The Style, not the Song

This ‘rant’, for want of a better word is probably not going to be the most coherent thing in the world ever, but never mind, hopefully my point will still come across intact.  If I even have one.

Time and time again, I hear people banging on about new bands.  Some of them are good, and some, are bad, and some are just… OK.  And to be honest, its these ‘OK’ bands that I find more annoying.  ‘Bad’ bands like Nickelback or Hard-Fi just aren’t very good, and that, while not exactly a fact since it’s subjective, is pretty much the ’standard’ opinion, so fair enough, they’ve got their due.

However, what REALLY fucking winds me up is when people seem to love a band because of the style of the music, instead the actual song.  Now, sometimes a band has just done what they like to do and other people have latched on to it because it happens to be the ‘in thing’ which is fair enough - the band have just stuck, mainly, to what they want to do.  But it really is ridiculous that people then love a band because they’re the right style for the moment, regardless of how good the songs are!  This is especially a sore point if the band has been around for ages doing the same thing but weren’t, at that time, doing the sound that was ‘in’ and so those same people weren’t interested.  Surely the song should be the main thing, and not the style.  Shouldn’t a painting be the part to like instead of the frame?

There seems to be LOTS of bands around today that fit this category, and I don’t know who’s to blame.  In a way, it can be rested solely on the shoulders of those who blindly follow what they’re told is the ‘latest thing’.  The whole thing is made worse to some degree by those bands who’ve seen where the money is, and jumped on the bandwagon.  Calculating, pandering fucks.

On the other hand, it’s always happened, I suppose.  I’ve known loads of people who’ve hated a song, but then when it’s been covered by some different artist, then they fucking love it.  Its the same fucking song!  It goes the other way of course, self-righteous musos will fucking hate a song thats popular.  Not based on it’s musical merits, but based on its performer and sales.  A song happens to be popular, and they fucking hate it.  Some obscure recluse living in a bin in Newton Aycliffe does it and 3 people hear it, it’s a masterpiece.  Again, it’s the same fucking song!  When I were a lad, etc…

 Werthers Original?

Label “maybe thinks about making some money by releasing a record… if we can be bothered”

I recently stumbled across a wonderful site called Dinosaur Gardens which has many ridiculously obscure recordings, many of which happen to be really good.  One of the many obscure OUT-OF-PRINT albums on there was the Threepenny Opera by the New York Shakespeare Festival.  It’s a good, if very bizarre soundtrack which, if not for DG I would never have heard, or even heard about.  Recently, however, the site has been made to take the MP3’s down by the label of the recordings.  This just seems stupid.  It’s giving people a chance to hear something they wouldn’t usually get the chance to, and the label doesn’t lose any money due to the fact that they don’t even have it in print!  So they don’t have it on sale, and they don’t want anybody to hear it!  Of course, they’ve then written in their reasoning something about vague murmurings of ’discussing it internally’ at some point.  But I bet a release is not massively forthcoming.  The actual post is HERE.

Stay Critical or Die!

Hello!

I’ve decided to start a blog.  My main reason for doing so is mainly just to write about music I like, old and new.  That’s pretty much it mainly.  The title of the blog is from a Destroyer song from the album Streethawk: A Seduction (which I will no doubt be talking about soon).  I could have done all this on my band Mascot Fight’s site, but it made more sense to make a completely new blog as to not clutter up that site.

Anyway, hopefully I shall do the first one soon. x