Category: Music

Eurovision? More like Euro-schism

This year’s Eurovision song contest cements an image of Europe that’s quite simply fed up with the United Kingdom and its arrogance.

As Scott Mills preceded to introduce his country’s votes to over 100 million people, and its subsequent hosting of the Olympics, he was met by a less than enthusiastic reaction, where other nations received mountains of applause at a mere mention of the name. Was this a lack of passion on our part, or that of Europe’s? Either way, it epitomised our toxic bilateral relationship with the continent, our condescending apathy and their bemused disgust at our inflated sense of self.

When our own charismatic stallion Engelbert Humperdinck finished a dismal but half-expected second from last place, Brits across the country would’ve been regurgitating the same ‘bloc voting’ crap that seems to resurface every year. But most embarrassing of all was the stark contrast between Humperdinck and winner Swedish dance ‘Loreen’, a woman who if not for her Nordic inflection could’ve been a Hoxton music babe, straight from a trendy bar with an upcoming collaboration with Tinie Tempah or the like. There’s an overwhelming feeling that the Swedes have beat us at our own game – spinning a half decent tune: wasn’t melodic pseudo-classy dance music meant to be our thing? Obviously not.

That’s not to say Sweden isn’t a European musical genius, far from it. Sweden has for a while been the ‘cool kid’ of the continent, a self-image dictated by the sense of pride an act like ABBA can bring you if all you’ve got is IKEA and Vikings for your national exports. In fact, behind us and the United States, with over 800 million dollars in revenue, Sweden is the third largest music exporter in the world – our showing at this year’s Eurovision did nothing to cement our deserving of the world’s Silver Medal in music.

Then again, take away Engelbert and there’s still a bucketload of reasons why not to vote for the world’s first proper imperial nutjobs. While the countries of the European Union see themselves in the globe’s largest ever financial crisis, there’s one thing that draws a wedge between us and our neighbours. While we see the impending financial and political disaster as a cue to head for the figurative door, the majority of the continent see it as nothing less than a stimulus for an ever closer fiscal and political union. We are fundamentally opposed to this idea, both in popular opinion and in our national politics. To us, one would rather gouge out its own eyes with Jedward’s abrasive personalities than see a future strapped to the backseat of a European death trap. Not only do Europeans know this, but they do not like it either.

For them, this exact way of thinking is nothing more than a remnant of our own bloated feeling of worth and importance, a staple to the very image that a word like ‘British’ conjures. It’s no wonder the phrase ‘Inselaffe’ (Island Monkey) is the conventional German term for an inhabitant of this country, an acknowledgment of our skewed view on just how far our blustering  isle lies from the continent’s coastline. While our national insults for the Europeans range from a less than innovative nod to their eating habits (Frog-Eaters for the French, Krauts for the Germans) to a half-century old political legacy that still gives us a juvenile feeling of historical moral superiority (Nazi Scum anyone?) – their insults reflect an unpopular and arrogant political sentiment that has become a cornerstone of our identity on a continent that is characterised by its ideology of ‘togetherness’. And for the rest of them? It’s well known us Brits know just as much about the patchwork countries of Europe as we do about American “Football” – fuck all.

So next Eurovision, when we proceed to match our dismal performance at the world’s biggest song contest and follow it with a tirade of “it’s all political voting”, remember, it’s hardly fair to expect a Slovenian to remember your nation’s stone age ballad when you can’t even remember its capital city – and capital cities don’t change every year, unlike Eurovision entries. Well, apart from Jedward.

 

 

One Direction, and it’s up unfortunately.

When groups like Boyzone and Take That ruled the land of the tweenverse in the 1990s, you’d be forgiven for thinking the decade was merely a byproduct of an experiment into female hormones gone wrong, girls 6 to 26 would fawn over their technicolor and overtly metro sexual paraphernalia – dreaming of the day they’d be plucked away by her pruned and perfumed prince charming.

Ten years later and the female sexual pandemic that kept many a hairbrush wet at night seemed depleted to say the least. Aside from the Backstreet Boys – whose members had ironically been through drug and alcohol addiction – the last remnants of a musical legacy that had given the 90s a bad name was over, but as always, a new one had begun. Girls from Wellington to Washington had ditched the soft-spot for side-step dance moves and replaced it with a fondness for denim, juvenile anarchy and hair gel. Acts like Son of Dork, Busted, The Noise Next Door and McFly epitomised the “pop-to-rock” shift at the turn of the century that would eventually lead an entire generation on to discover Greenday, Blink 182 and real guitar music. Sure, these guys still had the female-allure, but their package was sold on the premise of more than just a singing pre-teen soft porno.

Fast forward another ten years and, holy fuck. Twelve years into what was meant to be the greatest century (and millennia) for humanity, ever, and record execs (supposedly clever people) have just unravelled the fact they took a ten-year holiday on the greatest money-spinner in a single music demographic, ever. Cute, singing, boys. Hell, it took until 2008 when  vote-in talent show The X Factor produced JLS, the first inkling that a fresh batch of un-boybanded pubescent young ladies were ready for the reaping. Inevitably, 2010 became the year when the bubble burst, and we collided head-on with The Wanted, a clean cut, lower-vested manifestation of the format we’d all seen before – but revamped and reworked for the 2010s.

And then we come to One Direction – the personification of shitting out five Justin Biebers in one go – a group who’ve recently become the first UK group in history to debut at number one with their first album in the United States, something even The Beatles didn’t manage to accomplish. But why the sudden burst after a decade of boy band dormancy? Vast increases in technology and the creation of social media and networking have all helped to inflate and exasperate a playground group crush into an international feeding frenzy.

I’ve been asked what I think of One Direction’s future; quick flick fame, or on to the realms of super pubescent stardom? Well, imagine Take That in their heyday – only with the ability to instantly and electronically communicate with billions of fans on individual digital platforms. Now call that the Internet, Facebook and Twitter.

Now imagine Robbie never left.

Scary huh?

 

 

Nicki Minaj: From Jeffree Star to Starships

It’s the 8th of April 2012 and ‘Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded’ has just become the first album by a female rap artist to chart at number one in the United Kingdom, and on its debut too. Just as ‘Starships were meant to fly’, so it seems, was Nicki Minaj. Racetrack rhymes dipped in a form of chaotic genius (never mind the occasional odd peculiar noise), this is a woman that tightly fastens a new meaning to the word ‘rap’ – accompanied with ribbons, rainbows and an acid high that would make Liam Gallagher ditch the credit card and pipe. As eccentric and inventive as Gaga, Minaj is a woman that can emulate the unpredictability and entertainment value of bigger names – but without taking herself too seriously.
July 2007 saw the release of her first mixtape, a grassroots rap, edgier collection and light-years away from the technicolor trollop her critics accuse her of. New Nicki fans won’t find a vocalist, let alone a popstar on this thing. ‘Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop’ features the already prominent Lil’ Wayne and with other gems like ‘Dilly Dally’, ‘Sunshine’, and ‘I’m Cumin’ – the release was a success, just not commercially. Her further two EPs ‘Sucka Free’ and ‘Beam me up Scotty’ both included Lil’ Wayne again – and the first, an appearance from Lil’ Kim & Gucci Mane on ‘Wanna Minaj?’. Nicki’s a girl who’s had a healthy contacts book from the word go, hardly a ‘starship’ but certainly a metaphorical jetpack.

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Selling Out – The Question of Moral Integrity in Popular Music

‘It’s not about the money, money, money, we don’t need your money, money, money
Just want to make the world dance, forget about the price tag’

I first heard this song as played through the built-in music system of a high-street chain store. The irony was not lost on me, in fact, within the context of the busy store it seemed like an encouragement for customers to forget the ‘price-tag’ of their items and enter into a reckless consumerist spree, buying any item that might aid them in the dance of life.

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An Interview with Current Swell

With a rustic sincerity that manages to string country sounds from around the globe, Current Swell have a catalog of sounds that would do most artist’s a creative justice – how could I not make contact? I managed to prise a few answers from Current Swell’s Scott Stanton and dig deeper behind the folksy charm of these Canadian ‘news roots’ lads.

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Why Adele?

Being a music writer, a music listener, and a music fanatic, I find it extraordinarily hard to miss the (forgive the phrase) ‘word on the street’. And unless you’re a chronic agoraphobic or have severely disabled hearing, you’ll know the word on the street too – it’s Adele. In fact, it’s been on the street for so long now, we’re starting to question it’s status as an elaborated metaphor and see it increasingly as a permanent piece of iconography – an image of crude graffiti – perhaps depicting a penis – attracting gazes from all pedestrians who happen to pass within its vicinity. But let‘s face it, bleach and a scouring pad isn’t even going to do the job. And when you can’t beat ’em, write about ’em.

Now in no way at all am I implying ‘Adele’ is someone to beat – as a recording artist, yes – but I have no intention of pursuing the career. The big question is, why is she someone to beat? Why is this generic, cockney, overweight lass from London suddenly the most successful singer of the 21st century? In effect it’s one of the simplest reasons that any of us can fathom, but in a cloud of opposing ideas and conflicting messages it seems nobody is quite equipped with the means to provide it. For me, it’s a hilarious irony – the fact that for years we’ve systematically debated and condemned the horrors of sexualisation, glamorisation and objectification of women – but the minute the perfect anomaly arises within our midst, the only three words we can muster is – what the fuck. When we see a buck to the trend we ask ourselves “Why“? We assumed that in the world of sexual identikit pop stars, that the rise of the antithesis to that very idea would just simply not be possible. Let’s break it down.

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