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9 out 
of this 
year's 12 nominees are new musical express lovies
2007's Mercury Music Prize shortlist was published this week. In past mercury award ceremonies the selection resembles a puddle of vomit, the result of excessive musical taste mixing, spat from the HMV database. This year, however, the chosen few look like they've been enthusiastically plucked from the pages of the popular music press by a swaggering floppy haired Topman shopper.
This, of course isn't such a bad thing for all those who thought the Mercury Music Prize was nothing more than an excuse for head honchos at sony bmg to lavishly stroke the fat cat's at time warner. an event where praise is thrown hithe and tithe between label bosses before the head back to their offices the next day to plot each others demise. at least this year a large section of the audience will actually know who the acts are. however, this is not so good for smaller acts who, once nominated, received a spike in album sales thanks to massive publicity and those tiny branded stickers splashed all over their album covers.
although smaller acts may have been tossed to the wayside this year, a quarter of the nominations remain harvested from some of the most flamboyently off-kilter musical landscapes, stretching for acres and acres across every genre. according to the bbc these are;
fionn regan, the token irishman who writes, sings and plays folk akin to bob dylan;
maps, or james chapman. probably the most impressive undiscovered artist working off a 16-track recorder in his northampton home before having his ambient and euphoric ode to spiritualized polished by bjork's producer valgeir sigurdsson and arranged by sigur ros mixer ken yhomas in iceland, and;
basquiat strings, a collection of classically trained, jazz mmersed musicians who play as session instrumentalists on top of recording their own material.
excluding arctic monkeys, basquiat strings are the only group to receive a second nomination in the mercury music prize's history, but unlike the snowy apes they didn't actually win it last time around.
and so it seems that as long as the majority of genres are catered for and some of the little people are getting a piece of the greater-record-sales-pie pie, those clever people at the mercury music prize can throw into the hat any tom dick or alex whom has appeared on a nme awards tour/show. still we might be on for a bit of drama in that if the yorkshire quartet do manage to bag a second consecutive award it will be the first time in the near pointless awards history.
pointless? surely not you say? the people behind the prize state it exists solely to champion UK music by promoting the 12 albums of the year by british and irish artists. this is all very well and good but who decides what are 'the 12 albums of the year' across every musical niche imaginable? a bunch of number crunching accountants at the event's sponsor, nationwide? i doubt it. who are the people behind the prize anyway? how do we know their opinion is valid? after all in 1997 when roni size reprazent won the gong they had also listed the spice girls debut album.
then there's the prize. not a record deal as 99.9% of the artists are already signed. Or anything of any real worth for that matter. the artists recieve a sum of money in the region of 70,000 squid. that's £70,000 that won't even touch the sides of the band's by now vast trouser pockets as they jingle already fat with brass. for this reason it's even more pleasing when a relative unkown wins the accolade.
so here's to hoping that the mercury won't become the music industry's booker prize anytime soon but that it does become a little more transparent in it's workings. let's also hope that the view's happy go lucky underdog anthem, 'a song for the buskers', will motivate the judges to vote away from the nme centrefolds and divert the prize money elsewhere rather than toward the spitting amy winehouse.
A suggestion: Make the mercury music prize an award to champion brand new leftfield acts taking their first baby steps in the lion pit that is the music business.
the 12 acts and albums nominated to recieve the mercury music prize 2007 are:
Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare
Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford - Basquiat Strings
Bat For Lashes - Fur and Gold
Dizzee Rascal - Maths and English
Klaxons - Myths Of The Near Future
Maps - We Can Create
New Young Pony Club - Fantastic Playroom
Fionn Regan - The End of History
Jamie T - Panic Prevention
The View - Hats Off to the Buskers
Amy Winehouse - Back To Black
The Young Knives - Voices of Animals and Men
Words: Dean Samways
Images: Google
Glastonbury Festival organiser, Michael Eavis, today admitted what many younger festival goers have suggested for many years, the five day summer event is too middle aged.
Telegraph.co.uk and Radio 1 are just a few of the news outlets who have been running this story all day. In all these pieces Eavis is quoted as being worried by the changing demographic of the Glastonbury crowd and worried about the lack of the "NME crowd" despite the current punters being "fantastically well mannered and polite and respectable".
During my time wading through the Somerset fields this summer i must say that, yes, there was definitely a high number of 30/40-somethings sat in foldable chairs with cold beers and warm ciders precariously placed in the cup holders. The nicely pleated ponchos and vast golfing umbrellas are not the gig attar you would expect of people going to see The Klaxons, even if the ground below your feet is more water based than vinyl floored.
Mr Eavis is on record as saying that the way to solve this is to make more tickets available over the phone lines next year. Plans are afoot to dedicate 40% of the 2008 tickets to telephone orders so that teenagers "will be able to use their mobile phones to get tickets."
It's seems to me though that there are several factors that the organiser might be overlooking:
1. £145!!!
When i first went to Glastonbury in 2000 tickets were 80 squid which was amazing value for seeing David Bowie do a hour set. 145 big ones to see two headliner acts who have only just released two albums and another who are touring their asses off trying to get their over-rated back-catalogue back on the turntables of their now vintage fans seemed a bit step.
If Eavis wants to attract a younger crowd he needs to bring the cost of tickets into the pocket-money-market brackets. Yes of course a middle of road career ladder climber can afford a small fortune but an NME reader can hardly afford a decent music magazine let alone half the monthly rent of a inner city flat.
2. MCR not DSB
Eavis' words suggest he's after lynching all the music fans that save up their haribo money to basking in the August sun of the reading festival, if this is the case, and I hate to say it, he's gonna have to cater for their ears.
This isn't to say that I'm suggesting My Chemical Romance should headline every one of the 70 stages at next year's fest, nor am i saying that Dame Shirley Basey should be banished from the fields of Avalon forever more, especially as I'm told she was amazing. What I am suggesting is that, maybe, just maybe, Glastonbury needs to attract bigger bands. Instead of The Pipettes on the Pyramid Stage during the day, improve the line-up so much that Snow Patrol find themselves relishing in that slot. That's a near perfect outcome I know but you see what I'm getting at.
Clearly Glastonbury is intended to be the most diverse festival on the face of the planet and it really is. Nowhere else will you see Arctic Monkeys and The Marley Brothers on the same stage while a jazz world stage blasts out tropical tunes that are so fresh to everyone you are pulled to experience it. Throwing more and more mainstream acts into the mix simply won't work. The festival is perfect as it is...please don't bring in Marilyn Manson...Smashing Pumpkins yes, Manson no!
3. Acid fried the hippies...and that's why they dead!
Eavis has got to realise that he will not be welcoming the travellers back with open arms. Hippies, like the potential younger audience, can't afford the price tag to attend the sometime annual event. This is a unattainable goal if this is indeed really what organisers are hoping. What additional joy and youth would these fence hoppers bring to the festival anyway? Free love now costs stis (or stds) however you want to say it, and the festival costs an extra couple of decimals of debt.
All this doesn't really drag many conclusions. What we can take away is that the festival must only see minimal changes. A big band here, a younger act there, while still staying true to the charitable nature of the event, if that means refusing to pay Jagger and his band of pirates a million pounds then fuck 'em.
Making more tickets available through the phone lines will not mean that more younger people will attend. Many of the people the festival want to attract know the internet like the flatplan of Kerrang and more have broadband. They'd rather sit at a computer hitting refresh instead of holding a warming carcinogenic device up to their temples only to keep hitting redial.
Improve the headliners, attract the bigger acts and the audience demographic might just change but the Glastonbury Festival's cultural identity is so stubborn and leftfield that it won't stand for any efforts to force change...not even from it's Father.
Words: Dean Samways
Image: Google
Much against the GMCs advice, a pinch of salt should always be administered when a band is heard horribly wooing a crowd with lines like, ‘you’ve been the best crowd ever’, or ‘you guys are amazing’, and even, ‘we’ve done 30 shows now and none of them compare to this one’. Because of this forever-spewing banter from stage to dancefloor, it’s a relief to hear a sincerity normally absent from a rock band’s dialogue as they stand up on their pulpit preaching the sins of rock ‘n’ roll.
Kings of Leon have a reputation that makes one assume they would be void of any such deep seeded earnestness. A reputation lavishly decorated with stories of womanising, alcoholism and generally advocating a lifestyle of excessive bathed in debauchery. As tonight’s gig starts it seems that this very lifestyle may have eroded any such solemnity from the group’s character. At the Bournemouth International Centre, on Independence Day, the Nashville brothers and cousins plough unrepentantly into their set playing three songs without stopping to chat to their public. Just when murmurs start circulating the crowd in the vicious vein of, ‘they’re not going to talk to us are they the bastards?!’, the guitar playing takes an extended break. After the downright dirty chords and filthy melodies of 'King of The Rodeo', Caleb looks up to the some 8,000 people and speaks for the first time in what will turn out to be a surprisingly honest string of comments that sends the crowd into yet louder cheers of appreciation.
“Good evening we are the Kings of Leon”, “I’ve got something to say…Firstly happy fourth of July, and secondly, you guys are honestly the best crowd we’ve played to on this tour”, “Thank you guys for showing us such great respect”, “You know? They all told us that this was an old people’s town but you guys are proving them wrong” and “This is the biggest crowd we’ve ever for and thank you for making it the so special.”
Normally such comments peppering a show are brushed aside as rehearsed, overly gratuitous dribble that falsely heightens the crowd euphoria and is obviously intended only to get the mob jumping an inch higher and miles more joyously. Caleb’s words however, under the modest backdrop of unspectacular lighting and a single plain black banner portraying the smashing light bulb taken from the band’s new album, you can’t argue that the Followill boys’ modesty is anything but heartfelt. However, honest or not and crowd pleasing nuggets of emotion aside, the music remains as grungy, bluesy, dirty and as fantastically violating as the first time you heard the sexual deviation of 'Molly’s Chambers'.
It was written in a recent review of Because Of The Times that Caleb (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Jared (bass), Matthew (lead guitar) and Nathan (drums) sound like they are all just trying to make more noise than each other at the detriment of the music. What the review should have said was, yes instruments are being played to melting point but the delightfully deafening din is so carefully orchestrated that each track sounds like Butler and Chassagne of Arcade Fire could have written them. They twist what is known as the Kings of Leon sound from sexy grunge pop into angelic ethereal pieces of minimalist yet rich substance. The drum sequences alternate to texture the fresher, newer songs with a vast landscape of sloping and rolling peaks that intricate guitar melodies march over with a pouting arrogance manifested in the bearded faces of the Southern American guitar heroes. It’s amazing to think that when the four Nashville boys started out in 2000 lead guitarist Matthew was only 18 and yet he was able to string together such complex solos. Tonight his fingers were hard at work again blisteringly tearing up his strings alongside bass lines that ebb and flow almost as hurriedly.
At what Caleb assures the horde is the bands biggest ever gig (assuming that means subtracting festival appearances from the equation), Kings of Leon have finally become a band with a full back catalogue. The 13 new tracks add a rusty but sterilised sound with an eclectic edge to add to all those highly favoured polished pop songs of Youth & Young Manhood and Aha Shake Heartbreak. The foursome tease the band with a slower, fresher track like 'True Love Way' that builds and peaks and peaks and peaks and plummets with such amazing grace before throwing down a filthy dance classic like 'Four Kicks'. The KOL collection would seem complete and yet they are only three albums into their illustrious career.
Take new track 'McFearless'. This three minute 11 second pant creamer maybe the closest song to the older, grubbier Kings of Leon pop offerings yet the unparalleled TLC that went into its creation is absent in the earlier material. The Followills send out each contemporary track with a caress lacking in a conceited swagger and heavy in free love. When it’s the turn of 'True Love Way' to receive a south coast airing the band release it with as much love as a mother waving her first born off climbing the school steps for the first time. 'True Love Way' radiates an adorable loving poise as it battles not to peak early and yet deliver it’s message to it’s intended listener about escaping away and finding happiness alone, far from the maddening crowd. The combination of this instant new hit played alongside blatant bone-ing soundtrack 'Spiral Staircase' really shouldn’t work, but when they are both strummed out with no less the same manic filthiness as the first time Milk was pumped out inside a Tennessee music hall, it’s musical arousal.
All this makes the flicking through the band’s history all the more paper cutting fun. Glancing into the future of the band and reflecting on its past, the fluctuation between newly found stringed ecstasy and gritty nailing of classic harmonies continue through the set to it’s conclusion. 'On Call' neighbours 'Milk' and 'Arizona' cuddles up in 'Molly’s Chambers' and new is mixed with old in true aural intoxication.
Of course all this isn’t to say that the Kings have completely abandoned their highly sexed pastoral musical pedigree. When it’s the turn of 'Black Thumbnail' all four band members adopt aggressive stances to lay down some violent instrumentation abuse
Normally only displayed during 'Pistol of Fire'. According to a Rolling Stone interview this song, one of the heaviest on the new record, is about a cousin who had dabble on the wrong side of the law. This anonymous relation was once asked if he thought his ex-wife had a heart to which he apparently replied, ‘Yeah, it's about the size of my thumbnail and black as coal’. This hatred and bitterness for the former spouse is transposed tonight in a ferocious display of testosterone topped with back arching effort in tearing up bass strings and hands so closed around pick-ups on guitar solos that the great welcoming volume and depth of the noise defies what you’re seeing. The display is purely and completely immense.
After announcing the band will be generously putting on fireworks down on the beach and that ‘it’ll be great if you could join us’ the leather clad gang of guitars and skins catapults into a lengthy version of 'Knocked Up'. With a casually raw build up the simplistic drums and bass lines coupled with only a few chords from Matthew tantalise for a final time before raining down heavy drum cycles, erratic lead strings and distant echoic rhythm guitar. Singing about having babies and escaping claustrophobic townships this is a complete escape from the Kings of Leon as we knew them during Youth and Young Manhood and Aha Shake Heartbreak. If this comes as unwelcome news it shouldn’t. Progression in any vocation, any walk of life, any back catalogue of music is nearly always a good thing and if the NME interview with Caleb is anything to go by, the Kings will soon have a new LP baby hopefully with all the same electric traits as their last. This can’t be a complete band already…can it?
Words: Dean
Image: Google
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