Keanundrum
What a quality heading for this post – absolutely splendid! And sorry, but that’s the only Keane picture I could face posting.
So, Keane, how did they come up then? Well last week’s Friday Fives started out as a conversation in the pub the previous night. Can’t Stop Now by Keane came on and I remember confessing that actually, if it existed in total isolation, I wouldn’t mind that song especially. The vocal melody around the chorusy bit it fairly unusual and all-in-all I don’t particularly mind it.
This reminded me of when Keane first made the breakthrough – something like five years ago, give or take. A massive swell of excitement caught a lot of people. I wasn’t all that aware of it because I didn’t really buy singles at that point, and the album was yet to emerge, so I didn’t think much about it but I do remember just how excited the NME were.
At the time I was quite optimistic actually. I just picked up on everyone else’s excitement, and started to look forward to it myself. Then the NME put a 6Music session version of Bend & Break on a brilliant Christmas compilation they did, and it seemed to confirm that the band were quite good. That recording wasn’t as smooth and sickly as the work we all know them for now, and it seemed like they were genuinely a band worth looking forward to. Listening to that version again, after three scrotum-kickingly awful albums, I find it almost impossible to imagine, but nevertheless that was the case.
Keane – Bend & Break (BBC 6Music Session)
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I ended up ripping a copy of their Somewhere Only We Know CD single and listening to Snowed Under, one of the b-sides, a fair bit at one point but as more singles made their way into the public doman it very, very suddenly dawned on absolutely everyone that, never mind not being great, this band were actually truly, hilariously, gold-medal-winningly dreadful. Really, amusingly, cringeworthily bad.
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I actually don’t think I’ve seen an absolute, 180 desgree about-face performed with quite such horrified panic in my entire life. The NME themselves absolutely nailed this chaotic retreat at its very apex when they published a reader poll, which included top five lists of the best new band and worst new band in the world at the moment, and I seem to remember Keane topping both categories. I cannot for the life of me, nor could I at the time, understand how a band so laughably piss-poor could have become so hotly anticipated. The thing is that they aren’t even mediocre. Bands like The View and the Pigeon Detectives and We Are Scientists and The Enemy and all that other flavourless indie sludge are at least in the right ballpark, even if they are hopelessly out of their respective leagues. But Keane. How was it not immediately and amusingly obvious that they were dismal? Overestimating a band’s talent is understandable, but looking at some cut-price nightclub covers act and thinking that they are the future of rock ‘n’ roll is completely baffling.
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So yes. I heard that one tiny shred of their work that doesn’t cause me to take an axe to my immediate neighbours and remembered the Great Keane Publicity Heist of 2004. I didn’t understand it at the time, and in retrospect it just seems completely mystifying.
I have to confess that I own the first album and quite enjoyed it at the time. However, I put this down to being somewhat brainwashed by the NME in the early days of my increased interest in music (by that I mean I only really started to buy albums and read the press in about 2003 – after my Dad took me to see Brian Wilson live on his Pet Sounds tour. There’s a first ever gig for you). Now I can see what utter bilge it all is. I must say though, I find Can’t Stop Now particularly dull, and Bedshaped is probably the only song that I still enjoy.
Yeah, that one has a couple of redeeming moments. The problem is more that, whilst a couple of the songs are less offensive than others in isolation, as a body of work their first album is dismal, spongy, lifeless elevator music and I find it impossible to believe the fuss they managed to create. Had no-one been to see them? It must have been painfully obvious, surely to god?
I did enjoy the first album, but the second was rubbish. haven’t heard the third, so I can’t comment, though Spiralling was at least different…
Fuck me! I know Tom Chaplin’s had some troubles with rehab and the rest of it – but judging by that photo he’s had a proper rough old time of it.
Roy Keane is a far better looking man than than that moon-faced nonce Tom fucking Chaplin, that’s for damn sure.
Keanun-no-drum.
i hated the pish from the off…..fucmking shite from top to bottom, and from left to right….i wouldn’t even buy my mother a copy of the cd when she asked, just on the bloody off chance that she would play it in my presence….
btw i funcking love We Are Scientists
i wouldn’t even buy my mother a copy of the cd when she asked, just on the bloody off chance that she would play it in my presence
Quality!
I hate Keane too Tom!
also – Dylan, don’t ever fucking disrespect Roy Keane again!
Who?
little known fact…keane invented WWII & AIDS.
true story.
That’s Keane. Not Roy Keane.
it was a joint effort.
http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/9597?more
A bit obvious, as the guy himself admitted, but I have to feel sympathy for him. He’s right, basically.
Ah-ha! Roy Keane. Just did a ‘Wiki’ on him…
Apparently he used to play soccer for Manchester Town until he was sacked for neglecting his groundskeeper duties a park in a Northumbrian mining village.
You know, he does look a bit like that picture of Tom Chaplin at the top of the page.
Keep fishing…
I shouldn’t be admitting this but I think some of Keane’s melodies are well put together, not all of them, but I’m thinking specifically Somewhere Only We Know, Everybody’s Changing (is that a song?) and one of the ones off the third album (second single I think) – they go in directions you don’t expect.
But, their production is blood curdlingly awful and sounds like the product of the undead. It gots no soul.
Also Tom Chaplin is a wet blanket, who is terminally uncool and I reckon he made up his drug related problems to make himself more “edgy” which is well sad. I suppose it wouldn’t have been his idea though – probably some PR guru.
Finally, if you happen to chance upon a Keane song again, listen in between the vocal lines for the breaths that the singer takes before disgorging his vocals. Its like they’ve recorded his breaths as part of the track on purpose. Its really prominent on that lead single off album 2 – is it any wonder? or something. Its extremely off putting.
I’d noticed the breath control thing on a lot of their songs.
Sometimes it’s so prominent it almost sounds like a second track has been overdubbed.
Either that or the dude has one serious asthma problem!
Well it’s basically disappointing every time you’re reminded that the fat-faced cunt is still breathing, really.
it depends who does that i suppose. part of sparklehorse’s early sound is the hearing of breathing, lip smacking or whatever. you hear it all and it’s great. i think what makes the keane stuff a problem would be the fac that they are total and utter shite.
Lip smacking?!
What were they – like – eating barbecue chicken in front of the mics?!
Different lips.
hahahahhahahahaha
I agree, their first album is ok (I have a burned copy from my best friend) but the second was horrid and I didn’t bother with the third.
Feeling smug now thanks, always had em down as shite although I did have a We Are Scientists issue once, hey it was a festival I was drunk and happy and that lets you off with many things starting right at the top with the Kebab. So even drunk Keane are worse than a kebab.
Well I’m not taking all the blame for it. I wasn’t into music in quite the same obsessive way back then, so all I really had to go on was what the magazines said. And that BBC6 recording isn’t too bad actually – it’s a fair bit better without all the shite added on top.
So I was just waiting for this next new miraculous band, didn’t really hear any leaks or course, because I didn’t back then, and then the music – the source of all the excitement – started to leak out and I just sat there flabberghasted.
i finally get my access to SongbyToad back and the first thing i see is a post on Keane??!! there is another topic but i clicked on the picture of Roy Keane first….obviously
I have heard far too much of the new single on the monotonous radio one, words cannot describe….
Shonagh’s back! Balance is restored to the Force..
But the picture is of Tom Chaplin, it just looks like Roger Keane.
There are lessons in that for you Shonga – don’t be clicking on posts just cause of a picture and don’t listen to radio one – it’s shit.
Dylan – when we next meet you’re getting Alf Inge Haalanded……i’m sure you have no idea what I’m talking about.
but it was a picture of Roy Keane, he’s so pretty! And if i had the choice, there would be radio silence in this office,but unfortunately, the world does not revolve around me…despite many attempts to make it so.
If that means you are going to slap Dylan, can i watch
Well, after a brief internet search; all I can imagine is that next time we meet you intend to give me 34 caps for Norway.
Which would be nice..
http://www.rte.ie/news/2002/0904/keane-haaland.jpg
this is what I mean. Courtesy of Roger Keane….
or this:
http://www.liverpool.is/myndir/humor/keane_haland.jpg
followed by this:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39539000/jpg/_39539778_keanohaaland203.jpg
alternatively, if you’d prefer, I can give you 34 caps for Norway?
unfortunately, the world does not revolve around me
What are you talking about? Of course it does!
I read the story on Håland’s Wikipedia entry.
Did Keane basically assualt the fella becasue he called him names three-and-a-half years earlier?!
Poof.
unfortunately, the world does not revolve around e
What are you talking about? Of course it does!
then why am i listening to the Pussycat Dolls? Wait….I am the only one here….
see now you’ve got my kids in a panic, thinking White Lies = Keane Version 2.1
I think that is not a completely wild assertion.
My friends!! What Haters!! I actually LOVE Keane, and their music really touches my heart. I mean, Lordy, it’s OK not to like a band but my God, you ARE allowed not to agree with the almighty NME, come ON!
I think most of their songs are terrific, some I’m not crazy about, but the music itself – not the media, Q magazine, NME, rehab, whatever- the music itself does touch me and many others. And they are great in concert.
How about instead of just hating, you say, “I really love [any given band]” so that us readers can then look up your bands and expand our musical taste with more things of beauty? Share the love people, really.
I used to listen to keane… i loved their first album so much that i bought their second without listening to it first… then i can’t remember listening to it again… so i gave it to a friend who was a fan of keane… they said they liked the cover art… i remember it was like this fold out aqua colored moder art mural type thing… but the only track i can remember off of the album is that weird one with the video of the camera running on rails around the band as they performed it…. never heard their last effort at an album… i don’t plan on it….
…but i do still enjoy their first album.. a guilty pleasure for sure… al-right I’m done…