the landfill that time forgot: crap uk bands of 00s/10s

note :
my blocking s/w stopped me from seeing most of the list ..
i got about 20 in and then the number left to view went down with each album.
so, i have no idea re the late entries ..

Oh, I had this too. That was why I thought the numbering was meaningless, it would show me non-consecutive numbers and finally crapped out after about 24.

Now wading through the other half without ad-blocking, and that's a lot of ads.

bloody hell .. switched off add blocking ..
that is one seriously painful website to look at.
ok - the rest of the list - truly dreadful (though i still have a soft spot for the clor album).
love how the whole premise of the listicle is that this is supposed to be about decent bands of the era, and yet, in many of the blurbs they slag the band off.
even they cant keep up the pretence.

I grew up listening to a lot of compilations, and things like "forgotten Nuggets of the 60s" which would be 10 utterly shit tracks, a couple of quite good ones and one so amazing it made the whole rest of the album worthwhile. (And if you were smart, you'd make a C90 of the various amazing ones from other comps.)

So when I see a list of 50 random bands - and especially if I see people I know from other ILX threads, and whose tastes I generally trust, coming along and saying "actually X had this really good single" and "Y doesn't belong on this list!" - especially if I see 3 or 4 people in a row name the same bands. You know, I trust their opinion that that one band might be really really good more than I trust some cynic who can't even bother checking because they have already pre-decided that everything is shit.

So still: Arturo were really good, and Long Blondes really really do not fucking belong on this list.

My cynicism is born of hard-won experience of bothering to check things out

Lol ok it isn't really

This was an era/genre of music that I was by-and-large repelled by at the time, but TBF I would probably listen to an ILM-compiled 'best of' this list.

one for the rock stars who went back work. thread

http://www.sunderlandecho.com/what-s-on/gigs-music/the-futureheads-s-barry-hyde-swaps-music-for-cooking-as-he-trains-to-be-a-chef-in-sunderland-1-6251329

does this signal the first wave of landfill revivalism?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GuUbziASwE

Some excellent bile from Noodle Vague near the start of this thread.

tsk, so much wasted hostility

that Struts video is...something

The Struts aren't really landfill indie. They look more like the town dumbos - harmless, energetic, hoovering up the local lassies. I love it. It would be mean to criticise their music. If I could go back again, I would seriously consider doing exactly what they're doing. The difference, then and now, I guess, is that they didn't "seriously consider" anything. I am jealous as hell.

THE SWAGGER are an original 4 piece indie, alternative, Grit-rock band straight out of North London like a Loaded Gun. Originally formed in March 2012, the band are made up of two brothers Lee Stevens (Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitar) Paul Stevens (Lead Guitar, Backing Vocals) Will O’Connell (Bass Guitar) Roger Malaquias (Drums)

The band released a 4 track demo EP penned “Carnaby’s Treat” back in early January 2013 and has caused a stir gigging around the U.K and have played some very good venues and supported some really great bands along the way. Their songs are very catchy, melodic with a modern punk rock attitude. The band have plans to release their double A-Side Single with 2 videos to follow and are hoping for a release early 2015 and are ready to set the world on fire. “The band are tipped for success”

Sounds Like: The Jam, Oasis, The Who, The Kinks, The Beatles

http://www.facebook.com/theswaggerofficial

http://www.facebook.com/theswaggerofficial/photos/a.709383435794020.1073741836.174206435978392/709796109086086/?type=1&permPage=1

Roger Malaquias (Drums) sounds rather incongruous

“The band are tipped for success” [citation needed]

xp classic landfill flourish imo, even stereophonics had their exotic spanish drummer

Grit-rock band straight out of North London like a Loaded Gun..... modern punk rock attitude. Carnaby’s Treat gedditt! I want to play submissive twister with these guys.

now that i've clicked the photo link i admit that is not what i expected

this photo from the facebook page is pretty cute:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t1.0-9/10488051_709481265784237_8718307986577346365_n.jpg

ok, I really like their song 'Carnaby Street' from their soundcloud page, it sounds a bit like Television Personalities

The song Carnaby Street sounds nothing like Television Personalities and is kind of awful but I don't think this thread should be used for mocking well-meaning blokes just doing what they do in front of some kids, much as student newspaper stuff doesn't fit in the Worst Music Writing thread.

Not even when they're called The Swagger.

Hmm I don't mind, I'm a very mean person, and yeah "The Swagger" is asking for it... but I know so many sad old people like this. I feel so soft.

bands least entitled to their name

but this would have made a much better guilty pleasures thread

The modern godfathers of this are probably Biffy Clyro, the Scottish trio who've sold over a million albums and 400,000 UK singles to a fanbase that has remained staunchly loyal to them and their anthemic, post-hardcore Simple Minds sound. Having formed in 1995, they seem to have existed at the fringes of British popular music for as long as I can remember, yet their fans seem to comprise a strange, silent majority. Much like film critic Pauline Kael, who was ridiculed for the metropolitan ignorance of her (widely misquoted) statement: "I can't believe Nixon won. I've never met anyone who voted for him," I've never knowingly met any Biffy Clyro fans, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there.

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/understanding-the-phenomenon-of-royal-blood

I've met them, they're my kids

http://www.nme.com/news/the-enemy/79681

"Clarke's Twitter rant has already garnered support from fellow indie musician Matt Bowman from The Pigeon Detectives. He sent Clarke a message stating: "If I add all my pounds to your pounds for every time they mention my curly hair in a negative tone.. we could buy a tank!"

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s9g38b

Thing is, though I've got no interest whatsoever in this guy's band, I agree with him. And there is often a complete lack of professional respect between people ostensibly in the same industry (and of professionalism generally, from both musicians and journalists and industry people, etc etc, probably because of the mythos around the industry and 'talent' in general).

Yeah, I read that and it did give me pause. (Especially given I've just been really mean about one musician's appearance on ILM already today, ha.)

Like, coming in for knocks and scrutiny of your appearance does just seem to be part and parcel of being a person that gets up on stage before others. But there is a line over which it stops being just knocks and starts being bullying. (Though magically that line appears to be in different places depending on a persons gender or race!)

The underlying issue he touches on, though, is the general meanness and football-match competitive nastiness that the British music press in specific encourages and thrives on. The old Build 'Em Up Knock 'Em Down school. Which... y'know, they do forget that these are human beings under it. And one does get the sense that musicians are just thrown out there and told to get on with it, with no actual thought as to psychological protection, or how people get damaged.

I mean, there's no one who's not been in the music industry for more than 20 seconds who hasn't been told DO NOT READ YOUR PRESS. But social media and twitter and the like means that you really don't have to read your press in order for the vicious parts of it to come to you.

There's not really any sense that musicians are 'employees' of record labels, as a punter. How do contracts work? Is there any analogue between being signed to a label and working full time for a.n.other company in a professional capacity? Or is it more like freelancing? I guess even if there was, that doesn't cover loads of musicians self-releasing, etc, or give them any protection from the press, fans, etc etc.

It's a weird territory, not one I've particularly considered before. I guess I manage people now at work, and Em does too, so we've started talking about HR type things, and the music industry, once again, just seems fucking insane.

Depends on the label, depends on the contract, it really runs the gamut.

Some people I've known who work for labels, the A&R people used to end up literally becoming babysitters for incredibly damaged artists. But in the reshaping of the music industry, seems like those are the people whose jobs have gone first. And there's always this nebulous ambiguity as to whether people from a record label are actually on an artist's "side" or just trying to sell a product.

Seems it's more the job of a manager (or the much derided role of PR or publicist) whose job it is to protect musicians from shit like this. But I think mostly, there's just an idea that you have to be tough-skinned to survive, and if you're not tough-skinned, you're not really cut out for the role.

(I mean, it's always a dance with artists, that tension of being sensitive enough to produce good art, and yet tough-skinned enough to not care about critics.)

It's not going to stop being mean about Paul Banks, though. ;-)

Can't believe he had to google 'orc'

The fuck is a Hobbit jar?

Out of all the shit bands, I've always found something appealing in The Enemy (see this thread, in which to my eternal shame I described them as "repulsive midgets in tracksuits" but this was seven years ago so forgive me Tom). This is a nicely written response to the haters. It's got that calm Primo Levi righteousness about it.

speaking as a not-tall person, am interested in how tall he actually is I will say that. a brief google has a wholly unverifiable source listing him as 5'9" which iirc is the precise average height of an adult UK male

The Enemy thing I just linked to is interesting to me cos I have a song with the lyrics "You're not a rebel, you're a whore" (terrible I know!) and it is amazing to me that it came from mishearing The Enemy!

http://i.imgur.com/9EK3K0F.jpg

how many of these bands are still going?

also i forgot to post this link to a good article. Johnny Borrell surprisingly self-aware

http://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/blog/landfill-indie-johnny-borrell-razorlight-the-strokes-kooks-definitive-history

Futureheads still going, for one

http://www.thedrum.com/news/2016/04/05/bupa-uk-teams-futureheads-launch-body-band-digital-campaign

Still Thinking About You is the fourth studio album by the English band Scouting for Girls. It was released in the United Kingdom on 16 October 2015. The album includes the new singles "Life's Too Short" & "Christmas in the Air Tonight" .[1]

doing this kind of thing ten years into your career somehow feels monumentally worse than merely releasing a terrible first album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dqbum7BMp78

amazed to discover that the Wombats released an album that got to #5 in the charts last year

fucking hell

The Wombats seem to be kind of massive on the sly. Their last album went to 91 in the states, somehow

Up next: Little Man Tate's Meltdown