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.