Here’s a half baked sideline if ever there was one.
Is loyalty to bands a thing of the past? I was going to review the Arctic Monkeys new album but I got so bored with it I gave up. Now the question is will ‘the kids of today’ with their total immersion contact systems give up on their spokesman for a generation even before buying the album?
Everything else appears to be disposable so why not your favourite band?
Back in the good old days you had to pick at least one band and stick by them. Hell I’m off to see SLF and The Jam next month and I’m sure they must have had one bad album in that time. It does raise the question of where do you draw the line and has the line moved somewhat with the constant promotion of new is best to feed the marketing machines?
Eddie Van Halen
Let’s say one of us had been into Van Halen, would you draw the line at gold spandex pants or would you stick with them? How many times do you need to see Paul Weller be a miserable git before deciding you can have more fun in a pub with £25. Even when obvious things hit you, it becomes a conscious decision to move on…my last one was Morrissey after the latest weak effort I thought ‘that’s it I don’t care’ ….including the Smiths about 12 albums in. I suspect it may not be the case for the newer bands………..anyone admitting to liking Razorlight?
For the record, Cornerstone and Cry Lightning are OK but even the CD Cover is dull
dull
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Thanks, that was a plucky effort at creative writing from a scientist......oh
ReplyDeleteI think that you can have enough of a band, its not like a football team or a favourite pair of jeans. I've just about given up on Weller, which is something that at one stage I would never have thought possible.
ReplyDeleteThing is, he has served his purpose. He has written all the decent songs that he is ever going to (I'd love to be wrong, but I doubt it). If he doesnt want to sing them anymore or if he makes me listen to ten new ones for every classic then I can live without him.
Sometimes bands do have a shelf life. Oasis are a pretty good example. 2 great albums and then 14 years or so putting out substandard copies, all of which they talk up as their best for a while but a couple of years later admit that it wasnt all that clever after all.
Staying with Oasis, Noel wont be missed. One more session musician behind Liam wont make any difference apart from it might cut down the number of new songs, which is no bad thing.
See I'm not sure the football team thing applies anymore either......there seems to be far more swopping around than in the old days.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the shelf life timescale is getting less these days inline with some Govt initiative to understand the kids. Maybe all recent British bands are just rubbish and can't write 3 albums worth of good stuff to generate loyalty.
I suspect that if Weller got back with the other two to write a Jam album, there would be loads of old boys and girls in the queue with skinny ties on ready to buy it. But maybe not in their favourite old jeans anymore.
I just can't think of any recent British band (last 5 years) that has retained that sort of following.
On second viewing that Van Halen thing is just wrong
Ah, Van Halen. Now there was a band.
ReplyDeleteThat was them at the US Festival. They went into the Guiness Book Of Records for that performance as it was the then record amount paid for a band to appear in concert. They were also apparently off their faces and the concert footage had to be heavily edited.
Ass-less chaps! It was of its time.
Van halen are a good example of what you are talking about. Between 1978 and 1984 they released 6 classic rock albums and Eddie Van Halen also played the guitar solo on Beat It. They then got rid of David Lee Roth and suffered two decades of mediocrity and various addictions (as an aside: Eddie Van Halen got mouth cancer...but not from being an alcoholic or his 60 cigs a day habit. Oh no. He said it was due to electronic signals running through his studio. He reckons he got rid of the cancer with crack cocaine (I kid you not). He's now on the wagon and plays golf).
Van Halen actually reunited with Roth for a pension plan US tour last year. I was tempted to go see them for a short while, but memories are best left as they are. They are also threatening a new album, which I don't think is a particularly good idea either.
That's fantastic detail, not quite as good as the high jump girl pictures but brilliant never the less. I think it actually proves the point, without loyalty you would never know all this shit. And I bet you would buy the album.oh and go to see them on a Sunday night at Glastonbury.
ReplyDeleteAs resident Shoegazer, I am so unexcited by the music of Arctic Monkeys as to be rendered incapable of positive thought about them. If Alex Turner wants to grow his hair long and alienate fans of the band then I already find them slightly more interesting than the level within me so far generated by the sub-Libertines dirge they have served up so far..
ReplyDeleteThat's what a first post should be like, happy jolly and wishy washy....result
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