Duel!: Kingmaker Vs The Divine Comedy

Which would be a forgivable enough crime, if the music were good enough to back it up. With Kingmaker, it was so wimpily indie one wonders why the band weren't just shot on sight at their first gig. They made Thousand Yard Stare look cool and dangerously sexy by comparison! With the Divine Comedy...well, I admit to liking bits of it. Neil Hannon is much better singer than Loz, and the music never really grates the way Kingmaker's did, it just plods along anonymously in the backround at the worst of times. However, DC has overstayed it's welcome for quite a while now, time for Neil to go off and become a veterinarian or pro golfer or *something*. Anything vaguely less pathetic than a fading indie starlet.

Kingmaker wins by virtue of Loz having a hand in the Menace. There are some crimes that really should be punishable by death...

The Divine Comedy I actually quite like - caveat coming up - when they are not doing their overblown comedy singles. Unfortunately this is the depth they are seriously plumbing these days so the rather twee simplicity of stuff like Songs Of Love or My Beautiful Horse rarely grace our ears.

Fair fight Kingmaker would obviously win because their drummer was the most beligerent skinsman of that early nineties scene. But I would have to plump for ver Comedy because there is some of their stuf I actually still like. Not the one where the band ride pollen spores in the video though - the scene with Neil Hannon getting up someones nose (quelle surprise) gave me nightmares for days.

Kingmaker are kind of awful. Here are some bad things about them:

1. 'Ten Years Asleep' getting acclaimed as intelligent and satirical - people said it was another 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'. No, *they really did*. Just think of the lyrics - 'It couldn't have happened in another world... it wouldn't have happened to a nicer planet... [...] so don't pretend to care if you don't care'. Sing with a sneer and some goons think it's meaningfully sardonic. But really it's *meaningless*.

2. In general their lyrics exemplify a peculiar tone of vague pseudo-intelligence that has often typified indie music since the Smiths and which no-one has ever quite pinned down. (This is *not* a slur on the Smiths, it need hardly be said - I am talking about lazy uninspired careerist dismally failed would-be imitators.) Shed Seven and Sleeper are both other examples. Think of Sleeper's 'She's a good girl / But everyone said she was a goddess / They've got a Rolex / Telling the same time...'. Again, sung as though meaningful. But *meaningless*. You can fill in your own Shed Seven examples. And your own Kingmaker examples. Look at any KM lyric sheet and you'll see what I mean.

3. Relatively leaden music, and

4. Bad, whining vocals. I don't much like it when vocalists seem to be shouting or sneering instead of singing. That's kind of understandable live, but not in the studio. (There are exceptions, I suppose - Dylan, Strummer?)

On the other hand, I was listening to a KM CD recently (!!) and I found myself surprisingly, grudgingly impressed by 'You And I Will Never See Things Eye To Eye'. Absurd, I know. Could this be their Scooby-Doo single?

The Divine Comedy, on the other hand... smooth where KM are rough, ostensibly very different. But, I think, equally appalling. They have one good point: they take melody seriously. I mean, their songs seem to display an effort to write a good melody, rather than just pluck a refrain out of the air. But for one thing, I still don't *like* those melodies, and on top of this there are

1. Hannon's voice 2. The sickly backing 3. The way-overrated lyrics - again the KM effect?

to contend with, and

4. A nasty sneering attitude, exemplified by the way 'National Express' bids to mock the stupidity and fatness of 'ordinary people'.

I think I dislike the DC more than KM. But the choice is kind of skewed by the fact that no-one takes KM seriously anymore, and some people seem still to take the DC very seriously. That makes the DC seem more like a relevant and significant 'enemy'.

Didn't 'Duel' used to be a Freaky Trigger knockout competition to see which band was worst?

happy days...

Is there something wrong with "mocking the stupidity and fatness of ordinary people"? It's a standard comedy trope in the UK.

Pretty sure I hate The Divine Comedy more than any other band ever.

more than my life story?

Kingmaker reassessed.

https://thequietus.com/articles/28686-kingmaker-everything-changed-1991-1995-review

I hadn't realised the recent Kingmaker reunions hadn't involved Loz. not that I was planning to go anyway.

also interesting about the record company problems with the 2nd album. I wasn't really a fan, probably liked a handful of songs across the first 2 albums. an ilxor recently told me the last album is actually the best one but I've never heard any of it

I hadn't realised the recent Kingmaker reunions hadn't involved Loz. not that I was planning to go anyway.

...huh. I'm trying to imagine this.

I was a massive Kingmaker fan aged 12 (might be me you're talking about there CP?) was ashamed of it for a bit, but have long gotten over it, yes, the first half of their final LP is just brilliant, a shame it was released when everyone either hated them, didn't care or both.

ha yeah it was you

Listening to it again now, it's like, yes, his voice is still a bit annoying and his lyrics are still a bit pretentious and overwrought, but there's so much passion and pain there, and he's finally finding his voice, just as everyone has stopped listening - the songs are all pretty sad and desperate, and the fact nobody is listening any more just amplifies this. I know lots of people are not going to be into it, but genuinely, first 18 minutes of this (and last 5) are still brilliant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12r_vs4HfPw

also, this interview is fantastic, and explains why he suddenly quit it all forever.

http://www.kingmakerband.com/interview-with-loz-hardy/

Really Scrape the Sky caught my ear on the radio but I didn't buy the album, the second album's singles didn't provide any greater incentive. For some reason though I bought the third album. I'm not as enthusiastic as Camaraderie but I love the guitar tone and the heavy wah-wah use and it's certainly as good as any other album by a second tier britpop band. I probably never need to listen to the album again but In the Best Possible Taste Pt 1 does the pop + string quartet trick pretty well and I would keep Frustrated Gangster over 99% of the output of that benighted era.

Only song I particularly remember from being all over the Radio 1 breakfast show is Saturday's Not What It Used To be, which seems to have stiffed at a lowly 63.