Pop

After a completely self-serving, pretentious and rather po-faced whinge of a last entry, and a prolonged absense caused entirely by apathy, laziness and my forgetting this thing actually exits, I'm back with another entirely un-anticipated Blogroll. I had about as much enthusiasm for writing a new piece for this cobweb-covered, insignificant shit-sink as Andrew Sachs has for checking his answering machine, so here's an article I wrote for Smiths magazine regurgitated here, to reach a new audience of literally no-one. Enjoy.

Everything's Average Nowadays

Oh sweet irony. With one fell swoop the feckless, bouncing crescendo-mongers The Kaiser Chiefs managed to encapsulate perfectly the problem that lies at the very heart of modern musical culture, and wrap it up in one, distinctly average, pop song package, ready to be rammed down the throats of an apathetic and uninspired public. This is meant to be the time of my life, the peak, the zenith, and with that, I fully expected to be swept along in a musical movement no less vital than Punk, Acid House or the birth of Hip-Hop. So, where is it? What have I got to be excited about? A bunch of middle aged Pink Floyd wannabes winning the Mercury? One of an infinite number of re-hashed, reformed, re-heated, formerly vibrant acts currently doing the rounds (X-Ray Spex, Magazine, Devo), only serving to remind us how little this generation has to offer? The fucking X-Factor? No. I have nothing to be excited about, British pop music is failing me. Everything's fucking average nowadays.

Pop music, by it's very definition, it must be popular, but it need not be crass and cynical. Pop to me isn't just Stock, Aitken and Waterman, it's The Smiths, it's not just Take That, it's Pulp. Pop is accessible music, but that doesn't mean it has to be lowest common denominator. Pop currently has reverted to it's default setting; bland, production line pablum with the key ingredients of mind, body and soul left out. The UK Hip-Hop scene is alive and well, kicking out amazing new talents on a seemingly weekly basis, and there are countless other underground genres battling mediocrity with all their might. But why must pop music be so horrid? It wasn't always like this, if it had been I wouldn't be so invested in it. This decade's pop culture of all forms has been particularly ghastly, and we've only been treated to a handful of truly wonderful pop songs.

The Libertines were fantastically exciting for a while, but you know how that story ends. The Arctic Monkeys made a classic album, but the follow up, wasn't, and could never have been, anywhere near as thrilling or vital. 'Is This It' was, and still is, utterly indispensable, but The Strokes are American. The bands that came after haven't so much followed in the footsteps of these groups as ridden on their coat-tails. The Courteeners owe a debt to The Libertines so large Geldoff's planning a concert for them. These insipid, swaggering cocks are the essence of the problem, no-one's got any new ideas. Alright, The Klaxons had ideas, but those mainly involved painting ponies pink. New Rave was never a movement it was a joke, and one that ended up with every cockend from New Cross to Newcastle wearing fucking stupid clothes and giving my eyes a fucking headache. The Pigeon Detectives, as far as I can tell, are 50% hairball, 50% stupefying lyrics (Please don’t do it/Lets not do this now/Something's happening,/Can’t we stay somehow?) 50% stock indie guitar riffs and 50% slack-jawed, knuckle dragging 1970s comedian. That all adds up to 200% cunt, which is almost double the amount achieved even by Hard-Fi (120% cunt). Impressive. We live in an age where Calvin Harris is allowed to live, and people buy Nickleback records.

To demonstrate what a terrible mess our musical culture is in, the Observer Music Monthly is running a USA Special this month, with pompous, over-exposed synth-botherers The Killers on the cover. It's sad, but fair, to say that America is currently producing far better pop than Britain, Pharell and Timbaland are leagues ahead of Mark Ronson, and Rhianna's 'Umbrella' was the most pure pop delight I've experienced for a long time, where the likes of Lily Allen and Kate Nash are cartoonish faux-proles attempting to document a culture to which they do not belong. When the fortunes of British pop music are on the decline, we start to look elsewhere, ie. The USA, and before you know it you've got Grunge 2.0 on your hands. Do you really want that? Well? Do you?

The defining movement of this decade has failed to materialise, despite the best efforts of the NME to invent one. New Rave, as previously mentioned, was a movement more in Topshop then record shops, and that's as close as this decade's come, a bunch of twats in yellow trousers banging toy keyboards together in the hope that a decent song might just fall out. The NME persisted, coming up with crap puns for geographically defined movements to fill the void of musical ones. 'Gangs of New Yorkshire' failed because the Arctic Monkeys were so much better than the other bands. Anyone remember Bromheads Jacket or The Harrisons? I do, I saw them live. They were shit. The NME had another stab with 'Best Midlands', a primary school level pun on West Midlands, an area completely devoid of charm or good bands. This endeavour was doomed to failure before it began, being led as it was by beer-swilling, working class caricatures The Twang and miniature troll lookalikes The Enemy. When The Enemy are what we're meant to believe in, popular culture is on it's last legs. The Enemy claim to be rebellious, but make it easy for the media, they can handle it when working class culture is mono-syllabic and hebetudinous, they can place it in a handy box and write with glee about the funny little yobs. It allows snobbish notions of 'chav' culture to flourish, where good pop should be smashing down such idiocy. See Pulp's 'Common People' for reference. When 'alternative' pop is this facile, it lets the music business get on with pumping out cynical hits every few weeks undisturbed by chart raiding parties with a little art and heart.

Good pop music should be from the mind, the heart and the crotch, and it should grab the listener by all three and give them a right good going over. I love pop music, the three minute pop song is for me the very peak of artistic expression, when done correctly. Good people of Goldsmiths, you are the future. Put down your fucking keytar and write me some bloody good songs. This music they constantly play, it says nothing to me about my life.

Well, there you go, I hope your brain hasn't oozed out of your ears like rice pudding through a keyhole at the realisation of how fucking pointless this exercise has been for all invovled. If I ever decide to write anything new I'll be back. Don't hold your breath. Or maybe do, it's not really worth carrying on anyway, is it? You little shit.

Money

The root of all evil or the gateway to a better life, whichever way you look at it, money has a profound effect on each and every one of our lives. It governs where you live, what you eat, who you sleep with, and how long you live. It's malicious fingers entwine in an iron-strong grasp around our hearts and minds. For me, and many others, money is prohibitive, my finances block so many options from my life, and those of countless millions of others. My home, London, is a city of haves and have-nots, the wealthiest financial centre in the western world, where one in three children live below the poverty line. The boundaries of this city are not marked by walls, but purse-strings. But still the question persists, who's really better off? Our mothers all taught us money can't buy happiness, but does such a childish simplification ring true?

All the world over, the picturesque yields to the pocketesque. - Herman Melville

It seems to me that there are two types of people in this cracked and broken world, those who are hungry for money, and those who are greedy for it.

Those who are hungry for money will have their fill when they are able to provide for themselves and their families adequately, to provide a good standard of living. These people have other desires besides collecting numbers on a screen. They love, and live, they have the ability to achieve happiness. These, in my eyes, are the normal people, the good and the meek. And in heaven, the meek shall have their reward. As a staunch atheist, I believe this heaven reveals itself through self-actualisation, love and contentment. Of course, within the hungry, many remain that way, and many are famished.

Clearly money has something to do with life.... - Philip Larkin

The appetite of the greedy and gluttonous will never be satiated, they are eternally ravenous. These people often accrue huge amounts of the grubby stuff, but never give up, constantly chasing that little extra, often entirely needlessly, and at great expense to other aspects of their lives. This is an alien mindset for me, one that I struggle to understand immensely. It is a sad fact that this type of person controls most of the world's wealth, and are the least inclined to share it (with the exception of a few great philanthropists). These people can never be happy in the truest sense, for what they desire is forever just one more zero away.

Clearly, something has gone greatly askew with how we chose to run this world. Any world where one person can shovel cocaine up their nose on Daddy's luxury yacht whilst simultaneously another's child can starve to death is fundamentally broken at it's very core. But what alternative is there? Communism sounds good, but the uniforms are just so terribly drab. I don't pretend to have any answers here, but I know for certain that I wish there was a way to do away with the whole blasted concept, a world of fairness, free from greed and boundaries, where everyone has a decent chance at life. Unfortunately, until my move to Gumdrop Land is complete, I have to wade through this shitheap we've landed ourselves with just like the rest of the sorry pissy-footed masses.

An expansive life, one not constrained by four walls, requires as well an expansive pocket. - Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

I have no interest in money, I pay it very little attention. But, like the proverbial blue-smartie-fuelled toddler, the less attention I pay it, the more it demands. If I continue to ignore it, it ends up smashing the house up and soiling itself on the carpet. My current financial state can be described as somewhere between 'Fucking Shit' and 'Terminal'. My bank statements have no numbers on them, only sad-faces. I'm trapped by this status, imprisoned by my failure to earn. I yearn to eat well, to drink with abandon, to fuck with hellish vigour, to explore and expand my horizons. Without money, my wishes will never be realised. I have two choices, sell my soul at the altar of capital, or scrape by, living hand-to-mouth. Life ain't all it was cracked up to be.

Money then, it doesn't really make anyone happy. Whilst happiness can't be bought, freedom to pursue happiness can be, and after all, isn't that every man's right? To finish, I'll leave you with another pithy quote, that I feel sums up my position regarding money pretty well. Ta ta.

He who has many lice doesn’t scratch; he who has many debts doesn’t worry. - Anonymous

Creationism

Creationism (or Intelligent Design/ID as it's bible-brandishing fans label it) is crock load of the smelliest turds you've ever laid mixed with burnt hair and vomit. As a scientific theory it has about much use as a dwarf in a basketball game. It seems that recently enough of the lunatic, sabre-rattling, dunderheaded, piss flaps who espouse this bagfull of bollocks have got together for the government of this country to consider teaching it as an alternative to evolution in schools. This isn't Alabama, it's the fucking UK. Teaching our children creationism is akin to teaching them that storks are an alternative to reproduction. It's lunacy of the highest order.

From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. - Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin was a clever fucker. He looked at the world and postulated that there was order in the madness, that all animals shared common ancestors and that laws of nature governed how the creatures we know now came to be. He said that through a series of random mutations creatures gradually changed, and if any of these mutations were useful to the creature to survive in their environment, that creature had an advantage and was more likely to survive than other creatures of it's species, and would eventually become the norm over a period of thousands and millions of years. He wrote all this down in a book, The Origin of Species, and since then his theory has been debated, changed, tested and corroborated hundreds of times in scientific study with empirical evidence. He also looked like a bloke that knows what he's talking about.

Creationists are simple-minded, bewildered fuckwits with no concept of science. They looked at the bible and, without questioning a book that is only called the word of God because some bloke said so, was written years after the death of the main character, is based on sources more spurious than wikipedia, and actively condones the stoning to death of adulterers, accepted all it contains. They say the world is 6,000 years old, was made in 6 days by God, and that the reason we wear clothes is because of a talking snake. Creationists laugh in the face of reason, science and evidence and run away with their fingers in their ears humming loudly. They also have a habit of looking like this:

Fuck science, whatever those bigoted, pig-ignorant, hate mongering cuntbags believe in I'm against.

Seriously, you're more likely to have a rational conversation with a man called 'Stench' with tattoos of severed cocks on his face than your average creationist.

Creationists will rattle on for all eternity about how evolution is only a theory, that's their main line of attack, that it's a competing theory, and as such both sides of the argument should be presented to kids. Trouble is, they have absolutely fuck all idea what 'theory' means in a scientific context. Theory does not mean 'guess'. That the sun goes round the earth is a theory, and one that the bible also disagrees with. You won't hear that from creationists though, but if the bible is a literal document, how can you pick and choose?

Creationists try to point to supposed 'holes' in evolutionary theory, holes that have often long been filled by science and the discovery of more and more 'missing links'. In science, unlike in fundamentalist religion, if there is one problem with something you don't throw the whole thing away. A lack of evidence, in any case, would not be evidence for an opposing theory. They also neglect to mention that whilst there are some as-yet missing links for evolution, creationism is based on something that someone made up, a fucking fairy tale. With a talking snake. And a man who lived in a whale. Oh, and apparently some fella rounded up two of every animal on earth (even the really little ones) and put them on a boat to stop God drowning them. My main problem with that is how he managed to keep all the animals alive long enough for him to get them back to the boat on foot, it doesn't add up somehow. Creationists have used the Grand Canyon as evidence of the Great Flood, claiming that 5,000 feet of granite, slate and other really hard stuff was carved in a matter of days after a natural dam burst after a huge flood. Creationists are worse geologists than they are biologists.

The fans of creationism have a nasty habit of manipulation of the truth, lies of omission, taking quotations out of context and bare-faced lying. They claim Darwin didn't believe in his own theories. That's clearly complete shit. They claim Newton's second law supports creation, but omit the first line that destroys that idea. They use the words 'science' and 'supernatural' in the same sentence.

Creationism can be boiled down to this sentence: "I don't understand". Creationists are baffled as to how a world this complex, beautiful and full of cunts can have happened by chance, someone, they claim, must have made it. This is to miss the point of evolutionary theory by a distance greater than Paula Radcliffe can run before shitting herself. Natural selection is the polar opposite of chance, it is governed by very strict laws of nature. Once again, the creationist argument falls short.

One of the tricksiest, sneakiest, slipperiest things creationism fans do is do deny it's links to religion. Some never use the words 'God' and 'creationism' and instead use the words 'Intelligent Design' in order to make their dullard crackpottery sound more scientific. Don't let them fool you. It's good ol' Jesus and Co. they're supporting, and it's all about religion. No-one without faith can even begin to contemplate such a shit-eating mad theory.

The crux of their argument is that evolution and creation are competing sides in a scientific debate, and as such, should both be taught in science lessons. This is exactly the same as saying there is a historical debate as to whether the holocaust happened, and as such, both sides of the argument should be taught in history lessons. In both cases there is no such debate, and one side of the argument is made up of lunatics spouting idiocy based on nothing more than what they think.

If you choose to believe in God and creation, fine, more power to you, but you can't teach children those beliefs based on blind faith in schools. Science is falsifiable and can be tested. Faith can't, and as such is not science. Creation in schools must be confined to R.E. lessons. I don't want the next generation of British kids thinking you can just make up science.

Evolution is the law of policies: Darwin said it, Socrates endorsed it, Cuvier proved it and established it for all time in his paper on “The Survival of the Fittest.” These are illustrious names, this is a mighty doctrine: nothing can ever remove it from its firm base, nothing dissolve it, but evolution. - Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens]

Narcissism

Welcome to the first Rob Mulholland's Blog Roll, the first in a semi-regular series of ill-informed, ill-advised ramblings from the brain of an insignificant blot on the landscape of life. Each time I guilt my idle fingers into tapping the pertinent keys I will be examining a different concept, person, idea, artwork or irritant that has had an impact on my life, or the lives of others. Considering I have been vain enough to assume anyone in this already shit-filled world would be idiotic enough to waste precious seconds of the tiny slither of life they possess between vast swathes of death to sit and actually read this drivel, rather than doing more constructive and enjoyable things like attaching batteries to their genitals, today's subject will be narcissism. As you will see, the subject of the article will be way lain immediately, and the ranting will commence.

Narcissus does not fall in love with his reflectionbecause it is beautiful, but because it is his. If it were his beauty that enthralled him, he would be set free in a few years by its fading. - W.H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden

If you aren't quite self-consciously middle class enough to have picked up the Guardian's recent series of pamphlets on Greek mythology you may not be aware of the story of Narcissus, the etymological root of narcissism. He was a man who fell in love with his own reflection after seeing it in a pool of water. He knelt by the pool gazing at his own reflection so long he died of thirst. He couldn't drink from the pool, for if he was to do so, he would shatter his reflection into a thousand pieces. Here's what I imagine the smug bastard looked like:

The narcissist enjoys being looked at and not looking back. - Mason Cooley

In the modern day the narcissist is king of his own domain. The whole world is made to tell him how fucking brilliant he is because he once put his cock in his mate's pint. Legend.

The Internet is the narcissist's best friend, it gives them a pat on their back and says "Well done champ" to each and every one of them each and every day. Narcissists can upload their new pics of them being totally 'crazy' on a 'mad' night out within minutes of them stepping through the door and have their slack-jawed, spanner-faced friends gawp at them and leave insightful comments about how, omfg, that night was totally random LOLZ. Being crazy on a mad night out would entail writing an essay about Toy Story 2 on the wall of the British Library in shit, while David Ike flew past on a hippogriff made of Lego bricks, not a hundred pictures of you and your chubby faced fuckwit friends holding a drink in a plastic cup and looking slightly pissed. That's you being 'dull' on a 'dull' night out. And whilst I'm at it, unless you determined you were going to talk to that particular bloke by lining up six blokes and then rolling a dice, it was not 'random'. It was peculiar. You semi-literate, greasy-faced shits.

Narcissists can put a video on youtube of them lip-syncing to a cheesy old shitbag like Rick fucking Astley and hope someone out there gives enough of a fuck to scrawl underneath "lol, what a legend!!!!!!". Using too many exclamation marks is the first sign of absolute, irreconcilable stupidity.

Or they can write a crappy little blog about how shit everything is and hope that people think they're somehow above the rest of the prattling masses.

The Internet has become the proverbial house-share toilet, blocked with the remnants of last night's curry and taco sessions, overflowing with the slurry of human thought, the salacious service of base desires and 14 year old self-harmers arguing with 40 year old accountants about which episode of Thundercats was best.

Reality TV allows slow-witted people who whole-heartedly believe they have a talent in singing or juggling dogs to put themselves up to the scrutiny and mockery of people so self-obsessed they wouldn't bat an eyelid if Jesus Christ walked in the room to show them his magic routine.

Adverts scream at us that we're worth it, and we lap it up, all any of us want is to be reassured that we aren't just another arse-barnacle clinging on to a rock spinning round a fart God once lit as a joke.

We're all narcissists to some degree (I know I am, I'm fucking brilliant), we have to be in order to keep our insignificant minds from imploding with doubt, but there are clear levels, and far too many people have achieved the highest level of narcissism, the level I call 'Cunt'.

But what damage does it do really? Does it matter if someone loves themselves so much that they're physically incapable of holding a conversation on any topic other than themselves?

It matters if they manage to somehow gain some real power and authority (see any political figure ever), but mostly the answer is no, not really. It doesn't impact on me at all. But narcissists are happy, they will always have themselves to love, and they will never betray them, and other people being happy for such a pig-fucking stupid reason is fucking annoying, and that's what matters to me.

To bastardise a Martin Luther King quote, "A man who has not found someone they would die for is not fit to live".

I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on the matter, I know I did.

A narcissist is someone better looking than you are. - Gore Vidal