Is this what I gave up writing for?
NME on reviewing a band
"...begins as wet as Alexis Taylor wanking over a load of old Pet Shop Boys seven-inches, but soon grows some bullocks, segueing into a riff of pure Muse-like bombast. It's a brilliantly bonkers confection: like vomiting up a Ferrari, a gram of coke and a missing child all at once." I mean seriously, what the fuck is this?
That’s outlandish, contrived 'gunslinger' style, desperately striving to be energetic and idiosyncratic. I've read lots of reviews like that. "Sounds like ... " and then the longest string of nonsensical piss about robots molesting samanda, and sniffing eamon holmes' chuff. WHAT are they talking about? music isn't like that.
Also in the broadcasting sense I watched this clip….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/switch/them/amy.shtml
I just think that the whole clip on what is defined by ‘indie’ is totally wrong, don’t the BBC realise she comes across as a total parody of herself? To be honest I couldn’t tell if this was one big joke on the viewers or it was supposed to be a general observation. Amy states that you must only wear vintage in order to fit into the ‘indie’ demographic then you show a clip of her in Topshop. It’s total clone-esque tendencies. BBC put the description of ‘indie’ being an independent frontier but her favourite band is Razorlight who are signed to a major.
I’m not saying that it’s bad that she loves Razorlight but she should get her facts straight. Eating at ‘cool indie places’ and doing quirky indie things such as going to art galleries in a vain attempt to seem smart is so toe-curlingly patronising I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. This is a criticism but one that should be taken in a positive light, these indie, smindie antidotes don’t work, on the outskirts they come across fake. I’m not some 50 year old observer who wanks over Faulty Tower repeats…
It just seems the whole ‘tag’ culture is so contrived, why does there have to be such a spin on something with many people enjoy doing, listening to music – just let them be. Looking much deeper it’s probably that many people who claim to be indie, once watching this they’ll cringe – maybe it’s an age old analogy of reality vs denial, we choose to stay in our comfort zones, never being questioned because we never had to be.
Rant over, can everyone just please listen to some Nick Cave and be done with it.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
The State of British Journalism….
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3 comments:
wow, i watched that video clip you posted and it made me cringe. can't wait to see what trend this poseur girl will define herself as next which this isn't the "cool thing" anymore.
and wow, i hate those kinds of reviews. Rolling Stone is just as bad...they go off on a tangent talking about politics and stuff that is so irrelevant when reviewing something. it's so pretentious. Dear Journalists, get it together.
gosh, i think that may be the most terrible album review ever. the best would probably have to be: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/38853-shine-on
the bbc clip is terrible too, but the whole "indie" scene is now thought of in such stereotypical manner. i guess it this is bound to happen with any subculture, honestly. but, in new york just about everytime the "scene" is mentioned in a blog, there is a 27890823 comment thread about how hipsters should die, how they ruin new york, etc. everyone spends so much time complaining about it and no one does anything to make a new more exciting scene.
Considering some one/s 'indie' is an oxymoron in itself- it stands for individual. I know plenty of people who are individual and they don't listen to the liberteens and the strokes.
And no-one can trust NME for reviews- they're basically good for first music news and that's it.
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