Paris = Jarvis

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OR, different people think of jarvis in different ways.

lexpretend (lexpretend), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:04 (seventeen years ago) link

he'll always be to 95% of britain that funny bloke with glasses who wiggled his bum at michael jackson!

isn't this true of virtually all famous people or artists though? from the reference point of the wider population, most artists/celebrities/whatever will only known for one or two key moments in their career.

mister the guanoman (m the g), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:04 (seventeen years ago) link

omg i hate shatner

i can only assume this is because you are not familiar with his excellent side work as an actor - the pinnacle of which being the recent adverts for Kellogg's All Bran Bran Flakes Yoghurty.

sede vacante (blueski), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:05 (seventeen years ago) link

'our general perception of x' => I think you mean your own general perception, Louis: you're coming from within a certain sector of the population that had a particular image of jarvis as elder statesman of music, the one person to survive britpop credibility intact. this isn't shared by the general public. (xposts: er, what paul said)

when it comes to column inches/publicity, it doesn't matter if someone's a Personality because they're widely respected by kids shackled to old indie or a Personality because they were on a tv show that was popular in recent memory or a Personality because they're a paraplegic or a Personality because they are unquestionably a genius. All that matters is that they have a hook, any hook, to get people to read papers/maybe even buy records. Take up Lex's list of names: what sets Paris aside from them is that her previous fame contained no music career. But none of those are famous just for music: they're also famous for all this external stuff, for drugs and divaisms and who knows what else.

cis boom bah (cis), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:05 (seventeen years ago) link

vast majority of 2006 youth re. jarvis: who he?

Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:06 (seventeen years ago) link

I also note from the CD photos that he's getting to look more and more like Derek Bailey every day.

Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:06 (seventeen years ago) link

sadly, he doesn't sound like him though.

mister the guanoman (m the g), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:07 (seventeen years ago) link

xposts to 'your general perception': fair enough. what irritated me i guess was mostly the thread title, which by your logic could be paris=jarvis=david beckham=katie melua=keira knightley=ARGH, which is plainly unhelpful.

Louis Jagger (Scourage), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:09 (seventeen years ago) link

No, that's all fine.

What sort of bugged me to sadness was the "Jarvis, yeah nice bloke but hey he's no Morrissey,is he?"

M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:10 (seventeen years ago) link

well, that goes without saying. i was just talking about what pissed me off most about the original thread premise, before the ghastly grinning corpse of stephen morrissey was exhumed.

Louis Jagger (Scourage), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:12 (seventeen years ago) link

but Lex, Paris-The-Phenomenon was on the same side of the to-be-taken-seriously fence though! The only difference was that she was seen as a cultural studies object, whereas Jarvis is seen as a human being with opinions and free will and suchlike.

Louis, I don't think it is plainly unhelpful! There's a set of critera we haven't worked out yet which determine what kind of coverage a celebrity gets - Katie Melua and Keira Knightly get, I think, a much more run-of-the-mill treatment than either Paris or Jarvis did.

cis boom bah (cis), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:12 (seventeen years ago) link

newsom jus missing the top 40 is pretty good surely? i mean modest mouse can only get to 40 in this country, surely there in a similar frame.

yes but the way the jarvis album was treated it seemed to be being billed as a "you are the quarry", "aerial" type first week unit shifter but the fraction of the population who consider a worthwhile artist to shell out a tenner on is far far smaller than though. lex is probably right that jarvis is not a "national figure of fun" but he isn't primarily known for his music to a lot of people thou!

cis and nick s are repectively both really onto something upthread

no artist on this thread has written as great a song a motivation by sum 41

acrobat (acrobat), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:13 (seventeen years ago) link

he's not so much known for his music itself as for his Elder Statesman Of Britpop status, perhaps?

cis boom bah (cis), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:15 (seventeen years ago) link

These days I'd say he's best known for doing Rolf Harris on Stars In Their Eyes.

Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:16 (seventeen years ago) link

Katie Melua and Keira Knightly get, I think, a much more run-of-the-mill treatment than either Paris or Jarvis did.

so you have to be a caricature to qualify.

okay, paris=jarvis=chris evans=gary neville :P

Louis Jagger (Scourage), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:17 (seventeen years ago) link

What you have to understand is that record buyers in Britain these days aren't interested in artists who are out of the ordinary or exotic. They want Didos and Meluas who look just like them and sing about simple things they can understand at the end of a long and horrible day at the call centre and it's all Radio 2 Music Club don't wake the baby tasteful.

Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:19 (seventeen years ago) link

o here we go again.

cis boom bah (cis), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:20 (seventeen years ago) link

Katie Melua and Keira Knightly = Damon Albarn and Thom Yorke!

acrobat (acrobat), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:21 (seventeen years ago) link

katie melua = corkscrew-haired bum-chinned womble-affiliated welsh warbler

keira knightley = bambi-eyed skeletal pirate moll

everyone's a caricature.

mister the guanoman (m the g), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:22 (seventeen years ago) link

the way the jarvis album was treated it seemed to be being billed as a "you are the quarry", "aerial" type first week unit shifter

it's not so far-fetched to think it might be one of these though, i mean i have no interest in it but i would have thought that if those shifted what they did then jarvis could too. i don't really know why it didn't but that's a different question surely?

lexpretend (lexpretend), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:22 (seventeen years ago) link

yes but you'd be pretty stretched to write an op-ed on either
xpost

both of those albums were preceded by singles that annocued "i'm back" maybe.

acrobat (acrobat), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:25 (seventeen years ago) link

You Are The Quarry sold fairly well. Sales of Aerial have been underwhelming. One listen to Jarvis quickly demonstrates how and why it could never be a best-seller. He needs the big budget, he needs the Britpop context; unlike Albarn he hasn't had the wit to paint himself out of his corner (cf. Relaxed Muscle/Gorillaz).

Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:26 (seventeen years ago) link

The parallels exist in that both of them are the absolute embodiment of a particular section of media (Paris = mainstream sleb mag whereas Jarvis = geeky cerebral broadsheet type with a nose for a good quote) so of course editors are 100% comfortable with how to cover them. Add to the fact Jarvis gives good interview while Paris can usually be relied upon to do something outrageous or stupid to give the story an angle. The music of either is of secondary importance to the personality.

Rachel Stevens is an interesting case because there's a disconnect between the media that care about her (lads mag press essentially), the people who actually buy her records (handful of people off the internet who like 80s-influenced pop) and the people its aimed at (the Kylie market). It's a combination of poor marketing and a complete lack of interest in the personality.

Katie Melhua neither says nor does anything interesting, looks quite pretty, but lacks the persona to get any editor particularly excited and sells more records than all of them put together. Because it's this very LACK of personality that appeals to the All About The Music crew (see also Dido, Snow Patrol).

Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:28 (seventeen years ago) link

Exactly. The public just wants a mirror, wants its musicians to be Just Like Us/Down To Earth (thus also Coldplay and Keane and all the rest of them) whereas in my day I wanted gods, untouchables.

Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:30 (seventeen years ago) link

And can we stop endlessly retreading the Passantino line that there's some sort of significance in having column inches disproportionate to record sales, because that accounts for pretty much everyone who hasn't made the Top 10 Album chart this year. We might as well be talking about grime.

(Marcello that's all well and good but I very much doubt you tallied with 'the public' even in your day)

Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:33 (seventeen years ago) link

"You=Quarry" was trailed by a ruddy bigly promoted hit single!

"Jarvis" had a d/l, a year previous (or so it seemed) and no single on the radio.

that's why it wasn't a big hit.

The "PulpHits" was a flop as 1) Everyone had the tracks they liked best already 2) No extra anything (a live disc and/or rarities/bsides or DVD would have been mandatory thesedays)

M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:33 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes, Matt DC otm re/ media-orientation of Jarvis/Paris etc

tissp! (tissp!), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:33 (seventeen years ago) link

There are more 'old people' in the country these days. 'Old people' who still really value albums despite download cultural onslaught.
The 'down to earth' thing does not affect singles chart as it does the albums chart for numerous reasons.

sede vacante (blueski), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:34 (seventeen years ago) link

The "PulpHits" was a flop as 1) Everyone had the tracks they liked best already 2) No extra anything (a live disc and/or rarities/bsides or DVD would have been mandatory thesedays)

3) Pulp were never quite crossover enough for whatever reason for these things not to matter (there must be countless big-selling no frills best ofs out there).

sede vacante (blueski), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:35 (seventeen years ago) link

3) No they were, just that "Different Class" was everso crossover. Such that everyone owned one.

M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Didn't the Basement Jaxx Best Of sell way more than any of their albums because the appeal of Where's Your Head At and Romeo and Red Alert and Good Luck extends well beyond their album-buying fanbase. It doesn't with Pulp.

Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:37 (seventeen years ago) link

maybe paris and jarvis' problem is uh godlikeness but probably more about the music. i wonder what would have happened if jarvis had made something like "the drift" and paris had done "i don't feel like dancing"...

acrobat (acrobat), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:38 (seventeen years ago) link

re: people not knowing jarvis for his music, don't 'disco 2000' and 'common people' still get wheeled out a fair bit? incidental music and those channel 4 lists and stuff.

lexpretend (lexpretend), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:39 (seventeen years ago) link

3) No they were, just that "Different Class" was everso crossover. Such that everyone owned one.

I don't think this was much of a factor. How well do you think 'Stop The Clocks' will sell despite everyone already owning everything on it?

sede vacante (blueski), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:39 (seventeen years ago) link

Not even "Common People"/"Disco 2000"?

xposts

tissp! (tissp!), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:39 (seventeen years ago) link

(i.e. what lex said)

tissp! (tissp!), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:39 (seventeen years ago) link

It wasn't What's The Story (Morning Glory)? in the 1995 everyone owned one stakes.

Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:39 (seventeen years ago) link

There are times on the album when Jarvis sounds like he's trying to make The Drift, particularly when he uses the same string arranger and the same percussionist.

Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:41 (seventeen years ago) link

and paris had done "i don't feel like dancing"...

i would've liked the song better had she done it i think (probably just something to do with expecting better of the Scissor Sisters and not expecting something of that nature from Paris)

sede vacante (blueski), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Scissor Sisters songs are usually OK when it's not the Scissor Sisters doing them (Kylie "I Believe In You").

Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:42 (seventeen years ago) link

It wasn't What's The Story (Morning Glory)? in the 1995 everyone owned one stakes.

this surely sold a lot more than Different Class overall.

sede vacante (blueski), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:42 (seventeen years ago) link

Which I believe is what I was saying.

Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Scissor Sisters songs are usually OK when it's not the Scissor Sisters doing them (Kylie "I Believe In You").

funny, this is exactly what i realised the other day about...chris fucking martin. 'see it in a boy's eyes', 'should i go', 'all good things (come to an end)'...

lexpretend (lexpretend), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:43 (seventeen years ago) link

i would've liked the song better had she done it i think (probably just something to do with expecting better of the Scissor Sisters and not expecting something of that nature from Paris)

Agreed, "I Don't Feel Like Dancing" sounded completely like the SS (see what I did there?) had just given up with the first single (the new one isn't any better)

tissp! (tissp!), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:44 (seventeen years ago) link

The trouble with Jarvis is that it just lumbers along ponderously like a Bob Geldof solo album.

But his lyrics work perfectly with Air's music and Gainsbourg's voice on 5:55 so maybe that's the way he needs to go in the future.

Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:46 (seventeen years ago) link

Bring back the All Seeing I, I say!

M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:49 (seventeen years ago) link

x post
from where i'm sitting don't feel like dancing was the biggest hit of the year (shh gnarls barkley) but was it because scissor sister sang it?

acrobat (acrobat), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:50 (seventeen years ago) link

No, it's because it's catchy, inoffensive and easy on the ear if not necessarily on mine.

Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:52 (seventeen years ago) link

I note the "d-d-d-d-dance" two years post-"Graffiti My Soul."

Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:52 (seventeen years ago) link

It felt kinda lacklustre to me when compared to the singles from before--they didn't seem to really be enjoying it in the same way.

tissp! (tissp!), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:53 (seventeen years ago) link


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