2007, it would appear, has been the year of the musical reformation. Led Zeppelin creaked back onstage in a hail of primal riffage. The Police kickstarted a reunion tour with a performance at the Grammy Awards. Take That and The Spice Girls also returned, the latter insulting our intelligence as well as our eardrums by claiming avarice wasn’t a factor.
However, the resurrection of disbanded groups, often splitting in acrimonious circumstances long ago, wasn’t limited to commercial colossi. Britpop also-rans Shed Seven and Kula Shaker started touring again whereas East 17 and Five attempted comebacks that limped hatefully into 2007 before they lost their tenuous grip on the bandwagon altogether.
From the worthy to the execrable, it seems that there is a big market for nostalgia, particularly for 1990’s bands. Why is this I wonder? Are we late-twentysomethings the first generation unable to cope with adult life, forever looking back to an innocent age before debt and proper jobs loomed like omnipresent spectres above the minutiae of our daily existence? With the prospects of marriage and children pushed ever further into our thirties and the bottom rung of the property ladder whisked upwards beyond the reach of many, an entire generation appears to be suffering from arrested development (this would have given me a nice link if Mr Wendell’s hip-hoppers had reformed this year but they had the prescience to reform in 2000.)
Indeed, at my age my forebears sweated in the factories, mills and shipyards of the North-East by necessity with families to support, yet I live like a student in rented accommodation. Perhaps we’re too soft, spoiled by a nanny state that puts cotton-wool over life’s rough edges or perhaps we should be grateful for this cultural shift towards self-fulfilment and keeping the real world at arm’s length. Whatever, it just pains me that the Spice Girls are back from the dead.
Monday, 31 December 2007
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
Brits, Brats and Godlike Geniuses
The New Year will see both the Brit and NME awards poised to reward the great and good of the music scene but ultimately, aren’t award ceremonies by their very nature quite ridiculous? Music is subjective and the idea that an album is better or worse due to an award or lack thereof is fatuous. It’s less about art/music and more about industry backslapping, careerism and a ticket to celebrity-ville. To quote Morrissey, “award ceremonies in pop music are dreadful to witness and are simply a way of the industry warning the artist ‘see how much you need us.’”
Apparently the Manic Street Preachers are in line to receive the NME’s Godlike Genius award in 2008. Speaking to NME, bassist Nicky Wire said: “We’ve won four Brit Awards, Ivor Novellos, but it’s vindication. It feels like the best one because the NME is what I grew up with and for all its faults it still means a lot to me. It’s so fucking brilliant, honestly. It’s really made me feel fantastic.””
This from a man who once said “if we ever get a Brit award, I'm gonna get my dick out, piss on it and tell them to shove it up their arse.” I realise that this refers to a different award ceremony and the NME’s Brat Awards has traditionally offered an alternative to the mainstream, but tellingly it’s now called the Shockwaves NME Awards. Of course, people are entitled to change their minds as they age and mellow but I’d love to see a band adopt the latter stance and not play the industry game (simply refusing to turn up would suffice rather than actioning Nicky’s rather more graphic threat.) Plenty of bands claim to be “just about the music” – prove it then.
Apparently the Manic Street Preachers are in line to receive the NME’s Godlike Genius award in 2008. Speaking to NME, bassist Nicky Wire said: “We’ve won four Brit Awards, Ivor Novellos, but it’s vindication. It feels like the best one because the NME is what I grew up with and for all its faults it still means a lot to me. It’s so fucking brilliant, honestly. It’s really made me feel fantastic.””
This from a man who once said “if we ever get a Brit award, I'm gonna get my dick out, piss on it and tell them to shove it up their arse.” I realise that this refers to a different award ceremony and the NME’s Brat Awards has traditionally offered an alternative to the mainstream, but tellingly it’s now called the Shockwaves NME Awards. Of course, people are entitled to change their minds as they age and mellow but I’d love to see a band adopt the latter stance and not play the industry game (simply refusing to turn up would suffice rather than actioning Nicky’s rather more graphic threat.) Plenty of bands claim to be “just about the music” – prove it then.
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Touts must be stopped, not taxed
I read today of the proposed move, backed by such luminaries as Arctic Monkeys, Robbie Williams and Radiohead, to apply a tax to the resale of gig tickets on eBay and suchlike, the argument being that excess money raised is then directed back towards the industry instead of into the pockets of touts.
What rot. This is merely the greed of a desperate music industry. As touts tend to sell at such hugely inflated prices anyway, such a tax (unless huge) is unlikely to deter these parasitic slatterns. How about disallowing the resale of tickets completely? The key issue here is that genuine fans should be able to see their favourite bands, without touts buying as many as they can get their hateful hands on and selling them on the web for exorbitant prices.
While I’m at it, let me reserve some bile for the people who actually pay inflated ticket prices; without this unprincipled, frenzied desperation there would be no problem in the first place. This merely supports the touts’ argument that this is a simple supply and demand situation and perpetuates their fetid existence.
However, it’s true that genuine fans unable to make the gig would be unfairly penalised if forced to pay a levy or legally prevented from reselling their ticket. This being the case, why not establish a decent refund policy so that these people are covered without the need for third parties? Or how about staggering ticket sales as practiced in Sweden? This way the majority of the tickets are sold as normal, but some are withheld until a week or two before the gig. As such, the availability of tickets at normal price thwarts the black market resale efforts.
This is an eminently solvable problem that will not be addressed by toothless “I demand my slice of the pie” levies, ostensibly in the interests of fans but achieving nothing.
http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2222013,00.html
What rot. This is merely the greed of a desperate music industry. As touts tend to sell at such hugely inflated prices anyway, such a tax (unless huge) is unlikely to deter these parasitic slatterns. How about disallowing the resale of tickets completely? The key issue here is that genuine fans should be able to see their favourite bands, without touts buying as many as they can get their hateful hands on and selling them on the web for exorbitant prices.
While I’m at it, let me reserve some bile for the people who actually pay inflated ticket prices; without this unprincipled, frenzied desperation there would be no problem in the first place. This merely supports the touts’ argument that this is a simple supply and demand situation and perpetuates their fetid existence.
However, it’s true that genuine fans unable to make the gig would be unfairly penalised if forced to pay a levy or legally prevented from reselling their ticket. This being the case, why not establish a decent refund policy so that these people are covered without the need for third parties? Or how about staggering ticket sales as practiced in Sweden? This way the majority of the tickets are sold as normal, but some are withheld until a week or two before the gig. As such, the availability of tickets at normal price thwarts the black market resale efforts.
This is an eminently solvable problem that will not be addressed by toothless “I demand my slice of the pie” levies, ostensibly in the interests of fans but achieving nothing.
http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2222013,00.html
Monday, 19 November 2007
In praise of Terry: “All those notes won’t take the pain away…”
Quite embarrassingly for someone with an alleged interest in music, I’ve only just discovered Terry Callier. This has mercifully filled a Curtis Mayfield-sized hole in my life, vacant since I took a break from the man Paul Weller called “a little Buddha” due to over-listening.
When a friend described Terry Callier, I had a mental image of the cheeky Geordie from the Likely Lads (Terry Collier, I now know) moonlighting as a purveyor of 70s blue-eyed soul. I imagined lyrics written on beermats in a lonely corner of some smoky Tyneside drinking den, lamenting the decline of British industry, pit closure and his fading youth. Intriguing stuff (to me anyway), but sadly not the case.
Instead, Terry Callier of Chicago, Illinois (a childhood friend of Mayfield’s, incidentally) has bequeathed a legacy of music that aches gently with soul and longing. Consider Lover (Where Have You Gone To), its over-familiar sentiments made fresh by its slow-burning intensity and Dancing Girl, a considered odyssey of folk, jazz, funk and soul that is too short at nine minutes long.
This is the work of a man whose output veers from stomping Northern Soul to lambent acoustic guitar epics that build incrementally to an orchestral crescendo. With a quietly assured velveteen baritone and lyrics that illustrate a prophetic social conscience, Terry deserves a place amongst more lauded contemporaries like Curtis, Otis, Al and Stevie.
Sadly Terry had to retire from music in the early 80’s to become a computer programmer, in order to secure a steady income for himself and his young daughter. And yet, the likes of Posh Spice and Jade Goody can coin it in via fatuous self-promotion whilst the great British public oinks for more. For shame. Mercifully, he’s been coaxed out of retirement in recent years to record and tour: get yourself out to see him next time, there is still one “little Buddha” flying the flag.
http://www.myspace.com/terrycallier
When a friend described Terry Callier, I had a mental image of the cheeky Geordie from the Likely Lads (Terry Collier, I now know) moonlighting as a purveyor of 70s blue-eyed soul. I imagined lyrics written on beermats in a lonely corner of some smoky Tyneside drinking den, lamenting the decline of British industry, pit closure and his fading youth. Intriguing stuff (to me anyway), but sadly not the case.
Instead, Terry Callier of Chicago, Illinois (a childhood friend of Mayfield’s, incidentally) has bequeathed a legacy of music that aches gently with soul and longing. Consider Lover (Where Have You Gone To), its over-familiar sentiments made fresh by its slow-burning intensity and Dancing Girl, a considered odyssey of folk, jazz, funk and soul that is too short at nine minutes long.
This is the work of a man whose output veers from stomping Northern Soul to lambent acoustic guitar epics that build incrementally to an orchestral crescendo. With a quietly assured velveteen baritone and lyrics that illustrate a prophetic social conscience, Terry deserves a place amongst more lauded contemporaries like Curtis, Otis, Al and Stevie.
Sadly Terry had to retire from music in the early 80’s to become a computer programmer, in order to secure a steady income for himself and his young daughter. And yet, the likes of Posh Spice and Jade Goody can coin it in via fatuous self-promotion whilst the great British public oinks for more. For shame. Mercifully, he’s been coaxed out of retirement in recent years to record and tour: get yourself out to see him next time, there is still one “little Buddha” flying the flag.
http://www.myspace.com/terrycallier
Saturday, 10 November 2007
Reality Bites - get an Ipod instead
The iPod, ubiquitous symbol of the post-millennial age, is wondrous in its ability to create a superior soundtrack to reality, or even to heighten your immediate environment. I recall one occasion when I stumbled around Manchester city centre one Sunday, bruised and vulnerable from the previous night's Rioja indulgence. At Whitworth Street however, as the red brick splendour of the industrial age unfolded before me to the sound of Nick Drake, I found myself in an insulating bubble away from weekend crowds and hungover paranoia. Bliss.
Of course, this soon burst at Market Street. Every city has a street like this one: the chain stores and dead-eyed stares of the slow-moving masses usually result in blind curmudgeonly rage and fear, as my iPod battles buskers proffering lift musak.
I like Selfridges though. Many times have I found sanctity from the horrors of Market Street in the bowels of the capitalist behemoth. From the ridiculously pretty (if slightly orange) girls of the make-up counter to the intimidatingly well-dressed shop assistants, it is a gleaming contemporary monument to materialistic aspiration. It seems to go remarkably well with the rakish decadence of Bowie's Station To Station album.
Walking home from Tesco however, it can be useful to play something a tad more high-octane as I move through the dodgy estates near where I live. A bit of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club perhaps, an adrenaline rush to stir me into a faux-Gallagher strut. This statement of Alpha-male intent helps ensure that delinquent youths don't stare me out as I stroll past, imagining they're intimidated by the impressive loads I'm carrying, despite the broccoli and bog roll bursting out of the carrier bags.
The uses are manifold then, though regrettably my ipod now only scrolls downwards and the headphone cord always loops out of my collar or beneath my jacket, somewhat compromising the desired look of urban nonchalance. These are minor gripes however, without an arsenal of mp3's I might be forced to face modern life (including, God forbid, bus journeys) in its unfettered actuality; it's too hideous to contemplate.
Of course, this soon burst at Market Street. Every city has a street like this one: the chain stores and dead-eyed stares of the slow-moving masses usually result in blind curmudgeonly rage and fear, as my iPod battles buskers proffering lift musak.
I like Selfridges though. Many times have I found sanctity from the horrors of Market Street in the bowels of the capitalist behemoth. From the ridiculously pretty (if slightly orange) girls of the make-up counter to the intimidatingly well-dressed shop assistants, it is a gleaming contemporary monument to materialistic aspiration. It seems to go remarkably well with the rakish decadence of Bowie's Station To Station album.
Walking home from Tesco however, it can be useful to play something a tad more high-octane as I move through the dodgy estates near where I live. A bit of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club perhaps, an adrenaline rush to stir me into a faux-Gallagher strut. This statement of Alpha-male intent helps ensure that delinquent youths don't stare me out as I stroll past, imagining they're intimidated by the impressive loads I'm carrying, despite the broccoli and bog roll bursting out of the carrier bags.
The uses are manifold then, though regrettably my ipod now only scrolls downwards and the headphone cord always loops out of my collar or beneath my jacket, somewhat compromising the desired look of urban nonchalance. These are minor gripes however, without an arsenal of mp3's I might be forced to face modern life (including, God forbid, bus journeys) in its unfettered actuality; it's too hideous to contemplate.
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