http://www.recordoftheday.com/awards/RotDAwards.pdf
Record Reviews: Writer of
the Year
Alexis Petridis – The Guardian
Andy Gill – The Independent
Kitty Empire – The Observer
Pete Paphides – The Times
Simon Price – Independent on
Sunday
Runner up: Kitty Empire
Winner: Alexis Petridis
Alexis was praised for his “insightful”, “honest” and “carefully justified” opinions on new albums. Voters described his record reviews forbeing “funny, insightful, nicely unpretentious and always readable.”
Artist and Music Features:
Writer of the Year
Alexis Petridis
Dan Cairns
Pete Paphides
Sophie Heawood
Stevie Chick
Runner Up: Dan Cairns
Winner: Alexis Petridis
Your votes told us that Alexis is considered far and wide to be at the top of his game. You praised him for being “articulate and capable of independent thought,” and for always writing “interesting, well-written and memorable” copy.One voter told us Alexis should win because his “work stands alone”.
Editor of the Year
Caspar Llewellyn-Smith – Observer
Music Monthly
Conor McNicolas—NME
Mark Ellen – The Word
Paul Brannigan – Kerrang!
Paul Rees – Q
Runner-up: Paul Brannigan
Winner: Conor McNicolas
Conor won votes for his vision for
the NME,
together
with his
enthusiasm
and total
commitment
to his cause.
He was also
praised for being fully in tune with
the new media landscape, and
for proving himself highly adept
at finding new ways to reach and
enthuse existing and new NME
readers alike.
And the winner of Best Attendance was...?
“Record of the Day”?
ihttp://www.nostalgiacentral.com/images_tv/americanbandstand_02.jpg
“Britian”?
Passantino waz robbed?
“Broadsheet music press indulges in mutual arselicking” shock horror youth cult probe.
Artist and Music Features:
Writer of the Year
Alexis Petridis
Dan Cairns
Pete Paphides
Sophie Heawood
Stevie Chick
Runner Up: Dan Cairns
Winner: Alexis Petridis
Even if there were only five fucking music writers in the country, there’d be no excuse for nominating Heawood.
With the obvious exception of the good Mr Chick, there’d be no excuse for nominating ANY of those tossers!
Somebody call 999! Lex has been robbed!
did a bit of yr googling and was struck by this. well one sentence really made my brain hurt.
Heart of darkness
Sophie Heawood
Published 16 October 2006
Amy Winehouse—Back to Black
Popular music has always walked hand in hand with the seven deadly sins, and the current crop of drug-guzzling stars is no exception. But while Mike Skinner and Pete Doherty headed to the Priory and wrote boring songs about it, Amy Winehouse didn’t get past the check-in desk.
This may have been unwise mentally, but musically it was a canny move, as it’s provided her with one of the least boring records to be released all year. “Rehab”, the song that opens her new album, Back to Black, is all about the failed attempts of those around her to make her seek help. “They tried to make me go to rehab, but I said no, no, no,” she bellows.
Those who remember Winehouse only for hitting the charts at roughly the same time as Katie Melua and Natasha Bedingfield might well wonder what she’s been doing getting herself into such a state. In fact, she was always a world apart from the kind of female singer for whom exploring the dark heart of creativity means buying a peasant skirt from River Island. She’s a heavily tattooed, 23-year-old north Londoner with fluctuating weight, a penchant for drink and a vivid sexuality, and a voice that clearly owes a debt to the childhood she spent listening to her daddy’s jazz records.
That abortive trip to the Priory sets the tone for an album full of late nights and even later mornings. A fantasy about getting with the rapper Nas is the apparent inspiration behind “Me and Mr Jones (Fuckery)”. “You Know I’m No Good” is about being a troublesome type, and “Love Is a Losing Game” is self-explanatory, though not predictable. The gluttony theme even extends to rhyming “bitter” with “chips and pitta”, a couplet that Lily Allen would kill for. Back to Black reveals a darkness that would surely make Winehouse’s daddy proud.
That sentence is on a par with the guy in the Independent on Sunday who commented on how lucky we were to have had the Vietnam war since it produced so many good soul songs.
“Bring the Boys Back” is almost worth a war.
Those who remember Winehouse only for hitting the charts at roughly the same time as Katie Melua and Natasha Bedingfield
Yeah, all those top 40 smash hit singles Ms Ron Perlman had before oh wait.
The gluttony theme even extends to rhyming “bitter” with “chips and pitta”, a couplet that Lily Allen would kill for.
If loving Amy Winehouse is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.
for whom exploring the dark heart of creativity means buying a peasant skirt from River Island
What is the problem that allegedly left-wing newspaper The Guardian has with peasants? In the Guide the week before last there was a feature on “peasant food.”
Those Jews are just likeable people, fact.
— Dom Passantino (juror...), November 29th, 2006.
xp
xpost
Noun 1. middle class—the social class between the lower and upper classes
I am of course more inclined to agree with the writer James Kelman who in his novel A Disaffection refers to the Guardian as “rightwing shite keech and tollie.”
You praised him for being “articulate and capable of independent thought,”
You praised him for being “articulate and capable of independent thought
If this was proper ilm, this thread would have 300 posts by now.
nicely unpretentious = tosser writing for tossers.
yeh but 100 of them would be lex and enrique arguing whther this thread is mysoginist / racist / homophobic / other and another 75 would centre round the question of who is arthur askey.
Best music writing this year:
“Put Your hands up for Dirk Kuyt—he loves this city!” (To the tune and rhythm of ‘Put Your Hands up for Detroit’).
Liverpool fans in Middlesbrough v Liverpool match. (Steven Adams, Northern Ireland).
who is arthur askey
Go “askey” your mum.
Put your hands up, put your hands up, put your hands up for Arthur Askey- he loves not having any legs.
This being the same Arthur Askey who on Arena in 1980 commented “I’d put all them Communists and Liberals up against a wall and shoot ’em! I would!”
Truly the best pictures are in the mind.
yeh there’s a lex joke there...
Go “askey” your mum.
And they call ME a careerist troll.
Yay, Sophie!
Oh, how it must burn you up, that she has the audacity not just to write for an organ that wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole, but also to be a woman!
Frances May Morgan was robbed. Not even a nomination? She could make creme brulee of Conor McWhatsits.
Our Hannah could do that, and she’s 4.
That review upthread is fucking awful.
Editor of the Year
Caspar Llewellyn-Smith – Observer
Music Monthly
Conor McNicolas—NME
Mark Ellen – The Word
Paul Brannigan – Kerrang!
Paul Rees – Q
Runner-up: Paul Brannigan
Winner: Conor McNicolas
Conor won votes for his vision for
the NME,
together
with his
enthusiasm
and total
commitment
to his cause.
He was also
praised for being fully in tune with
the new media landscape, and
for proving himself highly adept
at finding new ways to reach and
enthuse existing and new NME
readers alike.
EJ Thribb?
I mean seriously, maybe people don’t like Sophie Heawood cos she can’t write, and her gender has nothing to do with it.
k8 otm!
what a very tedious thread. i wonder if dom and paul actually realise the extent to which their jokes aren’t funny?
(or Squirrel_Police)
xpost
Going on the noms up there I’m guessing that Plan B wasn’t studied wth too much scrutiny as regards the UK’s best writers, but I could be wrong
The troll does have a point about Frances May Morgan though.
Since when has Dom and Paul’s jokes been funny?
Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, this is pot.
Oh, how it must burn you up, that she has the audacity not just to write for an organ that wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole, but also to be a woman!
for the record, sophie is clearly a far superior writer to most people on this thread, not that that’s hard or anything
Can we see some examples of her not being a dreadful writer with no flair, insight, and a general crushing “It’s a career, right?” overview. Shouldn’t be too hard, obviously.
Yeah, album reviews that don’t mention anything about how the record sounds are grebt.
Which record would that be then? Val Doonican Rocks But Gently? (xpost x 2)
Yeah, album reviews that don’t mention anything about how the record sounds are grebt.
this is dom’s schtick though innit
Public, mediated talent contests are now the way of weeding out the wannabes and rising to the top. And anybody can win.
Anybody, that is, who looks vulnerably gay, or has steam-ironed Hollyoaks hair, or is big and fat and funny.
this is dom’s schtick though innit
Pretty much!
The acid test of a good music writer is whether they can persuade you to go out and buy the record they’re reviewing.
Of the people listed at the top of this thread only Stevie has succeeded with me in that respect.
Yeah, album reviews that don’t mention anything about how the record sounds are grebt.
this is dom’s schtick though innit
Pretty much!
You should see my porn reviews, them shit’s a damn buyer’s guide.
Lex is being articulate and capable of independent thought.
Lex deserved the award infinitely more than I Alexis.
The acid test of a good music writer is whether they can persuade you to go out and buy the record they’re reviewing.
no it’s not! any number of my non-critic friends could persuade me to buy an album by dropping me a one-line email saying “hey lex this is AWESOME!” whereas any number of awesome writers couldn’t persuade me to part with cash for half the things they eulogise (haha, eg stevie and frances most of all).
acid test of a good music writer is to make me think YES you have NAILED what makes the album work. stevie, sophie and pete paphides have all made me think this (i am not too familiar with paphides’ work though).
Rab Florence and Ryan McLeod are the only two not shit journalists in Britain these days, and they did a bit on Video Gaiden about how the Pipettes and J-Pop are shit and Prince and Todd Rund-gur-ren are great, so they’re my favourite music journalists these days.
They like The View though, so they’re capable of indendant thought.
acid test of a good music writer is to make me think YES you have NAILED what makes the album work
Doesn’t this mean the acid test of a good writer is agreeing with the preheld notions you already have of the album?
You should see my porn reviews, them shit’s a damn buyer’s guide.
“Lily Allen’s moaning, coddled personality shines through so blindingly on film...God help us, look at her face during the money shot...”
why i started this thread is cos people like lex, marcello and dom are the one’s writing really, really good stuff. that the awards ceremony was music journalism and PR says it all really.
please understand the english language better dom
Thing is, what happens if you haven’t heard the album and therefore have no idea whether they’ve nailed it or not? The great music writers make you want to consider things which had never been anywhere near your universe.
Seriously, Estie, when my nerd porn article hits the streets early January it’s gonna be the hottest piece of journalism since Woodward and Bernstein back in the 70s.
Lex deserved the award infinitely more than I Alexis.
OTM
Thing is, what happens if you haven’t heard the album and therefore have no idea whether they’ve nailed it or not? The great music writers make you want to consider things which had never been anywhere near your universe.
Logical extension: most new music writers are only interested in reviewing stuff that’s known, because exposing people to something “new” is too hard work.
Seriously, Estie, when my nerd porn article hits the streets early January it’s gonna be the hottest piece of journalism since Woodward and Bernstein back in the 70s.
READ ABOUT DOM PASSANTINO HAVING A WANK OVER SUICIDEGIRLS DOT COM
ONLY IN BIZZARE MAGAZINE!!
I subscribe to godsgirls.com and badassbetties.com Estie, not suicidegirls.com. Those girls are inarticulate and incapable of indendant thought.
lol subscribe
So SuicideGirls wasn’t chubby enough for your tastes?
OTM
Thing is, what happens if you haven’t heard the album and therefore have no idea whether they’ve nailed it or not? The great music writers make you want to consider things which had never been anywhere near your universe.
haha i make a point of not actually reading any criticism of anything until after i’ve heard/seen/read it! because it spoils it for me, it puts ideas & expectations into my head which distract from the thing itself. now that i’ve finally heard the new joanna newsom i can finally devour all the criticism of it.
i think frances’s writing on metal is totally awesome, but i’m sure as hell not going to subject myself to the music.
Basically then you just require colourful confirmation of what you already know. Whereas I like being pleasantly surprised by the unknown.
i think frances’s writing on metal is totally awesome, but i’m sure as hell not going to subject myself to the music.
So by your standards Frances May Morgan is a bad metal writer?
no, by marcello’s standards.
Basically then you just require colourful confirmation of what you already know.
no because i enjoy reading alternative angles, different takes on what i think.
i am interested why everyone blew up over sophie heawood. she was mentioned so i googled her and that bit where she used the phrase “least boring” sort of made me laugh. it jus seems such an odd piece of phrasing. i don’t get why this means we are envious / mysoginist / jealous. every day of the weeks someone is slagging a petridis or harris and it goes unremarked. ilx posters hating on writing percived to be sub-standard, it’s not that out of the ordinary, is it?
Yeah, but nobody on ILX is expecting any dinner party invitations from Petridis or Harris soon so nobody’s gonna defend them.
Yes, no one who has been unwise enough to cross swords with I Alexis can expect his patronage as commissioning editor!
that heawood piece was from the new statesman. they should run hire robin carmody.
Hello everyone! Is anyone her saying anything they haven’t said 300 times before? I can’t actually be bothered to read this thread to find out.
I briefly misread that as “they should run over robin carmody.” But yes, he should definitely be on NS (xpost).
No, Matt, there’s nothing to see here, move along (I recommend to the 1987 thread which is infinitely more fun)...
Actually, ‘Put Your Hands Up For Dirk Kuyt’ made the brief scan worth my while. It’s not as good as ‘What’s That Coming Over The Hill Is It Chimbonda?’, but it’s nearly there.
i think frances’s writing on metal is totally awesome, but i’m sure as hell not going to subject myself to the music.
Why not?
because i don’t like metal, oddly enough
You have to be pretty much fucking worthless for all intents and puposes if you listen to metal.
well indeed, i simply can’t fathom why anyone would do it, but a lot of people i know do, and they are nice and normal and fabulous, it’s all a bit of a mystery. and they seem far more open to pop than your bogstandard indie kids too!
But they have shocking hair!!
metal boys have shocking hair (too much of it). i don’t know many metal girls but frances has GREAT hair.
Can we get back to talking about either Dirk Kuyt or pornography plz?
Not allowed in Blair’s Britain.
I find metal girls hair to be a bit of a mixed bag myself.
metal girls / goffs are to dom what kids on buses are to you lex. and there we have a way back to suicide girls.
i have no idea who dirk kuyt is and str8 porn is boooooring.
How about this cut, Dom?
I look forward to seeing you all post on Rolling Metal Thread [sandbox version]
‘for whom exploring the dark heart of creativity means buying a peasant skirt from River Island..’
What is the problem that allegedly left-wing newspaper The Guardian has with peasants? In the Guide the week before last there was a feature on “peasant food.”
But ‘peasant skirt’ is a recognised style of skirt, it’s not a Guardianism.
for the record, sophie is clearly a far superior writer to most people on this thread, not that that’s hard or anything
Lex OTM.
And that’s a relevant point because everyone writing on this thread so far was nominated for music writer of the oh wait.
Heawood is harmless, but ultimately a drone rather than a queen. She will never move anyone to tears or rapture with her words. A work of music could never inspire her to create a work of literature.
She will never move anyone to tears or rapture with her words. A work of music could never inspire her to create a work of literature.
...and you know this because...?
I do not believe it to be in her nature.
Robin, you appear to be trying to have an argument with Marcello about Guardian music journalism. Just thought I’d point this out.
It’s a pretty dreary and pointless one as well. Must remember not to feed the blessed trolls.
Last week I read Petridis’s fashion column without any ill effects. It was about aftershave. I also read Langam’s or Mangam’s or whatever, and came out of it similarly unscathed. Both were entertaining enough. I am looking frorward to reading tomorrow’s offerings.
I also read Langam’s
“Now, if you’re anything like me, you love raping a few children now and then.”
i found his remarks on aftershave unpleasant. i am too indie for any kind of fashion/male grooming writing though. in his article petridis says the metrosexsual is a myth. he says that, in his article about aftershave...
in the guardian
GQ head music critic Alexis Petridish said that?
Both Petridish and Mangan make me pray for NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST IN ONE SECOND
mangan is amusing.
ie, on a student rag mangan would be STAR WRITER, and she is very diverting on g2, but it feels slightly odd to see her frisky humour used so much. i don’t mind her though!
mangan is amusing.
THAT’S WHAT THEY USED TO SAY ABOUT HITLER
ilx0rs tend to be the kind of people (or indeed the exact people) who were involved in student papers. so know where barton-mangan is coming from. but i do wonder what other people make of it, cos it’s *just* like a student paper, only daily, and all year round, and without the excuse of being 19 years old.
Perhaps 19-year-old students are the Grauniad’s target demographic.
thanks to that Five docu about Hitler the other night i learned that he WAS amusing, constantly taking the piss out of Goerring and his other commanding officers.
it’s *just* like a student paper
it really, really, REALLY is exactly like this—a very high-quality one, mind (some of the dross i used to see &c &c), but the tone of...EVERYTHING is just entirely lifted from the student mag ethos.
I never did anything on my student paper. I did, however, write briefly for the Exeter one when I started working here.
i mean that’s not surprising given that most of their writers (two known to me personally) used to write for the student press; BUT you might expect they’d switch up a bit? and most of them do. but not so much with mangan-barton.
xpost
i was all over my student paper.
andrex wasn’t included in hall of residence budgets
lol at the guardian employing the current uk student journalist of the year for less than the average production line worker gets paid.
you lot should be paying the guardian for t’privilege for writing for ‘t!
So far they’ve bought me a headphone amplifier and a new pair of headphones, plus a few indian takeaways.
a new pair of your headphones is probably a c-note at the very least tho.
£9.99 @ Currys Digital
$100, handmade in NYC, no import tax.
i guessed right!
http://music.guardian.co.uk/rock/laurabarton/story/0,,1976919,00.html
same shit, different photo
“My Bestest Christmas Ever” by Laura Barton age 11.
it barely makes chronological sense. all the all saints songs she says she hates were released ‘never ever’ which was probably like their third ever single? so she hated them based on simple prejudice but liked lots of old fucking motown records ooh and ‘cannonball’ and ‘babies’ which let’s face it are not titles that will be immediately recognized by her readers.
Yeah, I thought it seemed iffy but I didn’t check the dates. Apparently she hated a bunch of songs they hadn’t released yet. Prescient that.
Summary: “My name’s Laura Barton and I think I’m totally fucking cool. And now I ”get“ popular music as well so I’m better than you—even though everyone else got it before me because their heads are jammed so far up their own arses”
(weren’t several of the other records she mentions “chart songs” as well?)
xpost re chronology, isn’t she just being revisionist about it well after it had had its day when people with less pretensions liked it the first time round?
their heads are jammed so far up their own arses
aren’t, that should be.
It’s like when Mark Radcliffe used to suddenly play Zoom by Fat Larry’s Band in a set full of the Fall and Teenage Fanclub. [...]Or the night England went out of Euro 96, when the local DJ put on Three Lions and all the goths and the riot grrrls and the fey little indie kids danced about together joyously.
it’s like two things i, laura barton, have experienced. (nb: goths, riot grrrls, and ‘fey little indie kids’ — lady knows her zeitgeist.)
‘never ever’ was their SECOND single, so she must have REALLY hated ‘i know where it’s at’ for this article to make a shred of sense; and even then, yes, martha reeves did sell a few records.
Sadly I think it’s just that G2 or whatever it’s called now is basically “I Heart Being a Student in the 90s”.
I also call bullshit on “my grandfather’s greatcoat” (what is this, a Hovis ad?) and her knowing who the Pastels were in 1997.
I really did heart being a student in the 90s, but I’m not getting to be all “I really liked things you wouldn’t expect me to like, woo, me all subversive, love me love me” about it for money. Is that even a *thing* any more, to be unironic in your wuv for pop?
(aye, I lived in *Glasgow* and rarely heard the Pastels played at any indie-studenty nights)
i would do that for money, is the sad part.
but my dates would be tight an’shit.
xpost re chronology, isn’t she just being revisionist about it well after it had had its day when people with less pretensions liked it the first time round?
I didn’t explain that very well. I meant, this mythical night when she listened to the Pastels and Pulp and then the scales fell from her eyes re All Saints, Never Ever had been around for a while and she had thought she hated it along with all the other songs she also hated by them, but hearing it again in a new context and realising that people in neckerchiefs who listened to Belle and Sebastian liked it meant she could throw of her indie shackles and like it too.
xxxpost
Yeah, this is what’s so rofflicious about it: the confessional tone. “I know I like proper music like The Smiths and The Breeders, but would you believe I like (some) silly Pop records too? Now I’ve admitted this, you can feel good about yourself when you sing along to East 17 at your Office Party today.”
Puh-leeeeeeeze.
xpost
But she doesn’t. She says she heard it in 1997, about a month after it had been released and before every other song she mentions.
Actually, I am talking shite because she says it was New Year 1997 and Pure Shores didn’t come out until 2000. She’s just a shit writer.
(xpost, obviously)
Or the night England went out of Euro 96, when the local DJ put on Three Lions and all the goths and the riot grrrls and the fey little indie kids danced about together joyously.
wait, does she mean these people all danced joyously because they all hated football and were glad England were out?
this would make slightly more sense (i.e. slightly more than zero)
(tenner says she means the night England beat Scotland in Euro 96, but she knows fuck all about football so couldn’t grab onto any reference other than “I’m pretty sure England didn’t win the whole thing so they must have got knocked out”)
Or the night Beckham got sent off in Euro 96, when the local DJ put on “Back Home” and all the goths and the teddy boys and the fey little indie kids danced about together joyously.
omg i hadn’t even thought about it that way! this goes two ways:
1) “indie” nites c. june-july 1996: not a great time for the abovementioned subcultures. more of a ‘cast and OCS’ time — iirc — so no great celebration at england going out. scenario not very plausible.
2) “indie nite” c. june-july 1996 that miraculously comprised bang up-to-date belle & seb types or i guess 80s vets plus erm early 90s vets and more 80s vets (she was a student — but no matter) — anyway these guys would not have dug ‘three lions’, but they might well have disliked football etc and wouldn’t have cared that england went out. but dancing to ‘three lions’ to show this? hmmmm. scenario not very plausible
OH GOD I JUST SPEND THREE MINUTES WRITING THAT :O(
I just went out and keyed every BMW in the street.
(contrary to stereotype, large amounts of twee scarf-wearing indie types like football, also Three Lions = Ian Broudie therefore the acceptably indie face of football songs*)
* the first time round, not the 8 zillion reissues and updates when it took over the fucking world
xpost I laughed because I am neither big nor clever.
I just went out and keyed every BMW in the street.
— Fat Lady Wrestler (noodlevagu...), December 22nd, 2006.
i read this as ‘because article was shit’ not ‘because england went out’. bad luck on the conviction btw.
INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY FOUND HANGING IN CELL
(dude’s recent photos don’t look that much like me, happily)
I hereby resign from the concept of poppism.
i liked kitty empire’s lady sov review in the observer yesterday.
ha i just skimmed this tedious thread again for no reason whatsoever and the inept myspace stalking of “ilx’s most widely read journalist” is still amusing
Predictably, I agree entirely with that Observer piece.
my god lady sov is bad.
um nick snow patrol are not indie. the piece made no sense.
in fact none of the bands she mentions are indie.
how are snow patrol not indie? what do you mean by ‘indie’? they’re indie to me.
it’s a bit like calling u2 a post-punk band cos they did a record with martin hannett.
xpost
well yes.
“snow patrol are not indie”
eh?
they don’t sound indie, they don’t play indie venues, they don’t sell indie records...
I saw Snow Patrol live in Leeds circa 1998. They were perhaps the most indie thing I have ever seen.
Once an indie band, always an indie band.
nah.
‘once a skiffle band always a skiffle band’
you come up via indie routes = you have indie roots = you are indie in the broad sense of the word (as opposed to pop or dance or hip-hop)
also, wtf are they if not indie? they’re obv treated as a pop group now but by that reasoning everyone of similar stature is pop, regardless of how they sound or where they come from
tell me more about ‘indie roots’, lex.
they are AOR, not so much pop. punk was a myth. indie was a fad.
if only
They used to be on Jeepster and sing songs about polar bears. NONE MORE INDIE. (that version of Snow Patrol bears little resemblence to this current one though)
Indie roots:
Stadium Indie
meanwhile Harris does the required fortnightly ‘no more heroes anymore too much choice today bloody apathetic kids life is too cosy for profound punk statements’ whinny.
it doesn’t feel like such a long time ago that we had the last revival of interest in punk.
soysaucegirl
February 10, 2007 1:24 AM
Wakey, wakey John. The rebellion of rap, being born when Sid Vicious was still alive, was far more internationally influential, creative and sustained than punk. Oh I forget, it was made by BLACK people in the US, so you don’t have a handle on it, right? So therefore you can act like nothing significant has happened since punk?
White folks keep banging on about punk because they can afford to wallow in the past. Black music, by contrast, has been for the past 25 years fiercely competitive and therefore keeps re-inventing itself. Too busy fighting for the present to keep whining about the good ol’ days of 30 years ago.
I do like it when people combine trolling with being right.
but hip hop is dead?
Nas lied to you through song.
I’ve been saying for ages that “indie” is an impotent, redundant and meaningless term. “Indie” in 2007 (and since about 1995, at a guess) has actually meant “rock”. All the bands listed in the Empire piece are Big Rock Bands, no matter their routes. Very few artists start out massive and corporate from the get go, whatever genre they’re in. Not everyone plays pubs and makes lo-fi records, admittedly, but, you know, Dizzee Rascal as analogue to Arctic Monkeys in terms of creation, discovery and reception of music.
That doesn’t mean I disagree with what Empire’s saying though—that bands are in way too much of a rush to go UNIVERSAL these days in terms of sound and appeal, and that perhaps some of them would be better off with more creative rather than commercial ambitions.
If Snow Patrol had “more creative rather than commercial ambitions” they’d still be playing third on the bill to Mull Historical Society and Salako in front of a crowd of 200. Rather than, you know, now sleeping on a mattress stuffed entirely with $1000 and gold bullion.
People were having these discussions about the meaninglessness of the term “indie” in 1992, probably earlier. Plus ca change or something.
“Too busy fighting for the present to keep whining about the good ol’ days of 30 years ago.”
trudat — rappers never dwell on the past. cough.
I don’t think the two are necessarily mutually exclusive. I’m hoping that, say, the Patrick Wolf record goes mega.
Colonel Poo—true, doubtless, but did so-called “indie bands” in 1992 shift 1.6m units? The term may have been debated for an age but it’s never been quite as brutally abused and meaningless as it is now.
How many copies did Nevermind sell?
I don’t think they were described as indie were they?
Sometimes, yes.
I remember an article in Select called What Is Indie? from about 92/93 that decided they were too rich to be indie, though.
“The Queen Is Dead” must have sold over a mill worldwide. Same as “Bossanova” and the Violent Femmes S/T
the smiths were indie though.
it was probably easier to call nirvana “indie” than snow patrol as well. the game has changed a lot and i suppose punk/alternative signifiers are even easier to come by now; but all the same, nirvana surely had the power to alienate people in a way snow patrol don’t. (obviously snow patrol alienate people, but not in the same way.)
yes (xpost), they were on rought trade. the rules kids: the smiths, erasure, kylie and rick astley = indie. the cure, the pet shop boys, madonna and morrissey = not indie.
no, that’s silly; but the smiths were just more indie than snow patrol. it isn’t simply about record labels, that’s just one possible indicator.
But in the beginning it was! The word was first used to denote type of label then PWL (and others) made everything confusing by being indie but not “indie”. Or so I have been told.
there were indendent record labels before rough trade and whatnot, holmes. it was never just about labels.
“Bands that sound like they ought to be on an independent record label”. i.e. not Coldplay.
yeh but the mythology round independent records changed sometime in the 70s. indie labels meant a certain type of music being released that otherwise might not have been released. so yeh it wasn’t really about labels but it was about labels.
xp
PUT YOUR HANDS UP FOR RIGHT-WING FARMERS—THEY DIG POST-1988 RAP!
in fact none of the bands she mentions are indie.
Arcade Fire not indie?
I find it very hard to believe any of you are actually interested in this debate.
Isn’t it.
...so anyway (great thread, just lost half an hour of my life reading it), anyone got the new arcade fire? meant to be reviewing it for, um, thursday but no fucker’s actually got a copy it seems.
tum te tum.
what is this ‘thursday’ publication of which you speak
wheeee! (ok, the word ‘deadline’ would’ve helped somewhere in there)