Britpop : Time For Reevaluation?

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Okay I will. I'll give Youthmovies another try too (even though that's one of the worst names for a band ever),

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:03 (seventeen years ago) link

The Beta Band were our Animal Collective, they got there first, they were better, and they died before they grew stale. :P

― unfished business, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:04 (seventeen years ago) link

and if there's one band that wanted to be GY!BE it was Hope Of The States, but they also wanted to be trendy-indie Britpop so they FAILED MISERABLY.

― unfished business, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:06 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah I can see what you mean - they're not the same band at all but they had their philosophical similarities. But what I'm saying Louis is exactly that - the Beta Band split up in, what? 1999? It shows that the UK isn't bereft of imagination but is simply being elbowed out by generic indie rock stuff which is always being held up by the NME as the "best/most important/most talked about band this year/week/day", so obviously there is a perverse power held by this magazine over a large amount of music writing in the country and so music sales reflect that.

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:09 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost to your previous AC/BB comparisoon.

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:10 (seventeen years ago) link

Although I must say I have a lot of respect for some of the more outspoken ILMers (i.e. Geir, Lex, Snrub) because despite perhaps not fitting well with the rest of the clan taste-wise, it's great fun hearing their points of view.

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:12 (seventeen years ago) link

British music is all about James Blackshaw for me at the moment. But there's plenty of "weird folk/noise bands" in the uk now.

And you can buy it all from Volcanic Tongue in Glasgow(or mail order) or have a read at Foxy Digitalis.

Anyway i never understood this "we should buy british stuff" I don't give a shit where it comes from. Being from UK/Scotland doesn't make it any better for me. Finland and New Zealand have some awesome music just now. All that matters is that it's good music. The actual bands may differ between us, but I agree with The Lex, when he says it doesn't matter where the music comes from.
It only matters to NME because if its UK bands they can get interviews easier.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:14 (seventeen years ago) link

oh and JESU piss allover most things around just now. Wheres the NME and Kerrang front covers?

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:16 (seventeen years ago) link

Funnily enough a lot of the forward thinking music is being made by guitars over in that rather large genre known as Metal.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:17 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't mind where the music comes from either, but since I live here I'd like to be able to read something that calls itself "New Musical Express" without retching up all over it. There's very little going on in the mainstream music press other than the NME (when it comes to rock/indie of course) and so they have a monopoly on what is critically acclaimed and what is ignored. This is really really stifling and it means that homegrown talent can never flourish if all that is allowed to exist are default indie rock groups.

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:19 (seventeen years ago) link

If they made The Lex editor things would change.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:20 (seventeen years ago) link

it's great fun hearing their points of view.

surely this only lasts so many years/months/minutes re Geir. such a defiant but pointless broken record most of the time. i guess it'll always seem novel if you're new to ILM tho.

― blueski, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Principally the circulation figures.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:22 (seventeen years ago) link

(xpost)

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:23 (seventeen years ago) link

oh lord, i forgot jesu. :-/

Kerr is right, metal is in many ways right at the forefront of musical innovation. *puts on The Wildhearts' Sky Babies, which sounds unbelievably fresh for 1995*

Also, The Beta Band themselves WERE NME front-page news at one point. Then they made 'The Beta Band' (i.e. they chose MUSIC not HYPE) and NME dropped 'em like a stone. They eventually passed away in 2004.

― unfished business, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:23 (seventeen years ago) link

the Beta Band split up in, what? 1999?

three years ago

― blueski, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:25 (seventeen years ago) link

aaliyah and destiny's child were nme cover stars, once.

though my attitude is no longer "nme should be putting X and Y on the front cover", more that "i hope nme ceases to exist while artists X and Y take over the world without it"

― lex pretend, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:25 (seventeen years ago) link

a) which innovative metal bands are British again?

b) how is it innovative?

― blueski, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:26 (seventeen years ago) link

those are genuine questions out of curiosity btw

― blueski, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:26 (seventeen years ago) link

I remember the Melody Maker letters page when 2 Unlimited were on the cover.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:27 (seventeen years ago) link

I wrote the bloody Melody Maker letters page when 2 Unlimited were on the cover!

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:29 (seventeen years ago) link

I knew they weren't real people writing in.

― blueski, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:31 (seventeen years ago) link

How many were from geir?

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:40 (seventeen years ago) link

a) which innovative metal bands are British again?

DJ Martian to thread!

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:41 (seventeen years ago) link

good questions, blueski. i thought the majority of decent metal bands were American or European no?

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:43 (seventeen years ago) link

I never said they were british.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:44 (seventeen years ago) link

Well yeah, I'm not denying the existence of innovation in Metal, Dance, or even US Alternative stuff, just the UK indie and rock scene in general

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:46 (seventeen years ago) link

Just the NME :)

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:48 (seventeen years ago) link

I was trying to think of some genuinely decent forward-thinking and innovative guitar-based music from the UK in the last 5 years and was very hard pushed

Since the mid 80s, the best music has never been neither innovative nor forward thinking. However, there are still great tunes, with great verses, great choruses, great bridges, great middle-eights. At least in music that isn't "innovative". And that is a lot more important.

― Geir Hongro, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:48 (seventeen years ago) link

― djmartian, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:56 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm trying to think if there was ever a time when American bands were ever so unabashedly jingoistic as their Britpop brothers.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:57 (seventeen years ago) link

http://bluestormmusic.com/store/images/grandfunk-wereanamerican.jpg

― Tom D., Friday, 9 March 2007 13:59 (seventeen years ago) link

X-post
Bato isn't in a band.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 14:05 (seventeen years ago) link

actually in terms of innovation British metal in the 00s has been lacking, however these are amongst the elite

Akercocke
Anaal Nathrakh
Axis of Perdition
Earthtone 9
Esoteric
Frost [half brits half norsk]

so how are they innovating?

does it work like 4/4 dance music where the big progression this decade has been on increased sense of space and depth, technical intricacy beyond the 'surfaces' of tracks, minimal-complex etc. - are these same ideas being applied to Metal by these bands? or something else?

― blueski, Friday, 9 March 2007 14:19 (seventeen years ago) link

To be honest most of the time I don't really notice where a bands from. Perhaps that's because I cant always find interviews (apart from maybe Rockarolla) so i have no idea where they are from.

Some good brit bands/acts around just now ...hmmm
Jesu
Holy McGrail
Atavist
Skullflower
Ashtray Navigations
James Blackshaw
The Heads
Electric Wizard
Moss
Sickoakes

I haven't heard The Lords or Crippled Black Phoenix albums yet so I can't judge them.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 14:20 (seventeen years ago) link

"oh and JESU piss allover most things around just now. Wheres the NME and Kerrang front covers?"

http://a420.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/40/m_82070278bb95f67298a9618760e3399b.gif

― scott seward, Friday, 9 March 2007 14:21 (seventeen years ago) link

my analysis of British (& some Irish) from the recent past. Overall British music in recent times has been lacking in numbers i.e quantity of quality in terms of talent.
.
What may be the contributing factors?

the post Peel era of a more conservative Radio 1
Xfm generic rubbish / with a very conservative format
6 Music completely underperforming with dull radio programming ruled on behalf of pluggers
Useless established print media and no effective and different weekly competition for NME and Kerrang
Increasing fragmentation of self contained music scenes
No interesting music on mainstream TV, e.g another snoring boring series of the jools holland show

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/djmartian/mercury_music_prize_2006

Some Eligible Albums for the Mercury Music Prize 2006. i.e British or Irish Artists who released an album between July 25th 2005 and July 17th 2006.

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/djmartian/mercury_music_prize_2005

Some Eligible Albums for the Mercury Music Prize 2005. i.e British or Irish Artists who released an album between July 26th 2004 and July 18th 2005.

― djmartian, Friday, 9 March 2007 14:22 (seventeen years ago) link

How does Justin Broadrick look so young*? He's been around forever?

* He is young
Well, under 40 anyway.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 14:31 (seventeen years ago) link

another slant, Norway has a population of under 5 Million, 12 times smaller than the UK - and is punching way above it's comparative size in a wide range of music genres.

as demonstrated by their national music promotion portal

MIC Norway
http://www.mic.no/english

Why is Norway performing so well culturally in the 00s?
Why are their musicians willing to be more creative?
Does a smaller country facilitate music to thrive more easily compared to other larger European countries?

― djmartian, Friday, 9 March 2007 14:54 (seventeen years ago) link

the next grozart OTM

I moan about Pitchfork too, but IRL that message, that the US (not to forget other places but particularly w/r/t US indie vs UK indie) wipes the floor with most of our (Britishes) efforts is v.much what I've been expressing to my friends for, years now.

And yeah, the Klaxons embodying the sudden appearance of "omg thinking outside THE RULES fisher price my first experimental pop/rock band" as some kind of belated antidote/apology for the last half decade of dour, dopey conservative mediocrity is just tragic when something like that Marnie Stern album just absolutely FLATTENS teh Klaxons for excitement, freshness and pure giddy RAWK fun.

I don't care for almost ANY of Louis suggestions sadly :( (not even Beta Band and esp. not SFA ugh).

― fandango, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Because of Geir!

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:03 (seventeen years ago) link

the nebulous post-electroclash/post-DFA/Ed Banger/Indieclash thing suddenly getting "New Rave" as a nom de plume, just in case it was in any danger of going somewhere interesting, less retro, more creative is ... kind of irritating.

― fandango, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:08 (seventeen years ago) link

Guys, this is moaning and self-pity is bullshit, and gets on my nerves. In the USA Nickelback sold 5 million records, not the Animal Collective or Joanna Newsom. There are dozens of good artists in the UK who are actually not generic indie, from Patrick Wolf to Electrelane and so on. Lock this thread, please.

― zeus, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:15 (seventeen years ago) link

This has probably been true for the last 20 years. [/yankophile]

Don't really agree with this either. The nineties were an exceptional time for UK pop music and as far as the more challenging stuff is concerned, the UK has led the way in many other styles up until about five years ago what with Warp Records etc.

the next grozart on Friday, 9 March 2007 13:00 (1 hour ago)

The original quote referred specifically to the indie scene, rather than music in general, so pop music isn't relevant. I wasn't saying there hasn't been both fantastic and challenging music from the UK, of course there has been, but I still feel we don't really compare with the US, BUT that is from the viewpoint of my personal music taste. Maybe I should have said the last 10 years. Certainly I think you have to dig a lot deeper since BritPop to find stuff that doesn't suck. I suppose I blame BritPop for ruining "indie" and haven't forgiven it! I know during the BritPop Years 95-97 I pretty much gave up on UK indie.

― Colonel Poo, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:15 (seventeen years ago) link

If it hadn't been for the internet and finding about music from other countries that weren't covered by the uk press, I would've been either stuck in mojo land or out of music completely after exhausting krautrock and "lost classics".

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:17 (seventeen years ago) link

Shame we can't add a poll to this thread "Did britpop kill UK Indie?"

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:18 (seventeen years ago) link

There are dozens of good artists in the UK who are actually not generic indie, from Patrick Wolf to Electrelane and so on.

zeus

selling absolutely fuck all, even compared to Joanna Newsom, I'd wager?

― fandango, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Well, the Patrick Wolf album is actually almost in the Top 40.

― zeus, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:24 (seventeen years ago) link

ok, I lose :/

― fandango, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:29 (seventeen years ago) link

current albums sold in the UK outside the top 40, by artists that haven't previously had a top 40 chart album

6 Music chart
http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/chart/chart_page.shtml

― djmartian, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:29 (seventeen years ago) link

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