark corner of post war history whilst Duran Duran cited Barbarella, an art house film. Intelligence and fame could still co-exist for the media, one did not preclude the other. Heaven 17 covered ‘Temptation’, made an album mocking London’s mythologizing of city boys and delivered a Northern, socialist swipe to the chops of the Tories whilst soundtracking their coke and champagne fuelled disco nights. The city boys that is, not the Tories..(perhaps). Certainly the last time the ‘working class lads done good’ to general favour happened around these parts was Oasis for the UK and probably Nirvana, in a much different way, in the US. And we all know how that turned out for both parties. As for big and art, Radiohead probably put the kybosh on that when the resolutely ‘art’ ‘Kid A’ signalled the end of ‘big’ Radiohead and the beginning of ‘you don’t like the old stuff do you?’ Radiohead.
Quite when did we start to equate success with selling out again after its brief, post punk nonsense blip that a combination of real post punk (Banshees psychedelia, Cure popness, Crucial Three splintering into wonderful myriad pop moments) and new romanticism blew away? Artists these days are left in a straightened position. The vagaries and sharp edges of the blog world at its pinnacles demand an almost monastic approach to gaining money and an obsession with the micro that has altered mainstream media interaction with album artists to a situation that resembles a very very big U at the top on the left the new bands, unproven but given large spaces to talk about how they formed and their first, media wide approved single release, in the dip everyone else and on the right the monolithic likes of The Killers, Muse, Coldplay, The Stones etc; guaranteed can’t go wrong so big they are beyond criticism behemoths.
Where once we had the steady rise we now have the vertiginous ascent and lemming like drop. Witness the delight in the sub scene world that permeates the internet where music is concerned, the need for demos not releases, just formed, not toured for a year or so. The crèche of the music world transformed into its research and development arm, a nonsense disguised by marketing and desperation in equal measure, a chase for an elixir that never existed, a perversion of what actually made rock ‘n’ roll, that hackneyed overused phrase, so vital in the first place. There is little of the romance that once went with the ascent of a band even as wedded to ideas of art as REM. For a band to be successful, and by this I mean genuinely successful, not feted in East London and the East Coast of the USA, successful is to say goodbye to serious appreciation from critics. Is it really that band’s albums get worse as they get bigger? Is it really that, once they are beyond a certain point, those very albums get better again? As with politics the centre crumbles and we are left to look from indie purist cliff over the depths of misery for the majority to the nirvana of the chosen few.
But these online quibbles are both representative and indicative of what has been done to our pop music by cultural forces. As the plethora of entertainment options has widened, following the industry’s inability to deal with the advent of online distribution and dissemination and powered by a ‘last dance on the Titanic’ attitude with the advent of cd, the music industry lost the key to what made it so powerful whilst it was pulled away from its outstretched hand by the forces of economics. See, there aren’t many kids like Elvis in the Western world as there once were. There are not towns of field hands plucking acoustic guitars nor Scouse kids playing in bombed out terraces dreaming of turning a monochrome world technicolour.
The aspiration to be a pop star has, at one side, been trodden over by an increasing government ability to deliver minimum level aspiration and comforting surroundings that flatten ambition and preclude wild dreaming and, at the other, by the sense that so many other ‘extreme futures’ are both more glamorous and more profitable. Such theory can range from local drug dealer at the darkest end through minor TV celebrity to Premier League footballer. It is not that such things are necessarily attainable, they are as removed from likelihood as the 60’s / 70’s pop star dream, rather that they are desirable. Exactly in the way that the pop star dream once was.
We are now sold quicker versions of notoriety. Why learn to play an instrument when you can get on tv without being able to sing? In fact, if you are really awful you will get your moment on X Factor or the other one, or the one that is like them but I can’t remember the name of. It will be fleeting but not that much less fleeting than winning it and you’ll have to put in a micro percent of the effort of a real musician, none of that gigs to one man and a dog, none of that tricky creation of music thing. Just go, be an arse and there you go. Quick shot of notoriety. Or you can use Twitter to slag people off, get a ‘reputation’ as somebody who is ‘funny’ and, who knows, you may even get a book deal. You won’t be the next Wilde, even the next Banks, but you will get a moment where your book is talked about for nano-seconds before you disappear again.
In a world where the average civil servant can party like the classic (male) 60’s pop star; the drug use, the casual sex, the all night parties and so on, another facet of the rock star is removed, the concept of the ‘free spirit’. In a world where there is no chart, no Top Of The Pops, no national conversation about pop music, there is no more notoriety nor adulation. Remove the mega brand stars, the Beyonces and the Jay-Z’s and the next level down, those scaling that right hand incline of the ‘U’ are likely not to set armies of teenage girls screaming or legions of teenagers up and down the country safety pinning their school tie. No wonder an increasing amount of our successful bands are (reputedly) middle class. This isn’t about having to be anything anymore, it’s a gap year approach to music, a little stop that may or may not lead to something before moving on if it doesn’t succeed. The age of the pop star may well be past.
This is not to say that the age of music is past. History suggests that this will never be. As far as we know where there has been man there has been music. All cultures have music deeply embedded within them. In a way this isn’t about music, it’s about the appeal of pop music to youth and its slow decline. Beethoven caused riots once too. It’s just a shame that we seem to be living through the first moment in recent history where music is a soundtrack to outrage, rather than its cause.
When the likes of Pink Floyd came along to queer the ‘working class boy’ (or girl once Motown really got into swing and the likes of Dusty and Sandie Shaw got into gear in the UK) made good story there was a new narrative. This was pushing the boundaries, not about making money but about making art. Nonetheless the fans wanted the band to succeed, even if, with many of the late 60’s into early 70’s middle class art bands (see King Crimson and friends for starters) it was in a cult sense, an ‘I’m cleverer than you with your pop stars and their big houses and their big cars and jets’. Some, like the Stones and more so The Beatles, managed the two in tandem now and then (but then the former had Keith and Charlie and a whole sense of mixed bag ‘rags to riches’ meets ‘art school boy’ to play with). Perhaps we should have seen what was coming when Dylan was called ‘Judas’ but for now, fans still wanted bands to succeed, the media wanted bands to get bigger, it made sense. Bigger bands equals more fans equals more buyers for stories about and interviews with those bands.
Quite where that story ran out of steam is hard to tell. You want to say punk but then think about the likes of Soft Cell , Human League, Echo & The Bunnymen and Smiths of the 80’s. They were ‘art’ and ‘big’. Even Spaundau Ballet got their name from a dark corner of post war history whilst Duran Duran cited Barbarella, an art house film. Intelligence and fame could still co-exist for the media, one did not preclude the other. Heaven 17 covered ‘Temptation’, made an album mocking London’s mythologizing of city boys and delivered a Northern, socialist swipe to the chops of the Tories whilst soundtracking their coke and champagne fuelled disco nights. The city boys that is, not the Tories..(perhaps). Certainly the last time the ‘working class lads done good’ to general favour happened around these parts was Oasis for the UK and probably Nirvana, in a much different way, in the US. And we all know how that turned out for both parties. As for big and art, Radiohead probably put the kybosh on that when the resolutely ‘art’ ‘Kid A’ signalled the end of ‘big’ Radiohead and the beginning of ‘you don’t like the old stuff do you?’ Radiohead.
Quite when did we start to equate success with selling out again after its brief, post punk nonsense blip that a combination of real post punk (Banshees psychedelia, Cure popness, Crucial Three splintering into wonderful myriad pop moments) and new romanticism blew away? Artists these days are left in a straightened position. The vagaries and sharp edges of the blog world at its pinnacles demand an almost monastic approach to gaining money and an obsession with the micro that has altered mainstream media interaction with album artists to a situation that resembles a very very big U at the top on the left the new bands, unproven but given large spaces to talk about how they formed and their first, media wide approved single release, in the dip everyone else and on the right the monolithic likes of The Killers, Muse, Coldplay, The Stones etc; guaranteed can’t go wrong so big they are beyond criticism behemoths.
Where once we had the steady rise we now have the vertiginous ascent and lemming like drop. Witness the delight in the sub scene world that permeates the internet where music is concerned, the need for demos not releases, just formed, not toured for a year or so. The crèche of the music world transformed into its research and development arm, a nonsense disguised by marketing and desperation in equal measure, a chase for an elixir that never existed, a perversion of what actually made rock ‘n’ roll, that hackneyed overused phrase, so vital in the first place. There is little of the romance that once went with the ascent of a band even as wedded to ideas of art as REM. For a band to be successful, and by this I mean genuinely successful, not feted in East London and the East Coast of the USA, successful is to say goodbye to serious appreciation from critics. Is it really that band’s albums get worse as they get bigger? Is it really that, once they are beyond a certain point, those very albums get better again? As with politics the centre crumbles and we are left to look from indie purist cliff over the depths of misery for the majority to the nirvana of the chosen few.
But these online quibbles are both representative and indicative of what has been done to our pop music by cultural forces. As the plethora of entertainment options has widened, following the industry’s inability to deal with the advent of online distribution and dissemination and powered by a ‘last dance on the Titanic’ attitude with the advent of cd, the music industry lost the key to what made it so powerful whilst it was pulled away from its outstretched hand by the forces of economics. See, there aren’t many kids like Elvis in the Western world as there once were. There are not towns of field hands plucking acoustic guitars nor Scouse kids playing in bombed out terraces dreaming of turning a monochrome world technicolour.
The aspiration to be a pop star has, at one side, been trodden over by an increasing government ability to deliver minimum level aspiration and comforting surroundings that flatten ambition and preclude wild dreaming and, at the other, by the sense that so many other ‘extreme futures’ are both more glamorous and more profitable. Such theory can range from local drug dealer at the darkest end through minor TV celebrity to Premier League footballer. It is not that such things are necessarily attainable, they are as removed from likelihood as the 60’s / 70’s pop star dream, rather that they are desirable. Exactly in the way that the pop star dream once was.
We are now sold quicker versions of notoriety. Why learn to play an instrument when you can get on tv without being able to sing? In fact, if you are really awful you will get your moment on X Factor or the other one, or the one that is like them but I can’t remember the name of. It will be fleeting but not that much less fleeting than winning it and you’ll have to put in a micro percent of the effort of a real musician, none of that gigs to one man and a dog, none of that tricky creation of music thing. Just go, be an arse and there you go. Quick shot of notoriety. Or you can use Twitter to slag people off, get a ‘reputation’ as somebody who is ‘funny’ and, who knows, you may even get a book deal. You won’t be the next Wilde, even the next Banks, but you will get a moment where your book is talked about for nano-seconds before you disappear again.
In a world where the average civil servant can party like the classic (male) 60’s pop star; the drug use, the casual sex, the all night parties and so on, another facet of the rock star is removed, the concept of the ‘free spirit’. In a world where there is no chart, no Top Of The Pops, no national conversation about pop music, there is no more notoriety nor adulation. Remove the mega brand stars, the Beyonces and the Jay-Z’s and the next level down, those scaling that right hand incline of the ‘U’ are likely not to set armies of teenage girls screaming or legions of teenagers up and down the country safety pinning their school tie. No wonder an increasing amount of our successful bands are (reputedly) middle class. This isn’t about having to be anything anymore, it’s a gap year approach to music, a little stop that may or may not lead to something before moving on if it doesn’t succeed. The age of the pop star may well be past.
This is not to say that the age of music is past. History suggests that this will never be. As far as we know where there has been man there has been music. All cultures have music deeply embedded within them. In a way this isn’t about music, it’s about the appeal of pop music to youth and its slow decline. Beethoven caused riots once too. It’s just a shame that we seem to be living through the first moment in recent history where music is a soundtrack to outrage, rather than its cause.
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