Comments on Obsolete: Very long music rant with Mercury prize moan at the end.

the only good music today is american or canadian,...

2010-07-25T16:49:00.316+01:00

the only good music today is american or canadian, but it's progress that the music is now all a lot cheaper. my god, i can remember paying £12.99 for OK Computer...

The Mercury Prize is a bit like the Oscars really ...

2010-07-22T22:24:02.656+01:00

The Mercury Prize is a bit like the Oscars really - both claim to honour the best British/Irish album or the best film of the year, but really it means the best within certain pre-set parameters (so if you're a comedy or animated film or you're an act like These New Puritans or Four Tet, forget about it). To be honest, the Mercury Prize goes to debut albums so often now (only three non-debuts have won since Pulp in 1996 I think), they might be better off making it a debut album prize. Still wouldn't help Four Tet et al admittedly.

That said, I still take a bizarre fascination with the Mercury, just like I do with the Oscars. I'm a hopeless case.

Well bugger me. Just assumed as he lives out in B...

2010-07-22T21:02:23.811+01:00

Well bugger me. Just assumed as he lives out in Berlin that he was German; name maybe should have tipped me off, eh? I love Triangulation so much I'd probably put it above Hidden in what ought to have been on the shortlist.

I don't disagree with both of your points, the charts always have been full of crap, it's more that at least before it was a more diverse load of crap. I had the misfortune a couple of weeks back of being around when someone put a recent NOW CD on, and maybe I'm just getting old and listening to too much dubstep at incredibly loud volumes is damaging my hearing, but every single goddamn track sounded almost exactly the same. Ten years ago it would have been just as dire, but it would have had pop, a couple of landfill indie acts and some of the mainstream trance radio edits on it. Now it's this soul-destroying electro-cack which is fine when La Roux or Little Boots do it, and unbelievably naff when everyone else does. The Pussycat Dolls track on it alone could have been used as far more abrasive music to torture to than anything the Americans blasted at their charges in Guantanamo and Bagram.

What really, really gets me is that the likes of Florence etc are just one step above the X Factor winners, who are themselves just one step above those who Simon and co decide to humiliate and castigate for the nation's viewing pleasure for even daring to believe that they could sing in tune or follow in the footsteps of such success stories as Steve Brookstein or Chico, a delusion which they first have to perpetuate in order to persuade anyone in the first place to show up for the auditions. And the truth of it is, they aren't really much worse than those who have gone on to win; we've essentially elevated to an artform the karaoke night down the pub, and told those who are better at it than others that they're superstars and the most perfect, admirable and venerable human to have ever been excreted onto the surface of the planet. It's no wonder then when it's seemingly a choice between Alexander Burke, Leona Lewis or Florence, the Kings of Leon and Lily Allen that the mass media decide to back complete mediocrities over and above cabaret acts. And let's not just pretend that it's these nobodies with an tin ear on Radio 1 and 2 that do it, the sainted Lauren Laverne, who used to be in average band herself, and whose popularity I can't even begin to fathom who's one of the worst culprits, going on alarming a couple of years back about how wonderful Amy Winehouse had been during her headline set at Glastonbury, the same set in which she was so drunk that she couldn't sing a note and punched a fan for supposedly trying to feel her up. Mark Radcliffe stood at the side and just looked bemused.

Also the point about OK Computer was not necessarily my view, I'm one of the few that still finds much of the equally hyperbolic praise for them to be wildly over the top. Definitely their finest work, but still. My favourite album of the 90s and indeed ever is the Holy Bible by the Manics, which wasn't so much as even nominated for the Mercury back in 1994.

Paul Rose isn't German, he's from Crouch E...

2010-07-22T20:05:53.232+01:00

Paul Rose isn't German, he's from Crouch End!

That aside: all of the above is true, but why let it bother you? All of the mainstream music outlets, from the big record companies to the major radio stations are thrashing around like dinosaurs in a tarpit. At the same time, it's easier to find, share and even watch great music than it's ever been before. From raiding friends' spotify playlists, to bittorrent, to the endless series of great mix podcasts, to MP3 blogs, to even some of the rubbish you post, I hear great new records every day. And since all of those routes net the artists about 4p, the good ones tour constantly which mean we can see them too.

Like planeshift says, the mainstream has always been dominated by hysteria over mediocrity: there's always been people, from critics to DJs, who are willing to pour exuberant praise over any artist which can achieve a certain level of commercial super-success. There are just more and more ways for good music to slip through the net and into my ears.

Frankly I think you've gone past of the point ...

2010-07-22T11:15:50.081+01:00

Frankly I think you've gone past of the point of needing to give a shit about the mainstream music, awards and the bands who headline festivals.

I don't buy this glory days era, the music industry has always promoted mediocrity and blandness ("Ok computer one of the best albums of the 90s? ), and radio stations have always promoted bands who've been lucky to have managers prepared to sleep with playlist controllers over letting djs discover new music. (With the exception of Peel of course - we're never going to have another radio 1 dj playing grindcore or death metal again).

Perhaps take the example of Anathema - I defy anyone to say that any of their last 5 albums wouldn't - with radio airplay and decent marketing - have sold shitloads of albums to the sort of people who bought coldplay, stereophonics etc as well as the indie enthusiasts. But because they started out as a death doom band and toured with Cradle of filth they get labeled and placed in the "metal" section, despite not playing it for over a decade, and remain only playing to the supposedly closed minded extreme metal scene. It’s just lazy classification, when the most interesting music is always the difficult to classify stuff anyway.

My advice is to forget about the industry, the radio playlists etc, and just stick to finding stuff for you.

To paraphrase your Orwell quote - in times of univ...

2010-07-22T10:55:47.026+01:00

To paraphrase your Orwell quote - in times of universal mediocrity, difference becomes a revolutionary act.

And revolution is a risky business strategy.

The Drums has been getting heavy play on my system...

2010-07-22T10:28:08.152+01:00

The Drums has been getting heavy play on my system, I think of them as Duran Duran meets Joy Division.

I agree that grime presents itself badly when its just diss tracks over excellent beats; when in reality the spitting could occur over any track because it never engages with the music, merely skims over the top.

At least in old school and Golden Age rap, they interacted with the tracks underneath.

It has some gifted people though, D Double E of Newham Generals is grand as you said, Shifty from Manchester and Wariko from my home town of Notts also.

The Drums are rather fine, if the kind of band I g...

2010-07-22T02:53:45.652+01:00

The Drums are rather fine, if the kind of band I get the feeling will probably make one album and then wither away. The other two I haven't had the pleasure of and will have to check out.

I don't blame the grime MCs for realising what they had to do to get success, it's just a complete shame that we couldn't embrace them before they had to go that far. Then again, the genre tends to be dark and impenetrable, and the pirate radio shows don't really help with that; I often catch the end of the Roll Deep show on Rinse before Oneman starts on a Sunday night, and when all they essentially do is continually spit the same, often not very inspired verses every ten minutes, completely drowning out the often far superior music beneath them I don't blame anyone for not giving it a chance when it's presented in that form. I do like the new D Double bits, although as good as he is on them he's again helped by great production, Woo Riddim and the Street Fighter instrumental are as good as much of the dubstep out there. Skream's remix of P Money's Left the Room, despite being somewhat tear-out is excellent too. I always catch Ellijah and Skilliam when they're on Rinse now as well, loving the stuff they push and picked up the Terror Danjah 12" they released on their label; got his Power Grid EP on Planet Mu while I was at it as well.

Nice rant. I don't agree with all of it but it...

2010-07-21T13:52:29.138+01:00

Nice rant. I don't agree with all of it but it's nice to see a politcal blogger immersing himself in his passion for music.

I saw Florence and the Machine almost a year ago to the day. They were supporting Duran Duran(Don't laugh. They were fecking excellent)at their Edinburgh Castle gig. I didn't much like their music but I felt sorry for them because it bucketed down with rain for the duration of their performance. The rain ceased and the sun lashed out once the Duran boys commenced their set. I wonder if you were in charge of god's rain tap.

As for the Mercury Music Prize nominations, I too would have liked to have seen the TNP album on the list but also the Yeasayer one.

Sound post, agree with most of it, disagree with s...

2010-07-21T12:46:13.215+01:00

Sound post, agree with most of it, disagree with some of it.

I'm a hardcopy man through and through and as much room as my library of CDs takes up, I don't care. If thy ever stopped being made I'd be utterly gutted, I hope not.

As for innovation, I suppose that I never see that as the mainstream's job, there is plenty of innovation in (not an exclusive list) heavy metal and grime and hip hop and some great guitar bands out there pushing some boundaries.

But by there very nature there home is the fringes.

I concur with your assessment of FTM clatter and Lily Allen's vomit but really liked Speech Debelle's LP, heart on a sleeve record, which is often lacking, although I'm not a fan of the Mercury Prize anyway.

I hope Laura Marling wins out of the list (which is really poor list) but not sure if this LP is better than her first, maybe it is.

I read your stuff on Dizzee nodding vigorously, it breaks my heart that all the talent from the grime scene gets bum-raped by the industry, or am I putting too much weight on the industry and not enough the artists failure to keep doing what got them there? Chipmunk, who is one of the most skilled rappers we've produced ever, has been turned into an object d'art, it is cruel and disgusting.

I could talk about music all day long sir, may I recommend a couple of guitar based bands for your enjoyment:

BLK JKS
Let's Wrestle
The Drums

An Indian friend of mine once told me that if you ...

2010-07-21T09:39:36.000+01:00

An Indian friend of mine once told me that if you wanted to know if an Indian takeaway was any good, the trick was to let it get cold - if the flavours were still there, it was good cooking. I've never tried this - seems like an expensive way of courting disappointment - but I was reminded of it by Florence Welch's "singing". She's got some vocal power - when she's belting it out, she sounds like a decent singer belting it out. But if you listen to the way she sings in quieter moments - or for that matter in straight rock numbers like "A kiss with a fist" - there's basically nothing there. She's a good yeller, basically. And Lily Allen is just as good a songwriter as she is a singer.

Glad to hear there's some good new stuff out there, although TNP didn't do much for me - great ominous beats, but I couldn't take the quiet bits seriously.