Down with the kids.
Popular culture is something that largely bypasses me. Or rather, I am not perpetually on the look out for the next big thing. I don't feed off the words of critics. No need, particularly in music when you can meander through the net and make up your own mind. Good music is timeless. I don't feel I that I am missing much now if I pick up on a band years after they split. It's not as if the recorded body of work decomposes in direct proportion to how hip, 'it' and 'now' a band may have been.
So, a particularly fortuitous chain of events kicked off yesterday. I noticed a piece in the Times about how the Arctic Monkeys genuinely mattered - or some such hyperbole. I want a look at that I thought. There was a review of the new album included and a piece about their lyrics. Remarkably similar to an article about The Streets in The Guardian a year and a half ago - complete with references to Byron, Shelley and even Shakespeare. No surprise, there is nothing the chattering class media love more than someone articulate with a regional accent.
So, I get home and stumble across the Newsnight Review on the box - and lets face it, things don't get much more chattering class than the Newsnight Review. The Arctic Monkeys album was under review. Now, I was aware of this band - they had went straight into number one with their debut single. Obviously there had to be some sort of hype around them - not that I had noticed. I just didn't realise until yesterday the extent to which the London media are coming in bucketloads over this band. All the panelists loved the lp - good debut was the consensus. Predictably one panelist - a very annoying person called Kitty Empire - was proclaiming it a work of genius and great importance (how important can a collection of songs really be these days?).
I had heard the first single a couple of times (I bet you look good on the dancefloor) . On Newsnight they play a clip from the latest single : When the Sun Goes Down. It got me straight away. This is the band that I wanted to go straight into number one when I was 15. They were the band that I wanted to be in when I was 18. A band with straight up no shit lyrics. A band with the energy and no nonsense guitar and drum rhythm's reminiscent of the British bands from the late 70s and early 80s that meant so much in my teenage years. Oh, and as far as can tell, they are still teenagers themselves. It is a long time since my tastes have been in sync with the London media machine. Don't know if this band are going to change the world like some of the verbally ejaculating journalists were proclaiming last night " yuh, and y'know, the best thing is that America is going to 'get' them too" (Kitty Empire). How the fuck does she know ?
Anyway, just happy to have stumbled across them. Not really relevant to The Folk, but I guess inspiration is inspiration.
So, a particularly fortuitous chain of events kicked off yesterday. I noticed a piece in the Times about how the Arctic Monkeys genuinely mattered - or some such hyperbole. I want a look at that I thought. There was a review of the new album included and a piece about their lyrics. Remarkably similar to an article about The Streets in The Guardian a year and a half ago - complete with references to Byron, Shelley and even Shakespeare. No surprise, there is nothing the chattering class media love more than someone articulate with a regional accent.
So, I get home and stumble across the Newsnight Review on the box - and lets face it, things don't get much more chattering class than the Newsnight Review. The Arctic Monkeys album was under review. Now, I was aware of this band - they had went straight into number one with their debut single. Obviously there had to be some sort of hype around them - not that I had noticed. I just didn't realise until yesterday the extent to which the London media are coming in bucketloads over this band. All the panelists loved the lp - good debut was the consensus. Predictably one panelist - a very annoying person called Kitty Empire - was proclaiming it a work of genius and great importance (how important can a collection of songs really be these days?).
I had heard the first single a couple of times (I bet you look good on the dancefloor) . On Newsnight they play a clip from the latest single : When the Sun Goes Down. It got me straight away. This is the band that I wanted to go straight into number one when I was 15. They were the band that I wanted to be in when I was 18. A band with straight up no shit lyrics. A band with the energy and no nonsense guitar and drum rhythm's reminiscent of the British bands from the late 70s and early 80s that meant so much in my teenage years. Oh, and as far as can tell, they are still teenagers themselves. It is a long time since my tastes have been in sync with the London media machine. Don't know if this band are going to change the world like some of the verbally ejaculating journalists were proclaiming last night " yuh, and y'know, the best thing is that America is going to 'get' them too" (Kitty Empire). How the fuck does she know ?
Anyway, just happy to have stumbled across them. Not really relevant to The Folk, but I guess inspiration is inspiration.
posted by Teuchter at 12:43
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