NME at the Gates of Oasis

Everyone knows my utter distaste for awards ceremonies, but last nights NME (or Enemy, which ever way you want to look at it) was another continuation of their obsession with Manchester Lumps Oasis! Will it ever end? I doubt it! Since Oasis released Definitely Maybe in 1994 they have had their once yearly blow jobs from the people who run NME guaranteed. 15 years of blow jobs for releasing boring drivel exactly designed to unashamedly rip off The Beatles, they must have friends in high places at the NME I think. Don’t get me wrong, Oasis have done wonders for British music and many decent bands have taken influence from them, but I can’t help but see them as another Rolling Stones who should have given up a good few years back. They’ve lost that swagger everyone used to admire about them in the mid nineties and replaced it with a boring, cynical view of the world music and much more to boot. Maybe that’s down to them being parents now or maybe they are just continuing to clutch at the fading straws of success and quality of music. And if you don’t believe all the bile (or the truth, even) that spouts from Noel Gallagher’s mouth you’ll notice he did say (in the words of his hero Pete Townsend) that he would retire once he has enough money so he wouldn’t become an embarrassing walking pension cheque. Good to see he’s stuck to his word eh? Another thing that annoys me about the NME awards is that they continue to nominate the same bands year in year out. The bands in question are Radiohead, Bloc Party, Muse & Oasis (with always one winner). I think it’s becoming pretty boring and very very tedious, but the organisers of the NME awards always see themselves as a decent alternative to The over embarrassingly camp Brit awards. I personally see it as more luvvy luvvy back slapping with the occasional controversial outburst from some drunken member of an un-known band or if Russell Brand is allowed to step foot on these shores again. As for their ‘other’ awards, they are pretty much the same on the annoying scale. The ridiculous villain of the year is always Robbie Williams, Amy Winehouse or George W Bush. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwnnnnn!! Change the fucking records lads. So, if you’re an employee of NME and are by any chance reading this, do us all massive favour, stop being so predictably boring and stop sucking Osais’ cocks, their getting too old for that sort of thing ye know? Mol

Roll Out The Dread Carpet!

So, it’s that time of year again when the red carpet is rolled out and everyone is made thoroughly sick by posing rock stars, shameless schmoozing and the cringe-worthy over-emotional acceptance speeches. It can only mean two things: Coldplay making tits out themselves and The Brit Awards – and what a completely staged, camp, over-the-top embarrassing affair it was! Whenever anyone mentions the Bit Awards they always at some point in the conversation mention the fateful debacle of Sam Fox & Mick Fleetwood when they hosted the event in the nineties. When the show went out (live) it was slated for its gaffs and cock ups. But, in my opinion, I thought it was utterly fantastic and remember laughing my head off all the way through (“er … over to you … Mick????”)!! Other notable Brits past ‘cock-ups’ included Jarvis Cocker invading Michael Jackson’s dance routine while he paraded himself as some kid of god-like figure in front of a load of kids (probably not the first time Jacko did that as well – allegedly). And the best of all was when some members from Chumbawumba threw a bucket of water over the then deputy Prime Minister John Prescott (good job they weren’t standing next to him or he probably would have sparked them) – all three brilliantly un-scheduled bouts of mayhem which no doubt had the producers pulling their hair out and of course provided lots of fun for us watching viewers at home. By the way, sorry about saying cock-up all the time, I can assure you I’m not Dennis Norden’s love child. So, after that reminiscing of the good old days of the Brit awards I’ll turn to the current nice, squeaky-clean, nearly-live cock-up free Brits and how they have become as exciting as a Chris Martin acceptance speech. The likes of Fox & Fleetwood have now been replaced with nice little manufactured pop stars and other notable celebrities from the world of showbiz such as Davina Fucking McCall and this year’s Brit hosts Kylie Minogue, the seriously un-funny James Corden and his Quegg mate with that moody suit on whose name does not come to mind. They all go totally by the book and keep the running schedule tighter than an S Club Junior’s gym suit and usher drunken rock stars Like David Hassellhoff off the stage quicker than you can say “I’d like to thank Gaaaaard”. The other ‘safety net’ the producers of the show and many other ‘live’ shows have is the concept of airing the show almost live. This, in case you didn’t know is having the show aired with a three or five second delay just in case anyone says a naughty word (bet the bosses at channel 4 wished they’d have thought of that before allowing Shaun Ryder on TFI Friday a few years ago eh?). They also employ an idea of muting certain parts of the dialogue for legal reasons. What ever legal reasons they may be just adds to the total embarrassment of the whole event and, in my opinion, makes the organisers look like utter dickheads. Which brings me to this year’s awards and the latest ‘hip’ band to be nominated: Year in year out everyone expects Take That & Coldplay to be nominated for every award under the sun even if they haven’t released anything, but I bet most people weren’t expecting Elbow to be there were they? Elbow! I bet most of the fourteen year old pre-pubescent kids who watch the awards will be looking at the nominations and thinking “who the fuck are Elbow?” the only reason Elbow featured is because of the bandwagon-jumping Brit Awards panel noticing they won the Mercury award! But, good on Elbow as I’m glad they won. Should boost their coffers no end due to the usual increase in sales a Brit award victory brings. Good set of lads as well. But, it’s not just Elbow that prompted so many WFT’s on Wednesday, here’s another nomination that was without doubt the most surreal of them all: best British Live band – Iron Maiden!!! Don’t get me wrong, I’m a massive fan of Maiden, but they do not belong at the Brits. Nico McBrain and the boys must have laughed their stuffed cod-pieces off when they received the news of their award!!! If only they could have been there in person and Eddie (he’s their mascot by the way) runs on stage and eats Kylie Minogue’s head. That would be up there with Jarvis, Fleetwood & Fox in my opinion. And by the way, can anyone tell me why Ian Brown & Paul Weller we’re nominated for best British Male when they have probably spent the last year or so sitting at home getting stoned? Mmm, might have to try that one sometime. Maybe I’ll get a pay rise at work. Then again ……. As regards categories, over the past few years The Brit Awards have had this knack of ‘creating’ an award for the newest hip thing in music. Anyone remember 2004 when The Darkness released ‘Permission to Land’? The album was a resounding success and outsold most other bands from different genres of music that year. So what did the Brits do? … They created an award for best Rock Group. This had never been done before in the history of the Brits so they jumped on the Darkness/Rock bandwagon so they could ‘have a piece of the action’ (see previous paragraph about Elbow) I suppose you could say, shameless arse kissing or a smart move for the promoters of the event? Either way I don’t think on the night of the awards The Darkness ever had they’re cocks sucked harder or in such abundance! Oh yeah, surprise surprise, they also won the rock award. You know what else I hate about The Brits (and every other awards ceremony)? - The category of Breakthrough Artist. This year’s Breakthrough Artist includes Adele. Now, don’t get me wrong, she has a fairly decent voice, but she is an exact replica of Amy Winehouse!! So, can you tell me what is ‘breakthrough’ about imitating another singer? If breakthrough was the case then Oasis would win this award year in year out for imitating The Beatles!! Another breakthrough act in this year’s awards were Scouting for Girls (or Scouting for Quilts as a mate of mine calls them). Now, correct me if I’m wrong here, but wasn’t their debut album released in 2007? That means they have taken nearly two years to ‘break through’. If they would have won maybe they should have change the title of the award to ‘Eventually Breaking through after years of banging their heard against a brick wall Artist’ Award? Another thing I noticed the other day about The Brits is they already have an album out of songs from Brit Award nominees. The advert consists of snippets of songs from five American artists and four British artists. Now, I don’t want to sound like Al Murray here, but the Brit awards are about British singers and British bands aren’t they? If not, shouldn’t it be called The Yanks with a few Brit Bands Awards? Finally, the most embarrassing thing I’m sure any respected musician must surely have to endure is receiving the life time achievement award. Not just at the Brits, but at any award ceremony. It’s basically a golden handshake with a welcome to the nursing home pass thrown in for good measure. I really do think any artists who receive this award shudder when the words ‘life time achievement award’ are mentioned as they have to perform that ridiculous medley of songs at the end. I don’t think there is anything quite as cheesy in music! Although two words are needed from the musician in question to offer to the organisers when the award is offered (the 2nd word is ‘off’ in case you were guessing). Personally I thought Brandon Flowers definitely should have chose them words instead of doing that damn right embarrassing duet with The Pet Shop Boys!! Truly shocking! And the less said about Flowers’ jacket the better, he looked like he just skinned and ate some sort of bird of prey back stage and stuck it’s feathers on his shoulder pads (he must have been watching Bear Grylls before he came out I reckon) So if you didn’t get a chance to see Duffy accepting her three awards while sounding like an over emotional Stephen Hawking gargling peppermint mouthwash, Chris Martin’s shocking contribution to the sello-tape and shocking outfit industry or ‘un-prepared’ speeches by novice musicians shitting themselves with fear at the prospect of having their arses grabbed by James Corden and his Quegg mate, don’t worry, ITV has every base covered. You can always watch the thirteen repeats again followed by The Brits after Show party, Brits Backstage, Brits Re-Visited and Brits Access all Areas VIP Lounge Extravaganza Special on ITV4 for the next eighteen weeks! If you get sick of that, you can always watch re-runs of Fox & Fleetwood on It’ll Be Alright on the Night … if your one of them people. Mol

Popped In, Sold Out

I was out last week for a mate’s birthday. Whilst talking to Rodders about music in a new bar in Liverpool called Mojo (I’d recommend it for the music, but you need a 2nd mortgage to get a drink in there) we were talking about one of our favourite artists = Iggy Pop. As well as being a highly influential singer in one of the 60’s greatest bands, The Stooges, Iggy stood for everything you wanted from a rock star: notoriety, danger, hell-raising anti-establishment and all round good old fashioned sticking it to the man!! … That is until he starred in that recent rather cringe-worthy car insurance commercial!!! Shame on you, Iggy! By the way, did you like what I did with the title of this Blog? Everyone knows that multi-global products and corporations use well known faces from the world of entertainment to endorse their products, but you usually expect to see people like George Clooney, Michael Jackson or Cannon & Ball popping up between your weekly fix of Coronation Street (or if your Pughy: Sex in the City) One particular set of characters you don’t expect too see are Rock Stars who have a history of drink & drug abuse to be advertising them. I often wonder why these companies have to pay so much money for a ‘face’ when they could spend only a fraction of their money on a relative un-known. An idea would be for them to hire some random fella from the street telling everyone why the product is so good? Imagine some Kidda from ‘The Johns’ doing an advert for Pepsi: “Er, e ar Lid, buy dis Pepzi as it’ll get ye tool sucked by some rat at de back o’ de Aggies Labour club”. If that doesn’t make you rush out and buy a bottle of Pepsi, I don’t know what will!! Personally, I don’t touch such vulgar sugar-based products!! The biggest of all sell outs in rock music though has to be the mighty all-American Kiss. They basically sold everything ranging from dolls, ashtrays and I’m sure they even made Kiss Dildos available as well at some point!!! At the height of their fame they even did a low budget (other words for: shite) film that turned out to be utter hawk!! The film was that bad fans of the band did what every disgruntled youth of the late 70’s and early 80’s did and smashed their Kiss records in the street then set fire to them. These antics always baffled me as they could’ve at least waited for the emergence of Ebay and maybe make a few quid from them! The other most notable sell out had to be from Sigue Sigue Sputnik in the early eighties. They were the first band ever (and probably the only band still to date) to advertise a product, in this instance it was L’Oreal, in between songs on their debut album ‘Flaunt It’. Personally I couldn’t see the head of the L’Oreal Corporation’s marketing department keeping his job for much longer after taking that decision due to the fact that the band didn’t play their own instruments or even sung live (allegedly) Oh, and they were utter shit as well (fact)! There is another type of sell out in music: The Political Music Sell Outs! Anyone ever remember a band called Hooty and the Blowfish? They ‘ran’ with Bill Clinton during his election (I did say election then by the way) of 1996. after their ‘successful’ spell at Bill’s side I thought they should have changed their name to Hooty and the Blow-Job Fish in honour of Bangin’ Bill’s (alleged) affections for the fairer sex. They could have done a superb version of ‘Wham! Bam! Thank You Mam’ by The Small Faces to boot!! Eighties glam metal band Twisted Sister also went on the campaign trail with Arnie Schwarzenegger during his election as Governor of California belting out their ‘classic’ ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ in front of Arnie’s adoring crowd of voters. Hahaha, always made me laugh that as Arnie faced numerous protests from Gay Rights activists about his stance on gay marriages during his campaign trail. We’re not gonna take it (up the arse) would have been more appropriate don’t you think? Other American political sell outs include: Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder and, er, Paris Hilton! Although the artists (and celebrities) in question will always come out with the usually bullshit of “really believing in this man/woman to lead our country to great things” Yeah yeah yeah, why don’t you tell us why you’re really doing it for mate? Ch-ching! As regards British music sell outs and politics does anyone remember D-ream? Do you really believe D-ream thought things were ‘gonna get better’ under Tony Blair’s New Labour? Er, I don’t think so, they couldn’t give a shit about his political ideology as they absolutely raked in the £££’s due to their song being used in the 1997 election. Things well and truly got better for them!! Pity the rest of the country didn’t receive such a fiscal boost to their incomes isn’t it? Right! … Proper Rant Time (Had a pretty bad week so …) Which brings me to British Supermarkets: Ah, supermarkets, everyone’s favourite place. And if you have believed what most adverts tell you, you have a pretty good chance of clashing trolleys with Richard Hammond or Denise Van Outen whilst out doing your weekly shop!! I’m surprised Richard Hammond wasn’t sitting in the kid’s seat anyway!!! Prick! Anyway, the one that really gets to me is that M&S advert with Take That and that bevy of busty babes cavorting around the house in they’re sweats! Totally fucking outrageous! Imagine going round to your Ma’s on Christmas day and you walk into the living room and Gary Barlow is banging the arse off Michael Essien’s bird underneath their Christmas tree? M&S Christmas or S&M Christmas? Either way, it’s never really gonna happen (unless your Take That, or course) is it? And it’s not as if Take That have enough frigging money in the first place is it? No! They have to go and rub it into the rest of us penniless bastards faces by spending Christmas in the afore mentioned house with a choice of outstanding birds queuing up to suck them off while they contemplate what jumper to wear for their Evening’s game of Charades!! Oh, and just to make matters worse: they even supply one of their songs for the Morrison’s advert!! Total bastards! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand breathe So, next time you go to Tesco, think about who you’ll vote for at the next election or wince at the sight of Lenny Henry arsing about in a certain low budget hotel chain’s bath with a rubber fucking duck, think about the money most of the above hard-working musicians/celebrities have earned for their days work and think to yourself: do they really need it? As you’re doing that think about this quote from the late, great and much missed Bill Hicks (who would be turning in his grave now had he witnessed the Take That M&S advert no doubt) … “Is anybody in here involved in marketing or advertising? … If so, kill yourself! I’m serious, kill yourself!” Mol

Percy Plant - In Throught The Back Door

So, Robert ‘Percy’ Plant has put the final nail in the coffin of any possibility Led Zeppelin may well do one last tour. What a fucking shithouse! As you all well know, I, and probably all of you guys who read this Blog, are massive fans of Zeppelin and have been since I was in school (once again: cue Hovis music) We will probably never ever get a chance to see them live mainly because of the fact that zillions of people applied for their tribute to Elmert at the O2 last year. The gig produced amazing stories of what some people were prepared to do (and did) to get their hands on one of these tickets. I vaguely remember someone selling his house in New Zealand. Indeed these are stories of real desperation of people who are willing to go just that little bit too far for my liking, but something about that concert and Zeppelin’s current touring dilemma really fucking pissed me off! I remember applying for a ticket to the O2 concert and many many other competitions and being turned down, but when watching reports of it on one of the mainstream news channels, it showed pictures of the hated VIP’s making their entrance through the back door (how apt). Theta really pissed me off. I mean Jamie Callum, Niomi Campbell & some twat off Blue Peter!!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK!! I wonder how many Led Zep albums Niomi Campbell has in her record collection? Maybe we could bombard her website eh? Cyber bullies …. GOOOOOOOOO!!! Another thing that has pissed me off is obviously Plant’s decision not to tour when it is plainly obvious that Page, Jones & Jason Bonham are ready, waiting and chomping at the bit. In case you didn’t know Plant is currently touring (still) with female singer Alison Kruass. They released an album 2 years or so back called ‘Raising Sand’. Now, if you believe everything that come out of the annoying Jool Holland’s mouth you will probably think it was the greatest album ever written. Sadly … it’s not. Now, I know people’s attitudes towards music changes when you get older and some people (me included) can’t be arsed playing live anymore, but led Zeppelin WERE Led Zeppelin. They were larger than life! They raised the bar when it came to touring. They were one of the greatest rock and roll bands in the world and most of all they had (and still do) a massive fan base. When they toured, they TOURED!! They visited countless countries and did tours of America, South America, Europe & Asia. But, their music is still listened to today by people of all ages. Most of the people who do listen to them are way too young to have ever gotten a chance to see them play, but they still buy re-released albums such as ‘The BBC Sessions’ or ‘Re-Masters’ which people buy with their hard-earned money. Plant’s decision to continue playing with Krauss and to snub the genuine Zeppelin fans who have made him the massive international star he is today is quite simply not fair! So, come on ‘Percy’, you’ve still got the blonde locks so don’t you think it’s time you shook your wig again? And if by the slightest chance you are reading this: grow your fucking bollocks back, tell that fucking bird to do one and get back together with the boys!! Mol

(Rubbish) Videos Killed the Radio Star

I’m a pretty big fan of most of the music played on MTV and other music channels alike and when it came onto our TV screens in the early eighties it was said by many that it was going to totally transform music. In a way it did as it gave the fans of the band in question a sort of ‘visual reference’ or ‘visual experience’ of the band hard at work making and playing the song. No one had any idea that it would pump billions of pounds into and become such an important cog of the music industry. And no one had any idea how the making of music videos would become so damn shit! So, in the same week the fantastic Spinal Tap announce they are to write a new album, I have one question: What ever happened to the days when videos were funny? Now, I won’t bore your bollocks off by giving you a musical history lesson, but everybody knows music videos have been around for many years prior to the birth of MTV, but they were just either live concert footage or a TV camera plonked in front of a band miming to their latest song with some nice ornaments and plants behind them. MTV changed all that dreariness and replaced it with the jazz, pizzazz and razzmatazz. Does anyone remember early MTV videos such as ‘Rio’ or ‘Wild Boys’ by Duran Duran or ‘Money for Nothing’ by Dire Straits? Shit examples I know, but when I was a kid (cue: Hovis music) during MTV’s inauguration I and everyone else in our house used to crowd around the telly just to watch these videos as they were fun! Of course compared to now they would be classed as old hat and out dated big time!, but in the mid eighties they were way ahead of their time and a relatively new experience for all music lovers, but sadly, today, that whole ‘style’ of big production music videos (like my hairline) is wearing a bit thin and becoming pretty predictable and very tedious. Now, if you’re like me, you spend most of your Sundays on the couch watching MTV2 or the NME channel you’ll know what I mean about the current crop of music videos … and how absolutely fucking boring they really are! If the artists who make these videos aren’t too busy standing on the edges of cliffs or mountains, parading round in sexy clothing having buckets of water thrown over them, panning in on big helicopter shots of New York or LA skyscrapers they’re driving a really fast big shiny car with some sexy young lady groping their crotch while she performs a good old ‘Linford’ on the guy driving the car!! – Shit, shit, utter shit!!! Fine examples of depressingly boring videos are usually from bands such as The Verve = kings of the moody videos. Richard Ashcroft seems to spend hours walking through a forest crouching down shouting his usual “no, no, no” or walking around his sun-soaked apartment while the rest of the band sit off reading Q magazine!! And I think I mentioned in a previous Blog about the Razorshite video when the four members of the band are lighting matches. Haha, now that really DOES make me laugh, but not in the comical sense, more out of sheer embarrassment I have another theory about new music videos = flesh, guitars & fast cars sell! Here’s a few points: The mere sight of a guitarist looking cool with a Gibson Les Paul down by his knees (ala: Slash) is pretty appealing to most up and coming axe men. Jay Kay driving a Ferrari round the French Alps at 100mph will make the most up and coming R ‘n B artist come in his (baggy) pants. And the sight of Christina Aguilera knocking seven bells of shit out of some other bird in a ring wearing the shortest tartan mini skirt is pretty much appealing to anyone (no matter what your sex), but the one bad thing about them is that they are all too bleeding serious!!! I don’t know whether the new ‘breed’ of music videos are made with the intention of not to offend anyone or down to the plain fact that no one has a sense of humour anymore, but personally, I think it’s down to the latter. Of course, the odd ‘gem’ does exist in today’s current crop that does, I suppose you could say: ‘break the mould’. Take for example ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor’ by Arctic Monkeys with it’s old school low budget Granada Reports look to it and the quite superbly shot one-take tread mill madness of Ok Go’s ‘Here it Goes Again’, both thoroughly enjoyable to watch with pretty good songs to boot. But, sadly, both of these bands followed up these ‘unique’ videos with big budget blockbusters in the shape of ‘Brianstorm’ & Do What You Want’ which only swells the myth that once a band becomes big, boring and predictable … so do their videos. And that is basically it = the bigger the product the more people who ‘want on board’, money exchanges hands, egos become inflated, reputations within the circle of the music industry teeter on the verge of megalomania and everybody becomes happy (and rich) So, if you’re sick of the sight of J’Lo parading through her mansion showing off her fat arse, Girls Aloud giving out hand jobs in elevators to unsuspecting young chaps or Richard Ashcroft’s spotty grid sitting in a hotel room being a totally miserable bastard, I’m gonna finish this Blog with an idea to brighten up your Sundays: Get onto Youtube or itunes and have a blimp of the following funnies: Cut Your Hair – Pavement Fight For Your Right to Party & Intergalatic – Beastie Boys Growing on Me & Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End) – The Darkness Been Caught Steelin’ – Jane’s Addiction Buddy Holly & We Are All On Drugs – Weezer Danger! High Voltage & Gay Bar – Electric Six No One Knows – Queens of the Stones Age The Majesty of Rock – Spinal Tap If you’re not happy after watching them or don’t find them funny, there’s something wrong with you. Either that or you’re a miserable bastard … or a Razorlight fan! Mol

All Over In A Flash (In The Pan)

Whilst lying on the couch on Sunday afternoon nursing the hangover from hell with a head like Rocky Dennis after a head-lock competition, I thought I’d best get up and do something constructive as Sunday is really the only time you get to do anything isn’t it?. I couldn’t be arsed going on the internet as my ZX Spectrum-age computer takes a good few hours for the gas supply to filter through (good job I don’t get it from Russia eh?), tea was a one pot roast so that took a matter of minutes (the missus was looking forward to that I can tell ye) and scratching my balls all day reading the paper can get a bit boring after a while. So I decided to do what every other sensibly drunk/hung over person in Britain does with their spare time on Sunday afternoon … please don’t laugh as I know I’m a sad bastard sometimes … I decided to scrape the barrel of all Sunday afternoon activities and clean my CD’s!!! Whilst rummaging through my fine collection (alphabetically arranged in case you were wondering – sad? Yeah I know) I was thinking looking at the older artists (The Stones, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, etc, etc) and then I took at look at some of the newer artists (The Strokes, The Vines, Maximo Park, Franz Ferdinand, etc, etc) and it got me thinking: why do these young bucks come up with the goods too soon? The older artists, it has to be said, took a good few years for them to reach the pinnacle of their careers. To name a few: The Stones had ‘Let it Bleed’ – 1969, ‘Exile on Main Street’ – 1972. AC/DC had ‘Back in Black’ - 1980, ‘Highway to Hell’ – 1979. Led Zeppelin had ‘Led Zeppelin 4’ – 1971, Pink Floyd had ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ – 1973. All of the above are without doubt classic albums you could find in pretty much every music lovers collection anywhere in the world. But it took the above bands (and many others might I add) many years and many albums to get to that ‘experienced’ stage and finally come up with the quality goods that we and many of the younger generation all still listen to today. Now, if you compare them to a good few years later to the bands of the early 00’s. When The Strokes released ‘Is This It’ in 2001 the hit the music scene head on, they were the new wave of trashy garage rock/indie that included the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (the less said about Nick Jago’s ‘protest’ at the NME awards the better), Franz Ferdinand & Kings of Leon to name but a few. A year later in 2002 grudge influenced rockers from Sydney called The Vines released ‘Highly Evolved’. These two albums were in my opinion the finest debuts of the 00’s. Superstardom, fame, fortune & everything that GOES with it beckoned for this new wave young hipsters of today’s music. But sadly, after a promising start, it appears they may have ‘shot their load’ far too soon. Pretty much all of their follow up albums have all been pretty disappointing to say the least. ‘Winning Days’, ‘Baby 81’ (although ‘Howl’ was a superb album and the odd exception in this instance), ‘First Impressions of Earth’, ‘Show Your Bones’, ‘You Could Have it so Much Better’ & ‘Because of the Times’ to again name just a few are pretty poor examples for follow ups and 2nd helpings Now, take the clock forward just a few years to today’s pick of the crop and have a look at bands like Maximo Park, The Rakes, Arctic Monkeys & Coldplay and you notice that these bands are on pretty much the same track as the Strokes/Vines/Franz/BRMC six or seven years earlier as they put pretty much everything into their debuts while their follow ups all turn out to be pretty, well: gash. Why is this? Well some would say that it may well be part of the ‘want everything now’ culture that has swept through this nation since the world (according to many) started spinning at an uncontrollable speed that we all have to keep up with The Jones’s. Or (on a more boring and serious note) it could be down to the changes in the music industry since the arrivals of downloads (legal & illegal), the current crop of ‘cost cutting’ style managers and chief executives and the new breed of Artist & Repertoire (A&R) men/women. During the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s & 90’s record labels were basically run like most financial institutions are run now: badly. Everything was a party and their excesses, demands and luxuries were way beyond belief. Stuff of legend is made of many band’s album launch parties including dwarfs carrying silver plates of cocaine, large red snappers being inserted certain groupies ‘ladies areas’ and of course the ever present television being thrown through hotel windows. Things have changed greatly now. I’m no expert in the goings on during the negotiations of record contracts in today’s music, but I have a pretty good idea that Sales are at the head of every agenda and contract agreed between a band and a record label, and there they will stay … or you’ll probably be dropped … pronto! (As The Zutons have just brutally found out) That, I think, is why so many debut albums make so many of their follow up albums sound so very poor as the best songs the fledgling bands in question have are quite possibly cherry picked by the greedy A&R men and their hierarchy and the policy of “put the best out now, and leave the rest of the shit songs for the follow up” is adopted. Longevity, quality & sustainability, it seems, are no longer words you hear in the business side of today’s music. Words like Now, Targets, Sales & More Money have sadly replaced them So, I shall finish with an idea to replace all the executives, cost cutters and A&R men in the music industry with the former Police front man Sting & his missus Trudy Tyler. Maybe they should be more involved in the process of releasing today’s music as we all know they don’t come in a flash. Longevity, sustainability and quality however ….. That’s another matter. But one thing is for sure: at least I reckon Sting’s missus looks forward to her roast on Sunday even if she does have to wait a while for her husband’s next release! Bon appetite Mol