Deserved/Undeserved hype

Deserved:

Arctic Monkeys: In a very straightforward, no-frills rock idiom they have somehow managed to create something utterly new and challenging. Better than Blur at their best (and not having to reach so far outside themselves to achieve otherness). Better than Franz Ferdinand, better than Libertines (no duh); make peers like Editors, et al look pedestrian.

Plus: They're the anti-U2:
[news.yahoo.com]

Undeserved:

Modest Mouse: Lots to say here about a band that I always scratched my head over. But let's just say that this proves once and for all that Johnny Marr has the ability (post-Smiths) to leave only glancing impressions on anything he touches. A lot of the band's "style" seems to arise from borderline inane repetition (e.g. "Dashboard").



Post Edited (07-05-07 09:58)

-issues need awareness

-most people avoid any awareness

-issue seeps in from concert

=rock bands are defacto spokesman

if the world/your career hands you a stage, and you can use it in a poisitive, way, why not?

The Monkeys are fast closing in on the bottom of my interest list. Not that it's not possible to enjoy music made by morons (it's probably good to be flippant to the press at that age; but their stuff doesn't grow on me). Recognition: probably deserved. Hype status: completely undeserved.

Modest Mouse. Deserved for past accomplishments. New Lp is only good in a few parts and contexts.



Post Edited (07-05-07 10:38)

Well, I love The Libertines, and to me the Arctic Monkeys sound like a tribute band. I don't really see that they've brought anything unusual to the genre.

A tribute to what??? Where on any album do they clearly sound like anyone? The idea that they sound like '77 UK punk/new wave is lost on me. Which song? Which band do they sound like?

I was making the same assumptions about them--and have a kneejerk reaction to UK press hype--but have spent the last month immersed in their records.

As to the Arctic Monkeys' socio-politics: I actually think that attempting to avoid hypocrisy is a good attribute.



Post Edited (07-05-07 12:03)

RE: Arctic Monkeys

First album: Awesome! Only gets better with repeated listens, IMO.

Second album: Growing on me with repeated listens, which is a good sign, of course.

It goes without saying (so I'm going to say it) that "knee-jerk reactions" are, almost by definition, the fault (or at least the mistake) of the one who's doing the reacting. And whether an artist's hype is deserved usually depends on the hype's source. Is it from the media? Then one must weigh and consider the hype, starting with the question of whether it's coming from a media source that one trusts. It is web/'zine-based? Again, one must take it with a grain of salt ... but the odds are decent, at least, that it's coming from genuine fans.

Is it label/management-generated hype? Or artist-generated hype? 'Nuff said.

I like the Arctic Monkeys' personal tagline, "We're the Arctic Monkeys. Don't believe the hype."

like the a monkeys enough to shell out hard earned ching to see them alive at the dreaded hard rock.......................

Liked the Arctic Monkeys debut alot, found it slightly overrated in the sense that it kind of wears you out by the end , but it's still great energetic party music (if I was a younger man, I'd probably fornicate with it.....)- their new one tops it in every conceivable way for my money. What they bring to the genre is an astonishingly precise and insightful lyrical slant.

I dug the Libertines alot, and the Libs wrote some great lyrics but really they only vaguely defined a sort of post-modern bohemia. Alex Turner uses that as a starting point, and goes off.

He takes that bohemian mindset and refracts it and expands it simultaneously - he writes far more specifically than the Libs ever did and he drops his observations within a framework of a broad worldview. He APPLIES it to the world at large.

If you look at the 2nd album it is essentially a litany of songs about the traps of adulthood (which he dovetails of course as being mirror images of the traps of success).

At only 21 (!) he has more to say about marriages gone bad, sex drives gone sour, middle aged malaise, and lost hopes than every smug poet in waiting currently getting airplay on Adult Alternative radio.

A keen eye, and a sharp tongue. Quite the combination.......

That's a really good point. . . It's hard to believe he's so young, yet writing about love and sex from the vantage point of Raymond freaking Carver or somebody. The rhythmic delivery is also interesting (perhaps the Sheffieldisms). To wit, the lyrics to "Flourescent Adolescent" (which asks the salient question "Was it a megadobber or a betting pencil?"):

You used to get it in your fishnets
Now you only get it in your night dress
Discarded all the naughty nights for niceness
Landed in a very common crisis
Everything's in order in a black hole
Nothing seems as pretty as the past though
That Bloody Mary's lacking a Tabasco
Remember when he used to be a rascal?

Oh that boy's a slag
The best you ever had
The best you ever had
Is just a memory and those dreams
Not as daft as they seem
Not as daft as they seem
My love when you dream them up...

Flicking through a little book of sex tips
Remember when the boys were all electric?
Now when she tells she's gonna get it
I'm guessing that she'd rather just forget it
Clinging to not getting sentimental
Said she wasn't going but she went still
Likes her gentlemen to not be gentle
Was it a megadobber or a betting pencil?

Oh that boy's a slag
The best you ever had
The best you ever had
Is just a memory and those dreams
Weren't as daft as they seem
Not as daft as they seem
My love when you dream them up
Oh, where did you go?
Where did you go?
Where did you go? Woah.

Falling about
You took a left off Last Laugh Lane
You just sounded it out
You're not coming back again.

Falling about
You took a left off Last Laugh Lane
You just sounded it out
You're not coming back again.

You used to get it in your fishnets
Now you only get it in your night dress
Started all the naughty nights with niceness
Landed in a very common crisis
Everything's in order in a black hole
Everything was pretty in the past though
That Bloody Mary's lacking in tabasco
Remember when he used to be a rascal?

I've spent the last week with the 2nd Arctic Monkeys album and am happy to say I get them now. Great, great album.

Revisiting the debut, though, it still doesn't hit me. For me, the pieces are all there but they just don't click into place like they do on FAVOURITE WORST NIGHTMARE.

i LOVE the arctic monkeys, but i still can't believe the little mofo used the word "balaclava" in two different songs on the new album!!!

I question whether any band could live up to the hype of a fully-engaged UK music press gone berzerk. That said, I think the Arctic Monkeys guys have come close.

I thought the first Libertines (Up the Bracket) was amazing. Since then, my interest has waned substantially.

If Modest Mouse has been getting a great deal of undeserved hype, I suppose I've overlooked it. Covers of SPIN & Paste, and I recall hearing about Johnny Marr joining. After listening to the We Were Dead thing, it just sounded like more of the same, with slightly more guitar...? Maybe I haven't been paying attention, because, while I don't really care for them, Modest Mouse doesn't bother me, either.

I thought Clap Your Hands Say Yeah rec'd. undeserved hype. Quite a revelation, to be sure.

I thought Marah deserved their hype, but that opinion clearly was not shared by many. Dogs Die in Hot Cars, too. These bands obviously didn't get Arctic Monkeys, Interpol, TV on the Radio or Franz Ferdinand-level hype, however...

interpol