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Can this new thread not stand as post-press feeding frenzy incarnation of the old one? They're big, now, aren't they? Assuming this is so, I'll post my input here but I'm happy for it to be moved to the other thread if that's what we decide to do.
My main issue with the Arctic Monkeys situation isn't really an issue with the band at all, per se; it's rather the British music press's unanimous quickness to label them as "the next/the big thing" based on their supposed status as relevant, socially observant cataloguers of the British/Working Class/Northern(and for Northern read underprivileged, a Great Myth today, incidentally, which I'll come to in a moment)/Youth experience of today, which, when we've got Dizee Rascal and the whole fucking grime scene ticking most if not all of those boxes yet not getting and not likely to ever get within a sniff of recognition as "the next/the current big thing", seems to me like a case of favouring the nice white boys with guitars who sing about going down club NME.
In a sense, I think people who still think in terms of "The next really big band" are pretty much behind the curve anyway, but it just angers me that almost the entire music press has taken upon itself to go in the safest direction with barely any criticism.
On to the Northern question, in which I may lose credibility because I'm not entirely sure if my ideas hold water. I'm sure you'll tell me.
Not through any sense of tribal loyalty, but rather through a sense of awareness of the actual situation, as a Northerner, the "this band are salt of the earth Northern boys" element of the press splutter riles me intensely. The press are keen to make out that, by dint of their Northern-ness (something that only a southerner could envisage), the AM are heir to the throne of the Beatles, the Las, Oasis, Mark E. Smith, Ian Curtis, Ian Brown etcetera.
Whether or not you like those artists I've just mentioned isn't the point- I'm not saying "How dare they make out that he's another Ian Curtis". What I'm saying is that it is basically inacurrate to confuse, for example, the vital, fairly working class 70s Manc punk scene, or the vital, fairly working class Madchester scene with the conservative, white, moneyed, middle class Yorkshire (but let's face it, it could just as easily be Sussex) "indie" "scene" of today, of which notably the Arctic Monkeys and the Kaiser Chiefs are part.
I'm not talking about subjective tastes: you can prefer the Kaiser Chiefs to the Buzzcocks if you want, but the scene and the idea space around these two bands is almost totally different, and to say otherwise is basically bad practice- notably because whereas The Smiths, Joy Division, even the Stone Roses were contrarians, defining a space for themselves, the Yorkshire indie scene is basically about middle class kids adopting the current foppish/boho style of, say, The Libertines, becoming more generic, more Southern, running away from the terrible "Scallies" who represent "northern-ness". As a rule of the thumb, for example, no working class people attend Leeds Festival. From the accents and the general mise en scène, one could be in Oslo, New Jersey, Australia- generic, boring rich white rockers.
I'm not holding up Manchester 1977-199? as any more "true" or "authentic" or what have you compared to today's climes- it's all just pop music, kids- but there is definately a far more conservative, conformist (to the global ideal) outlook in the Yorkshire scene, and the level of inclusiveness, and, dare I say it, fun, compared to, say, Factory or the Hacienda is seriouisly lacking. |
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