Sometimes you hear a buzz and you’d be better off putting
your ear to a hive than following the crowd. At others you’ve got to join the
throng, play along and see what comes of it.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This really works........
I wasn’t overly impressed by The Strypes, I get it that
they’re great looking and they’re young and they play like they should’ve been
around in the late sixties but sometimes it feels too forced, almost like it
was someone else’s idea.
Of course I’m cynical, I’ve seen it all before, the ‘kids’
don’t care so much. To some of them it probably even sounds new. In that
instance it is new – to them. In the same sense the industry wants so badly to
create that ‘new’ (usually from the ashes of something familiar) that they’ll
often trip over themselves trying to get there. There’s a lineage in all music,
occasionally the industry mines the right seam and a trend develops.
‘Music people’ (journalists/presenters/bloggers) are easily influenced;
we want you to think that we’ve discovered something new and you’re privileged
that we’re sharing it with you. Often we’re just making educated guesses on the
stuff that labels and publicists push our way.
Frankly there’s too much music and you can only filter it in
certain ways – if you know an act is pretty good and they’ve got decent backing
then you may as well join the bandwagon. You’re going to be right a certain
percentage of the time and it’s a damn sight easier than listening to all the
music that comes your way.
I hear The Ruen Brothers and I can see the appeal. Backed in the right way they could go places. Are
they any better than The Heavy? Hell, no but they’re possibly better looking.
See and hear for yourselves.
I keep saying that it’s all about the songs, but clearly the
image is always going to matter. We live in a visual world, the stuff we share
online it’s mostly pictures not words.
As for the underlying trend or scene we can see what is
being attempted - blues-infused, r’n’b sixties style, maybe it was The Stones
comeback, maybe it’s the fault of Kings of Leon, The Black Keys, Alabama Shakes
and even Arctic Monkeys or back to The White Stripes. Every generation wants to
tear it up themselves, wants to re-invent the wheel or at least try to make it
prettier. Maybe that’s what’s happening here and I wouldn’t discourage it,
let’s keep it real.
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