arctic monkeys: number 1 in the midweek charts.

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why dont you all just shutup

― terry, Wednesday, 19 October 2005 11:50 (eighteen years ago) link

yes, people should stop talking about them.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 12:29 (eighteen years ago) link

wasn't it useful that the internet buzz over the arctic monkeys started on the libertines message board?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 12:34 (eighteen years ago) link

I dont know if started there....but of course it was useful

so what?

― Lovelace (Lovelace), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 13:13 (eighteen years ago) link

Just how powerful is an indie label's street team that it can sell out tours before the band have had a record out - months, in fact, before the label has actually signed them? Hype only works when publicity outstrips actual access to material but anyone with P2P can have 20+ Arctic Monkeys songs in minutes because they made them all freely available on their website. If there's a buzz it's just because people like the songs. How on earth can this be phony hype?

― Dorian Lynskey, Wednesday, 19 October 2005 13:30 (eighteen years ago) link

Tough call for the street team. One the one hand they want to proclaim their success, adding "As successfully utilised by the Arctic Monkeys", and yet on the other have to go round various internet boards saying "this is something that was started by the fans. "

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 13:33 (eighteen years ago) link

BECAUSE THIS IS ILM AND PRINCESS DIANA ISN'T EVEN ACTUALLY DEAD.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 13:33 (eighteen years ago) link

this thread only has kaisers=space to show for itself. bad thread, naughty thread, in your bed

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 13:40 (eighteen years ago) link

Lynskey, the Arctic Monkeys, as well you know, are not signed to an indie label.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 20 October 2005 04:57 (eighteen years ago) link

quick, someone tell Hood

― vacuum cleaner (electricsound), Thursday, 20 October 2005 05:15 (eighteen years ago) link

Just how powerful is an indie label's street team that it can sell out tours before the band have had a record out

Dare one mention the name SUEDE here?

Is it unreasonable to be suspicious & cynical when one sees a band like this suddenly appearing everywhere? Or when one reads that guardian "movers & shakers" piece? Especially when said band seem, on the basis of listening to recordings made by them, and watching a clip of them perform to be lacking in anything to make them stand out from yer usual "indie" fluff. Oh, sorry, the singer has a strong northern accent. Apart from that, then.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 20 October 2005 07:49 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't think all this attention has to be label-driven, that's all. Press, radio etc have such a voracious appetite for new bands that they will generate buzz regardless of what the label does. As I understand it, Domino were wary of getting too much attention too soon - hence the dearth of press around the first single. I assume that the reason they kept being mentioned in that Guardian piece was because they were deemed to be the guitar band most likely to sell a lot of records next year - not the best, necessarily, but potentially the biggest. If you don't like them, fine, and you could lament the fact that there's so little competition around (again, I mean commercially rather than artistically), but where's the big conspiracy?

― Dorian Lynskey, Thursday, 20 October 2005 08:24 (eighteen years ago) link

I was having a conversation with a friend last night who was trying to promote the "really fun new bands" Arctic Monkeys [god, that name!] and Louis XIV. I expressed ambivalence verging on antipathy, - the songs I've heard from each sound truly uninteresting to me, - and he asked me why. I explained it was because I didn't like the music, but someone else mentioned that "they're overhyped".

The dude-who-liked-them said that he didn't own a radio and didn't read the music press (i have no idea how he hears about new stuff -- TV? The Guardian?), so it wasn't hype that attracted him, it was how good the stuff sounded.

So I guess there are a lot of people who just plain like them.

The other thing that's interested me re the Monkeys is the way the "internet buzz" has been talked-about, when the audioblogs I read or glance at have had almost nary a peep. (At least not until very very recently.) It illustrates how there are really distinct communities online - I remember the discussion about the non-ILM related musicblogosphere from a couple years ago, - and that the hyped-up of one part of the Web (Chad Van Gaalen, Max Geil, Devin Davis, Bishop Allen, Wolf Parade) can be entirely distinct from another.

― sean gramophone (Sean M), Thursday, 20 October 2005 08:34 (eighteen years ago) link

Remind me sometime to tell you of the music industry conspiracy which deems that only four "indie" acts will become "big" in any given year in order to fill the correct amount of press space and compilation albums...

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 20 October 2005 08:38 (eighteen years ago) link

Would "Coldplay" be mentioned in any such discourse?

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 20 October 2005 08:40 (eighteen years ago) link

They were, five years ago.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 20 October 2005 08:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Conspiracy? This is like finding truth in Nostradamus after the fact. If you can name some bands that WILL become massive due to record-company hype shenanigans but are currently unknown / doing the toilet circuit - then I'll think more of the "conspiracy" in six months time when you're proved right (if you are).

― Scepticus Maximus, Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:07 (eighteen years ago) link

most of those don't even exist yet.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:10 (eighteen years ago) link

Well, I was tipped off about the Magic Numbers by a music biz type at the start of the year, so there's your first one.

You see it all the time at The Social in Nottingham. Example: The Thrills, who played the 200-ish capacity venue while staying at the swankiest boutique hotel in town, on the strength of one #36 hit single. Racks of shiny new top-of-the-range guitars at the back of the stage, and you could see that they'd been styled. They were crap, but I left thinking "Glastonbury Other Stage, tea time slot, six months time". And lo, it came to pass.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:12 (eighteen years ago) link

Also, why do people fete, for instance, Mike Jones or The Game ("I created a buzz without a single like NWA did") for managing to create their own hype prior to their album, but for some people indie bands doing this is chopped liver? Is it because of a desire to keep indie "pure"?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:12 (eighteen years ago) link

Difference between pop kids and indie kids? At least pop kids KNOW they're being manipulated.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:13 (eighteen years ago) link

Plus, why do these hype bands have a greater level of success these days? You can't really imagine a Terris or Campag Velocet or Crashland amongst this new lot. Why? Has the NME upped its speed or what?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:14 (eighteen years ago) link

coughTHEBRAVERYcough

― William Bloody Swygart (mrswygart), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:16 (eighteen years ago) link

Like I said upthread Dom, marketing is about accelerating the success of the right product, not manufacturing the success of the wrong one.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:16 (eighteen years ago) link

xpost: Coldplay supported Terris at the Nottingham Social at the beginning of 2000, when the NME were hedging their bets and heavily tipping both acts for success.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:17 (eighteen years ago) link

coughTHEBRAVERYcough

Oh, yeah.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:18 (eighteen years ago) link

All of these were 1999-2000 before the pendulum had swung back from Manufactured Teenpop to Manufactured Pseudo-Indie. Besides which, fair's fair, yer Terris and yer Campag didn't actually have much in the way of songs, did they? Can you whistle any offhand?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:18 (eighteen years ago) link

I think that lessons must have been learnt after Gay Dad.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:19 (eighteen years ago) link

Also, I think that the pendulum was swinging as far back as 1999, when you couldn't move for Travis/Texas/Stereophonics. (Not having a name for it then, I called it Britannia Music Club Indie.)

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:20 (eighteen years ago) link

I can remember the 'hook' from Drencrom Velocet Synthemesc (b/c it was those words shouted a lot). Terris...nope, got me there.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:22 (eighteen years ago) link

Never mind 'conspiracy': three specific points arising out of this

1/ Media coverage seems to be very easily bought.

2/ There seems to be room for a very limited number of new acts.

3/ The range of material on offer seems very narrow
(ie. a very limited number of very limited new acts.)

― Soukesian, Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:25 (eighteen years ago) link

Only a very limited number of very limited new acts are allowed.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:25 (eighteen years ago) link

All that's happened since Gay Dad expensively misfired is that the waters are much more cautiously tested now. Because no-one wants to blow thousands on a load of old toss, acts are brought up through the toilet circuit / limited edition 7" singles on Fierce Panda / leaked MP3s etc, and "fan buzz" carefully monitored. The net effect is to accelerate the whole rags-to-riches ladder into about six months. If you're shite, you'll get found out nice and early, and quietly dropped. So it's not ALL street teams etc... there does have to be some intrinsic worth, galling as it might be to admit it in certain cases.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:33 (eighteen years ago) link

(This is why Terris disappeared - because they were perceived as not being able to cut it.)

(This is also where the Club NME franchise comes into its own: perfect testing ground.)

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:36 (eighteen years ago) link

i wonder what qualities differentiate a shit indie band who don't cut it and a shit indie band who do. because most of the ones who do succeed don't appear to me to have any qualities which particularly mark them out from any of the other chancers on the indie circuit.

― The Lex (The Lex), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:39 (eighteen years ago) link

apart from who their pr company is, whom they've slept with, how many of them are music journos to begin with (didn't the lead singer of gay dad write for mojo?), etc. etc....

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:42 (eighteen years ago) link

Also, Gay Dad failed because they felt foisted on people almost overnight, eg. that massive fly-posting campaign, and there was a reaction against the hype. Whereas the Arctic Monkeys are succeeding because of the perception that this is an unstoppable, fan-driven popular "movement". The marketing behind this is razor-sharp. Hell, they're even on Domino for max cred points. Maybe all long-establshed and well-respected "boutique" labels will end up with token cash cows on their rosters like the AMs and Franz...

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Gay Dad also failed because what they'd come up with for a sound wasn't what anyone wanted to hear. See also Campag, Ultrasound, King Adora, etc. - their particular shuffles of the influence pack didn't appeal to anyone outside a jaded press.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:47 (eighteen years ago) link

So there's someone at each Club NME who's job is to basically analyze the reaction to each song?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:47 (eighteen years ago) link

This thread is hilarious. It's like a through-the-looking-glass version of all the lumpen Culture Industry conspiracy theories of your average 16 year old emo fan.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:48 (eighteen years ago) link

...says the reviewer who gave the last REM album four stars in Uncut...

Is there anyone at any Club NME who isn't there to analyse the reaction to each song? Do any actual IRL punters go there?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:50 (eighteen years ago) link

I am listening to it now, this song. I think it is good. I want to look like a robot from 1984.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:50 (eighteen years ago) link

The Club NME bookings are managed centrally. If a band goes down well somewhere, then they'll be booked somewhere else, etc. They did a nice job of weeding out Red Organ Serpent Sound that way... jeez, you don't know what horrors you missed.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:50 (eighteen years ago) link

Red.

Organ.

Serpent.

Sound.

*ponders*

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:51 (eighteen years ago) link

In what way did Gay Dad 'fail' though? Were they supposed to be as big as Oasis or something?

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:53 (eighteen years ago) link

In what way did Gay Dad 'fail' though? Were they supposed to be as big as Oasis or something?
-- Sociah T Azzahole (stevem7...), October 20th, 2005.

in a word, yes.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:54 (eighteen years ago) link

Well I think they were expected to have more than one big hit, and a big selling album.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:55 (eighteen years ago) link

Totally. It was a classic Roaring Boys/Sigue Sigue Sputnik schadenfreude moment.

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:56 (eighteen years ago) link

NME front cover after, or just before, first single; A0 flyposters fucking EVERYWHERE

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:57 (eighteen years ago) link

That Sigue Sigue Sputnik album was ace! The first one, anyway.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 20 October 2005 10:57 (eighteen years ago) link

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