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