Artist: Glasvegas
Album: Glasvegas
Year: 2008
Grade: 2 pretzels
It’s about time I confronted something I’ve wanted to talk about for a while. It’s something that lurks around virtually every corner. It keeps me up at night. It haunts me in my dreams (that is, after it finally lets me sleep). I am, of course, talking about Brindie rock.
“Brindie rock” is my catchall term for what is often called “British indie/alternative rock” elsewhere. I use Brindie rock to refer to basically any English guitar-based band that sprung up in the wake of the “rock revival” around the beginning of the new millennium (The Strokes, The White Stripes, etc). I usually mark The Libertines as the first true Brindie rock band and Franz Ferdinand as the band that really put the genre on the map. Just like Britpop in the 90s, these bands seem quasi-united by a desire to make great rock music from within their own country (or, at least, the U.K), instead of importing American rock.
The problem with Brindie rock is that, while their ranks have swelled to epic proportions in recent years, there is very little actual depth. The genre (as I define it), has become increasingly stagnant, with fewer and fewer new ideas being added to the overall formula. Bands like Arctic Monkeys and Art Brut set some very high standards for English rock several years ago, but the bands that sprouted up since sound like they’re simply retreading those ideas over and over again. Decent bands (Kaiser Chiefs) turned into mediocre bands (Editors) which, in turn, turned into completely forgettable bands (The Enemy). Throughout it all, the English music press has treated each new release with the same gushing tone, declaring every new band as “the next Beatles” or whatever hyperbole their writers dreamed up the night before. This is where I start getting frustrated. I keep hearing about these amazing new British rock bands and they keep sounding worse and worse. Brindie rock is creatively in decline.
This brings me to Glasvegas. They’re a charmingly Scottish band from Glasgow and apparently they also like Las Vegas. They’re also the latest Brindie rock casualty. They sound more-or-less exactly like every other hype-laden British band you’ve heard in the past five years. Big guitars, big choruses, impossibly thick accents (Scottish this time) and ultimately unmemorable songs. All this would be fine if the English music press hadn’t saddled them with a truly mind-boggling amount of praise. Five major English music mags had this album in their top ten of the year. Three of those had it in the top five. Now, I understand that 2008 was a particularly slow year for music, but I guarantee they could have found at least ten albums better than this (speaking of which…this whole idea of “better” is complicated. Check back this weekend for a piece on “good” and “bad” in art and my personal ethics of music criticism).
I realize that most people reading this will say, “Simon, man, why do you care so much about what the British press says? Or any press whatsoever? Just listen to whatever you like, man.” While this is tempting, it would A) be giving me fewer things to rant and rave about here on Pretzel Logic, and B) undermine my whole approach to following music. The truth is that I care deeply about what people are told is good music and what isn’t. As I will explain in further detail this weekend, I think all music criticism is ultimately a matter of persuasion and that a music critic’s job should be persuading people that his or her ideas are valid. I want to have a hand in what people are told about music. I want my opinions to be added to the vast, seething stew of music journalism that will ultimately effect which albums we’re still talking about in twenty years. Music history is my passion and all I want is to help write it in the way I think it should be written. I don’t feel that Glasvegas and many of these other Brindie bands should be held up as the highlights of the late 2000s. The line in the sand is drawn.
“Brindie rock” is my catchall term for what is often called “British indie/alternative rock” elsewhere. I use Brindie rock to refer to basically any English guitar-based band that sprung up in the wake of the “rock revival” around the beginning of the new millennium (The Strokes, The White Stripes, etc). I usually mark The Libertines as the first true Brindie rock band and Franz Ferdinand as the band that really put the genre on the map. Just like Britpop in the 90s, these bands seem quasi-united by a desire to make great rock music from within their own country (or, at least, the U.K), instead of importing American rock.
The problem with Brindie rock is that, while their ranks have swelled to epic proportions in recent years, there is very little actual depth. The genre (as I define it), has become increasingly stagnant, with fewer and fewer new ideas being added to the overall formula. Bands like Arctic Monkeys and Art Brut set some very high standards for English rock several years ago, but the bands that sprouted up since sound like they’re simply retreading those ideas over and over again. Decent bands (Kaiser Chiefs) turned into mediocre bands (Editors) which, in turn, turned into completely forgettable bands (The Enemy). Throughout it all, the English music press has treated each new release with the same gushing tone, declaring every new band as “the next Beatles” or whatever hyperbole their writers dreamed up the night before. This is where I start getting frustrated. I keep hearing about these amazing new British rock bands and they keep sounding worse and worse. Brindie rock is creatively in decline.
This brings me to Glasvegas. They’re a charmingly Scottish band from Glasgow and apparently they also like Las Vegas. They’re also the latest Brindie rock casualty. They sound more-or-less exactly like every other hype-laden British band you’ve heard in the past five years. Big guitars, big choruses, impossibly thick accents (Scottish this time) and ultimately unmemorable songs. All this would be fine if the English music press hadn’t saddled them with a truly mind-boggling amount of praise. Five major English music mags had this album in their top ten of the year. Three of those had it in the top five. Now, I understand that 2008 was a particularly slow year for music, but I guarantee they could have found at least ten albums better than this (speaking of which…this whole idea of “better” is complicated. Check back this weekend for a piece on “good” and “bad” in art and my personal ethics of music criticism).
I realize that most people reading this will say, “Simon, man, why do you care so much about what the British press says? Or any press whatsoever? Just listen to whatever you like, man.” While this is tempting, it would A) be giving me fewer things to rant and rave about here on Pretzel Logic, and B) undermine my whole approach to following music. The truth is that I care deeply about what people are told is good music and what isn’t. As I will explain in further detail this weekend, I think all music criticism is ultimately a matter of persuasion and that a music critic’s job should be persuading people that his or her ideas are valid. I want to have a hand in what people are told about music. I want my opinions to be added to the vast, seething stew of music journalism that will ultimately effect which albums we’re still talking about in twenty years. Music history is my passion and all I want is to help write it in the way I think it should be written. I don’t feel that Glasvegas and many of these other Brindie bands should be held up as the highlights of the late 2000s. The line in the sand is drawn.
nice. i'm excited for the post to come.
ReplyDeletewhere do Foals fit in?