A kung fu fighter in a disco

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.)

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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.

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

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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.)

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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.

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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.

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koganbot

The male guitar band is dead.

Unfortunately, newspaper trend pieces are not.

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

What did you think of White Town?

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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.

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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)

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So many mannerisms, so little substance.

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

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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".

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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.

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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.

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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.

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I don't think there's a party-line Right Way To Appreciate Kate Bush, Lex!

Take your point about the Stuck On Repeat groove but nobody ever went aesthetically broke nicking "I Feel Love".

White Town may not have emphasised it in the song (though there was definitely a lo-fi vibe about it) but the promotion was totally look-at-me-I'm-DIY. La Roux has that same feel about her, but I still like "Quicksand" a lot, her shriekiness appeals wherever she's getting it from.

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White Town may not have emphasised it in the song (though there was definitely a lo-fi vibe about it) but the promotion was totally look-at-me-I'm-DIY.

Agreed, particularly with the B-Sides. (Hell, release named for a PC error? Of course!) And I say this as someone who really liked that single.

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TRUFAX!!

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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.

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koganbot

nobody ever went aesthetically broke nicking "I Feel Love"

I love Divine's version of "Walk Like A Man." But when I put it on a Why Music Sucks blindfold test it got nothing but derision.

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Taking only the surface weirdness from Kate Bush's work seems woefully reductive though (and it doesn't do justice at all to Kate's talents).

La Roux's voice really irritates me - I don't dislike shriekiness as a rule but there seems so little POINT to what she's doing. The song doesn't move me because it's not about anything, it doesn't make me dance because it's so stilted, it's just not a very interesting song - but all of this is at odds with her statements and the imagery she uses and the mannerisms she employs, she couldn't be keener for us to note how interesting and arty she is. But she's just...not.

This is re: Lady Gaga more, but this Tim F post (http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=65133) sums up where I feel this aesthetic goes wrong.

(And evn though I like 'Your Woman' I don't think it's a song which should be a blueprint for anyone. Its appeal is more of a one-off - it works despite itself.)

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Oh, and as I said on your

vidsarealright post, I think "Quicksand" is really good, but (to follow on from

koganbot's good point above), it's a big, quite well-done steal of 'Purple Rain', explicitly "When Doves Cry", and is using good rock qualities to make the song awesome. Which ain't wrong but, as with his concern about Lady Gaga (I really didn't like "Just Dance"), makes me wonder about her future stuff somewhat. She may just have got lucky with this one.

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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).

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Did you see the Tim F thread on Lady Gaga on ILM? (Linked in reply to Tom's comments.) Sums up my problems with her fairly well.

Yeah Ladyhawke surprised me - she'll get lumped in with these acts b/c she's a hyped solo female, but stylistically she seems to have little to do with them - doesn't seem at all concerned with being "wacky", indeed doesn't seem concerned with much beyond how much she loves Stevie Nicks. Am going to give her album a try - am guessing it'll stand or fall on how much individuality she brings to her songwriting (though she has a head start on the likes of La Roux in that she seems to care about songwriting in the first place).

Agree that the critical success of MIA and Santogold definitely figures into the growth of this aesthetic - again less for what they said than their mannerisms - but closer to home, I have a feeling Kate Nash is more to blame. (Maybe they saw how successful she'd become while completely unencumbered by any sort of talent at all.)

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