Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

it's such a stupid question, like if it were going to happen or if it did happen it would be anything other than some lazy junior person fucking up

easier to ask than 'why wouldn't david cameron like your boutique alternative rock?'

Bit like the annual, always amusing Tory Party Conference sideshow of Bobby Gillespie going mental at 'Rocks' having been played somewhere before realising it was actually a song by the Dandy Warhols.

it's such a stupid question, like if it were going to happen or if it did happen it would be anything other than some lazy junior person fucking up

aren't there so many "events" during a campaign that anything could end up being used?

yeah conceivably, but it wouldn't be like george osborne and grant shapps sat around deciding which high and dry b-side would best accompany an announcement about benefit freezes

yeah, agreed. think i read years ago about norman cook hearing somebody playing his track at a tory event in a shopping centre, and asking them to turn it off. is it even illegal?

I believe they give that job to Danny Alexander.

"I can't say I love the idea of a banker liking our music"

this is even more risible imo

what if his music makes the banker feel really guilty?

what if it is a good banker

not an evil one

Lethal Bizzle actually goes round Dalston every Saturday night asking Guardian-reading 20-something lefties to stop playing 'Pow!'.

tbf, it's pretty insulting for the rich to steal alternative rock from the poor, given it's such a core part of their culture.

hopefully he checks if anybody's a banker at their gigs and then throws them out

Inigo Bowen-Huntley, 43, from Henley-Upon-Thames, reflects the growing trend of Mayfair fund managers listening to adult alternative music. "After a hard day selling off distressed agricultural asssets to idiots in Zurich, you don't want to come home and listen to Vatican Shadow or, heaven forfend, Bish Bosch. Radiohead allow me to experience progressive sonics and coruscating beats but with an accessible, wry and relevant lyrical dimension which speaks directly to our time."

Trans protest outside my workplace 4.30 today... should cause a bit of a stir, I'm sure

Yet we're all right behind artistes who tell US Republican candidates not to use their tracks. I'm sympathetic to any performer who doesn't want their music used by politicians whose policies clash with their own political beliefs (IP laws make it their prerogative).

In fairness, Thom Yorke does say "who cares?" about the banker thing. I think we're all basically in agreement that it's a pretty shitty thing to happen to your work. Thom does sound kind of prissy about it and it's a dumb softball question in the first place, as if he was going to suddenly go "actually I think our welfare system does encourage dependency, cut benefits and make work pay!"

even to conceptualise evil as "a banker" seems pretty dense, i mean for someone who people would regard as intelligent.

Not sure the conceptualisation of evil is really what's going on here.

well, either way. to even say "a banker" as some byword for negativity, as he clearly does.

I don't want to live in a world where we can't just lazily refer to all bankers as cunts.

Might as well have let the Russians win.

fairly dubious what the definition of a banker is imo. plenty of other careers whereby people earn shedloads of cash.

Should have asked him about Leighton Baines for the lolz.

surely Baines doesn't like them, they use synths

file under "fucking student rubbish" in the library of baines

I went past the trans protest earlier. It was pretty small, but then it was freezing.

freezing my nuts off

Hilarious when musicians complain about this...that a piece of music can sound palatable to people who don't share your politics is actually a positive thing.

Unsurprised Yorke doesn't see it.

Don't get "is actually a positive thing."

His quote in any case was "Who cares?"

Funny "bankers are like you and me" talk above too.

Where's the pinefox?

Funny "bankers are like you and me" talk above too.

there was no such talk, don't misinterpret.

and the quote wasn't "who cares" - it was "I can't say I love the idea of a banker liking our music, or David Cameron," the singer told Dazed & Confused. "I can't believe he'd like [2011's] King of Limbs much. But I also equally think, who cares?"

The "who cares" could also mean "who cares?... As long as he doesn't use our music etc etc"

non-story really

What is your opinion of bankers then?

It is a non-story. But there's a pretty obvious difference between "not wanting this person I disagree with liking my music" (pretty childish) and "not wanting my music used in the active promotion of something I disagree with" (pretty reasonable).

What is your opinion of bankers then?

don't know any. don't see why the profession is repeatedly singled out as the root of all evil when there are plenty of bastard power-mongers in many industries that could be singled out in kind. it's not that i'm defending them per se, it's just a lazy short-hand.

and yeah it is a non-story, kind of the point really.

I know a few. Nice individuals: the problem is their group behaviour and the way it affects the rest of us.

that's humanity's problem

Yeah I mean arms dealers and people who run private militias and what have you are almost certainly worse human beings and on that even Thom Yorke would agree but those guys didn't cause a global financial crisis that's impoverished millions of people and for which no one has yet been bought to account. Pretty sure Yorke wasn't crazy about bankers before the crash but, y'know, there are legitimate reasons why people fucking hate them.

there are legitimate reasons to hate them - but the word "bankers" has also just become something people say in anger, rather than use as part of an actual political argument.

only okay to hate them if you are up for armed insurrection imo

"bankers" is pretty much what "fat cats" was a few years back now

and yeah it is a non-story

tbh, my 'non-story really' post was a direct copy and paste of your post re: the Suarez story, but this is a bit of a non-story.

i know it was! that's why i agreed with it.

6. Jesus and Mary Chain – Just Like Honey

A band that have been around since 1983, split in the late 90s but are back together and still touring. Be sure to check out their distortion-laden Upside Down as well.

7. Lush – Sweetness and Light

One of the most prominent shoegaze bands of the early 90s. This song has all the classic hall markings of the genre: ethereal vocals, distortion breakdown and shimmering, layered guitars.

Nrrrgh that shoegaze story was so limply done. The Horrors, ffs.

This song has all the classic hall markings of the genre: ethereal vocals, distortion breakdown, shimmering, layered guitars, dead drummer