"The future is electro, female and DIY"

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/dec/17/electro-pop-female-artists

AKA the Guardian has another pop at predicting the pop revival.

That said I like all the acts mentioned who I've actually heard. Perhaps this is the Real Thing!!!

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Sound of 2009 longlist made this fairly clear. I kind of hate all these acts - surprising given my propensity for electro and for female artists - but it all sounds so amateurish. So many mannerisms, so little substance. (And it's much too self-conscious to be any fun.)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I can see the DIY bit trumping the "female" and "electro" bits for you!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

UGH yes, I don't have anything against acts who do things all themselves but flagging it up so much in your music (mostly by making things sound shit) is obnoxious and annoying.

None of these women have the slightest idea how to construct a groove OR a song, either.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

There I'd disagree - "Stuck On Repeat" works as both, "Quicksand" works as song.

What did you think of White Town?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

The 'Stuck On Repeat' groove is basically 'I Feel Love'! Though I don't mind Little Boots really (pending hearing any more songs by her). Don't think 'Quicksand' is well-constructed at all - the melody is really rudimentary (and not that catchy) but there's nothing to latch on to lyrically.

'Your Woman' was OK I guess? Like, 7/10 if I was generous? I get the point of comparison but it wasn't all look-at-me about its DIY-ness or weirdness, it was just nicely understated if not all that special. Mostly saved by really good lyrics!

Really, going by La Roux and Florence & The Machine especially, the new trend is "Misunderstanding Kate Bush". I bet they all idolise her...for her "wackiness".

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I just heard "Just Dance" for the first time - it's OK, nothing more really. It suggests that there is a male elephant in this article's room and its name is CALVIN HARRIS.

Anyway you're right in that the test of DIY is whether the songs it produces are as strong or exciting as the dance-pop ones produced via non-DIY: in the case of GaGa I'm not convinced yet.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah have you heard Frankmusik yet? I wouldn't recommend it. He's even more like the new Calvin Harris.

Luckily I don't particularly like her music, but calling herself Lady Gaga was an immediate and irredeemable black mark against her.

Dan Black and Florence & The Machine are the current nadirs of this little scene - surely it can't get worse than that.

[koganbot]

Odd thing is that on "Just Dance" GaGa takes a basic disco sound from way way back and roughens it up in a rock way to make it edgy, thereby making it worse. But unlike you I think it's a terrific song, very well constructed (actual songcraft, riffs, memorable chorus). It's the the song that carries her, not vice versa. And though she makes a valiant effort, she fails to ruin it, even with her godawful horrible rap in the middle. I have yet to listen to anything else she's made. I have a bad feeling about it.

I liked the Ladyhawke track that charted in Britain this week. Thought you did too. Seems way more pop-goth than electro, however, no matter what its instrumentation. Song is well-constructed.

If someone's going to write about this stuff, wouldn't the success of "Paper Planes" and "L.E.S. Artistes" be relevant? Also Basshunter, but he's got a penis and therefore clearly he doesn't fit the trend. Have I mentioned that I hate trend pieces?(And why wouldn't Wiley etc. be relevant to what's supposedly replacing guitar bands on the charts?)

You need to watch the beginning of the Miss Universe swimsuit competition for some of the most charmingly inept dancing ever - not GaGa's, which isn't charming, but the contestants getting into it in the background, especially Miss Norway at 1:15.

[koganbot]

Yes, listening to Ladyhawke's "My Delirium" it's definitely got a rock guitar and rock drums; the instrumentation is very '80s DOR (for you young'uns, this means "dance-oriented rock"), the mixture of rock and pop and synth. I really don't get why Ladyhawke is considered part of this trend, other than that she uses synth riffs. I mean, I don't see how this is different in kind from Kim Carnes' 1981 version of "Bette Davis Eyes" except that "My Delirium" is more gothily draggy (in a way that works because the tune flowers from within the dragginess and makes it something other than draggy).

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

So many mannerisms, so little substance.

For someone who generally appreciates mannerisms in music, I have to say I agree with you there.

I have just lost all the respect I had for LaRoux

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

"Girls look a bit stupid playing electric guitar and drums. It suits blokes better. But girls look wicked playing synths. When they play drums or whatever, it looks a bit butch. I hope that doesn't sound anti-feminist."

FUCK OFF.

Re: I have just lost all the respect I had for LaRoux

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes, La Roux comes across as a bit of a dick. I think she's trying to be offhandedly controversial inna Lily Allen style but it's not really working.

Re: I have just lost all the respect I had for LaRoux

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, don't you just hate those butch female drummers (http://home.onego.ru/~nick666/pics/corpus%20delicti.jpg)?

(That's sticksmistress Roma in front, btw)

Re: I have just lost all the respect I had for LaRoux

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I hope that any young girl guitarist or drummer out there have more sense than to be swayed by what this idiot is saying. Butch or not, 100% of girl drummers look better whilst drumming than Phil Collins does.

Re: I have just lost all the respect I had for LaRoux

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

TRUFAX!!

Lady GaGa

[koganbot]

"I sing about oral sex in my underwear," as she puts it.

So is she singing in her underwear, or is she having oral sex in her underwear? ("Both" is an acceptable answer.)

[koganbot]

The male guitar band is dead.

Unfortunately, newspaper trend pieces are not.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

So, er, is this article saying that Lady GaGa sells more records than Peaches? *confused*

And, yawn;

Oldham remembers La Roux turning up to sign her recording contract "wearing a T-shirt that said 'I Am a Cunt', which I thought showed a certain amount of chutzpah".

Obviously hasn't spent much time around women in goth, industrial, metal or punk scenes then! This is pretty old-skool alt-fem confrontational dressing, frankly.

Overall, interesting (I <3 electropop after all) but flawed in the usual way of broadsheet music articles, in that it uses a very knowing tone while displaying some, to me, obvious knowledge gaps.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Haha I know right, wearing that T-shirt showed a certain amount of business savvy more like.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Sad but true, sad but true.

I am wondering how old James Oldham is; I can't believe he's much under 40 and am presuming slightly older. Hence my thinking he probably spends more time in office than clubs.

*sigh* Middle-aged man in position of authority thinks woman artist selling self through sexualising performance is awesome/radical/liberated? Move along, nothing to see here.

(NB Not saying the above is wrong, just depressingly unremarkable.)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Plus it's tremendously helpful if she wants to market herself as "alt" or credible in any way! Nothing says "cool outsider" like a bit of swearing after all.

[martinv.livejournal.com]

Blah. Predictable hype from a newspaper (what else do you expect?) and predictable whining on here (ditto).

For the record I like all of the artists mentioned in the piece, see not much connection between any of them and Peaches, and agree with Elly J in her Lipster interview today: shut up about electro pop, it's just pop.

In any case, hype like this might mean record labels sign more mildly interesting, fun, (relatively) glamorous artists, rather than more dull scruffy guitar bands, so that's probably a good thing right?

[mindtaker-cro.livejournal.com]

i like the Lady GaGa album, and i don't hear vacuousness but rather... i dunno, some kind of formalist purity? she keeps singing about money, fame, paparazzi, hipsters, nightlife with the beautiful people etc etc track after track, and to me it sounds more like she's in love with the idea of those things rather than in love with them. it's like becoming famous isn't means to an end (ie being rich, being adored my millions) but something that's noble and romantic and fascinating and worthy in itself (for whatever reasons that can't be easily grasped - and shouldn't be grasped, really, because the magic would then trickle away). i hear an element of doe-eyed naivety in her persona that reminds me of a smalltown girl devouring fashion magazine pictorials and desperately wanting to be a part of it all, and that element shines through when, in midst of all the 4x4 grind, out of nowhere comes the lovely Ace of Base throwback Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQAvksbvK5A).

otoh all of this might easily be just make-believe on my part, a way for me to rationalize me liking an album that i wanted to hate, and that i hope doesn't become a blueprint for anything. still, make sure you check out the track i linked to above, it's really wonderful.

(other faves: Money Honey, Paparazzi, The Fame)

[nunya-b.livejournal.com]

the lady gaga album is my bete noire for 2008/2009. i don't understand how she gets away with b-grade urban electro that sounds like almost all other redone production just because she wears a fright wig and babbles on and on and on about artistry as though it's something she actually possesses. saying it enough times does not make it true. i wouldn't go so far as to say she's dangerous to pop music, but i don't think she's doing anything positive for it either.

i would also like to say that the martin kierszenbaum tracks on the fame (anything that starts with the producer stamp "cherry cherry boom boom" - how arty to be namedropping your interscope sublabel!) are uniformly awful. they make me unhappy for the future of music.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

"i don't understand how she gets away with b-grade urban electro that sounds like almost all other redone production just because she wears a fright wig and babbles on and on and on about artistry as though it's something she actually possesses."

this sentence is A+ and I agree wholeheartedly.