The Future Is Ow

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7163404.stm

It's the annual BBC Sound of... poll!

Follow the link to look at the artists but also take part in our very own RESPONSE poll, whereby we discern which of these hott new artists' claims are most off-putting. Cynicism? More like survival instinct.

[Poll #1115544]

Comments

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

If they had said "musical" influences I wouldn't have checked it, but for some reason I find the idea of making influences even worse by pinning it down to "vocal" influences really precious and a bit hateful so whoever it is can bug off. Sorry if it is Pete Wentz. I would no doubt actually like whoever it is!

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Not only that, but being vocally influenced by a *band* (and one that's had three different vocalists over the years) is worse still.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

"We write a track, we record it and within the first hour if we're not feeling it we erase it, it's gone."

What utter toss! It's still in your HEADS, dears! What's the point of scrubbing it out? Surely looking at what's wrong with the track can help you write a better one?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

It was so close between this and Nina Simone/Bad Brains for the final tick but Nina Brains had to get it - YES I AM LIKE TWO VERY DIFFERENT THINGS PH34R MY ORIGINALITY.

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

My final tick was a three way brawl between Nina/Brains, "Learning about my voice", and 50's/doo wop. I went with learning about my voice though cause it was just such self-indulgent bullcrap.

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

Except that I'd think they'd share...something. I'll say this w/out having either in a while. And she specifically talks about the fact that its the vocal, so there might be more to it.

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

sorry I didn't scroll, I see others have picked on the Nina Brains comment.

SEE ALSO

[ms-bracken.livejournal.com]

"We make music for real people, you know, not the critics."

Actually spoken by Blokey from Revd And The Makers on the radio this morning. There's just so much in there that in horrible, not least the implication that critics aren't 'real people' and the subtle sleight of hand that makes the whole thing mean "If you don't like Revd And The Makers you are not a real person".

Incidentally, I wonder what he meant when he said 'critics'. I'm sure the answer is 'Q Magazine' but it's a weird statement to make in a world where the internet exists.

Re: SEE ALSO

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Reverend from Reverend And The Makers is an impossibly huge fanny. So much so that I've begun to suspect he's a Pub Landlord style joke.

Re: SEE ALSO

[ms-bracken.livejournal.com]

It's very rare that I'm exercised enough by what I'm hearing on the radio to actually want to turn it off and have no sound at all. I hope he is a comedy character with a Big Reveal timed for sometime soon, everything he said was horrible (the "...critics..." thing was far from the worst, it just seemed relevant to this)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

"I don't have to lose weight" - it's not that this statement is untrue, it's that it's being proffered as any sort of insight or statement of rebellion. Also I know it's Adele and I am beginning to hate her.

I think the 9-yr-old girl/80-yr-old man needs more hate: it makes me think of all-things-to-all-people fusion-cooking wackiness which, because it's trying to be all things to all people is actually inherently conservative, and not really crazy at all. eg Mika or the Go Team.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

YES the 9-80 year old is awful!

As is the "I realised a while back that pop is all about theft" - it's the "a while back" that does it. I AM IN AWE OF YR POSTMODERN WISDOM!!!

b-but

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

9-yr-old girl/80-yr-old man = the lex/me :(

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I didn't tick the authentic doo-wop one b/c surely they're taking the piss.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I can't even remember which one said it, but it's the way you just KNOW that what results is going to sound ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like doo-wop and 50s rock and roll and ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING like The View.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

But this is AUTHENTIC doo-wop, mind you. Non of that doo-wop that the 'critics' like.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

ha ha the beauty of that statement is that it could go either way - viz. the authentic doo wop that real people love and that critics don't 'get' OR the authentic doo wop that no-one apart from a select few have heard!

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

that VOICE!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

The post-apocalyptic survivalism actually sounds quite intriguing! Whether or not they live up to this promise, I'd be interested in checking them out.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Well, it sounds like Radiohead! (I mean, sounds like they want to be Radiohead, or something Radiohead would say.)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I don't think Radiohead ever brazenly admit it, but yes a Radiohead-wannabe. (The actual band who said it sound like they're terrible but not Radioheadish tho.)

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

All of these were so horrible, how can I pick just three? This was the most fun poptimists poll in a while.

[hoshuteki.livejournal.com]

Most difficult poll EVER! I wanted to pick most of them, but "it's a discovery about me" clinched my tick over everything else.

All of these quotes were stolen from other people viz

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

"I don't think I have to be all glamorous and lose weight and stop smoking to be a good artist."
Soulja Boy

"I'm just learning about my voice at the moment, what I can and can't do so it's a discovery about me."
Kate Knash

"We write a track, we record it and within the first hour if we're not feeling it we erase it, it's gone."
Brian Higgins

"There's something really authentic about a lot of doo-wop and '50s rock 'n' roll."
Mark Rongson

"We make music that tries to be progressive in some small way - in whatever way you can still do now."
Scouting For Girls

"People would be less interested in us if we were doing something they had heard before."
Booty Luv

"The goal is to have a nine-year-old girl and an 80-year-old man in a different country dancing at the same time."
Gogol Bordello

"We definitely take something away from every era. I realised a while back that pop music's all about theft."
Nickelback

"The album does address many similar themes dealing mostly with current apocalyptic confusion and post-apocalyptic survivalism."
Leona Lewis

"Nina Simone and Bad Brains are my two biggest vocal influences."
Johnny Borrell

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

These singers/groups make jack patente look good!!

[koganbot]

But I would be curious to hear the Bad Brains/Nina Simone (singing doo-wop, perhaps?). I remember back in 1991 pitching a review for Apollo Smile on the basis of her having said that she considered herself like Public Enemy and the Mamas & Papas (though this said when Public Enemy were still a very contemporary, viable commercial entity that up to that point hadn't had much to do with dreamy white flower children). Also, the apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic scenario. Wouldn't bet on liking the scenario, but still, piques my curiosity.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

There are some moments of silliness in there, but I don't think any of the above statements, on their own, would be wholly off-putting to me. If there was a lot more silliness when read in context, that'd be a different matter.

I think the one which came closest was the "erasing the track" one, because it seems a bit pointlessly idealistic - like everything else, music is more perspiration than inspiration, I'd bet - but everyone's got their own method and if that works for them, fair enough. Probably untrue, but it's not like any great pop artists have ever told massive fibs to bolster their appearance of authenticity, is it?

Nina/Brains just amused me. As koganbot said, some of the things I think might be horrifying in practice, like post-apocalyptica, authentic doo-wop influences or Nina/Brains vocal combos, would still pique my curiosity enough to make me check them out.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Well a lot of my ire was down to soundbite nuance - the way the (much-ticked) "progressive" quote has that mealy-mouthed "in whatever way you can still do now" on the end, for instance, with its implication that the fate of even the best band is simply to embroider the hems of the mighty.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

I agree, that did come across as either sarcastic or pessimistic hand-wringing. But on its own, it doesn't say much. If the band are working with a much-used musical formula (singer/electric guitarist - male vocals+bassist+drummer), maybe there's an genuine earnestness being expressed there, an acknowledgement that it isn't easy, rather than a whine.

Who knows?

I'm not dismissing the ick of the nuances mind you, though I mostly found them funny rather than infuriating. But in isolation, it's hard to attribute it to anything. If I saw a negatively-nuanced comment once from a band, I wouldn't think much of it. But if I saw another 4 or 5, especially if they were in different interviews, I expect that *would* have a cumulative influence which could end up turning me right off.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

I don't know - to me that's much more realistic soundbite than ""People would be less interested in us if we were doing something they had heard before." It is SOOOOO rare to hear something nowadays and think "I've never heard something like that before." Sure there are twists, but the chances that this group is doing something reallly unheard of are slim to none. For some reason I'm much more tolerant of Oasis/Razorlight "We are the best ever in history" braggadocio than this kind of self-hype.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The least objectionable one, apart from maybe the apocalypse one, is the "learning what my voice can do", which I think is totally fair and something you can actually HEAR on a lot of good records by other people. I think what's queered the pitch here is "it's a discovery about me", which is dippy and obnoxious.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I liked that comment too! I actually thought it was commendably honest, and would probably predispose me positively towards that person overall.

The self-discovery bit might just indicate youthful silliness. (For some reason, this makes me think of the Red Dwarf episode where Lister went back in time and met his teenage self performing in a pub, singing a song which went "Ommmm, ommmmm". Crypto-fascist! Excuse me, I'm being distracted by amusement now)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

That one makes me think that whoever it is just doesn't know how to sum herself up in one sentence to journalists (another bad thing about the others is how pat they are!). Def the least objectionable.