Song, by Toad

Okay, there have been some comments recently about… well, read the title of the post and guess for yourself. So I thought it was time to address this issue, although not in as confrontational a manner as you might expect, given my enthusiasm for invective.

I like – now prepare yourselves here – quite a few songs by the following artists: Dave Fucking Matthews Fucking Band, Phish, Counting Crows, Sheryl Crow, Hootie & the Blowfish and Bruce Hornsby & the Range. I don’t particularly feel the need to make excuses for any of this, but I do wonder slightly that these bands are so hated by my peers, when I think they’re okay, for the most part, despite the borderline self-parodying sludge they degenerated into later in their careers.

Bruce Hornsby doesn’t really fit with the other lot, I guess, and I think that may be a nostalgia thing. I used to hear his first couple of albums quite a bit when I was growing up, so it’s kind of stuck with me. It’s funny that I have a similar sort of nostalgic affection for Cyndi Lauper’s first (I think) album, but because that’s so ironic it doesn’t seem to attract quite the same derision.

I don’t know who has any sort of liking for the softer side of the indie spectrum – Bloc Party, The Killers’ first, early Snow Patrol, stuff like that. It’s sort of like indie, but a softer sort with a lot of the edges rubbed off and something of a fuller, more radio-friendly sound. I’ll admit, I love the early stuff by all three of these groups. I also find myself thinking that my Dave Fucking Matthews and Counting Crows liking is probably the equivalent to this, but for Americana. I like a fair bit more Americana than a lot of the readers of this site, I get the impression, and maybe the softer end of that scale leaves me less hostile to the sort of musical territory we’re talking about here.

The other thing is that this is squarely in the 90s American indie rock camp, which should be just about due for its period of loathing, before the inevitable nostalgia trips begin in a few years. I’m not saying the nostalgia will exonerate any of these bands of course, but it’s funny who it leaves behind. The 80s revival seemed to rather oddly exclude Phil Collins, when you’d think that anyone so universally loathed would make for perfect ironic re-appraisal for the arch and superior. On the other end of the spectrum, Springsteen’s classic Born in the USA doesn’t seem to have been able to avoid being dragged down by the 80s production values with which it is saddled. So it’s a bit of a lottery, I suppose.

Before anything gets reappraised it seems to go through this period where it is detested with a more frantic passion than ever before. We’re getting on for ten years away from the 90s now, and 90s indie is probably about as unfashionable a sound as exists at the moment.  Also, the rabid enthusiasm for the 80s seems to be waning somewhat. Even clothes are starting to resemble early 90s away kits from the Premier League, albeit only on the hippest of kids.

So, I think the reason this stuff is so hated is not unrelated to the fact that the mid 90s are currently approaching the nadir of their appreciation, before the inevitable sea change. Whether or not this revival will take any of this stuff with it I have no idea, but nor do I care in particular. The Dave Fucking Matthews Fucking Band have two, if not three, really good albums. Fairweather Johnson by Hootie & the Blowfish is good. Farmhouse by Phish is good. Even Sheryl Crow produced half a good album, with her self-titled ‘98 release. So you can snigger all you want, but I stand by this, and there’s absolutely no way there isn’t an equivalent MOR secret in your music collection somewhere.

Counting Crows – Have You Seen Me Lately?
Hootie & the Blowfish – Sad Caper
Phish – Bug
Bruce Hornsby & the Range – The Old Playground
Dave Fucking Matthews Fucking Band – Jimi Thing

Back in the 80s that soulful-yet-rock ‘n’ roll sax solo was just about the pinnacle of any song’s achievement, and the uppermost point of its emotional trajectory.  It was, one might say, the vinegar stroke.

I know 80s sax was for the most part risibly, splendidly awful, but it certainly wasn’t considered so at the time.  Even the ubercool likes of David Bowie had a go: he’s listed as the sax player on a number of early albums, although this was largely in the 70s. It was a weird mix of soul and what was laughably considered to be rock that brought the two together at the time, if I remember.  Even the toughest rockers seemed to want to show their emotional underbelly, and that comically earnest, eyes-clenched, blouson-sporting, big-haired, backlit solo was quite frequently the way they did it.

Apart from slight bafflement at how this was ever considered cool in the first place, I am surprised it got left behind in the 80s revival – it’s not like we’ve had much of a quality filter on what has been dragged back into popular culture.  The man satirised so dismissively, and brilliantly, as Mr. Sensitive Ponytail in ‘This is Definitely Now the Nineties’ zeitgeist flick Singles would not have been seen dead without a considerable collection of albums by assorted posturing milk-toast soft rockers looking tough.  These albums almost by definition contained a portfolio of comedy sax solos, and we shouldn’t underestimate how actually, genuinely cool Mr. Sensitive Ponytail was in the 80s.

So here we are approaching 2010, and the inevitable 90s revival, and it looks like the sax has been forever consigned to the rock ‘n’ roll dustbin which is, erm, well probably no bad thing.  I can’t think of many current groups who do decent sax stuff really.  The Dave Matthews Band had some good sax moments about ten years ago, and that’s about it except for one: The Low Miffs.  Brilliant, brilliant sax.  It’s a one-group revival, and not the least bit Mr. Sensitive Ponytail, thank god.  If anyone needed to be left in the 80s and never ever revived again, it is him.  Probably liked fucking world music and jazz as well, the slippery cunt.

The definitive 80s saxophone solo:
Hazel O’Connor – Will You
Not far behind:
Bruce Springsteen – Jungleland
David Bowie – John, I’m Only Dancing
Huey Lewis & the News – The Power of Love
Dave Matthews Band – Two Step
The Low Miffs – Where Are Your Songs Now?

Sometimes promo people send me stuff so mismatched to my tastes I really shake my head at the waste of plastic, packaging and postage. Save yourselves the time and just sling it straight in the trash yourselves, for fuck’s sake. Sometimes, instead of just to me, this happens to the whole world at once. Meet the Hoosiers. If ever an album needed to go straight in the bin it is this garbage. It makes Athlete and Hard Fi seem like serious bands. It even suffers when compared to the scrotum-shrivellingly awful Maroon 5.

And it is Maroon 5 who perhaps are the most interesting comparison. Just look at the comments under this BBC review of the Hoosiers’ album. Poking about the internets, these lads just can’t buy a good review, and for very good reason: they’re rubbish. Limp, lifeless, criminally derivative and absolutely devoid of the barest scrapings of charm needed to moisten even Paris Hilton’s gusset. But look at those comments on the Beeb, and check out that other everyman review site, Amazon. This is a popular album. It’s even – *gulp* – in the charts.

The Guardian wrote a piece recently about Maroon 5 which opened with the following line: “They’ve sold 2m albums in the UK, 10m in the US. But they can’t get a good review.” Again, perhaps this might have something to do with the fact that they peddle a sort of spineless, neutered Argos Catalogue pop that carries all the emotional impact of a half-eaten Pot Noodle. But it is popular, and so are the Hoosiers.

It is easy in our insulated internet world of like-minded folks – who, let’s face it, we would never have found were it not for the wonders of the Information Super-cul-de-sac – to forget that things are popular because lots of people like them. Lots and lots of people. Remember how XFM used to be a really good radio station? Well since they were bought out and had the sperm drained from their testicles they have simply become more and more popular instead of, more deservingly, being dropped like a ginger step-child.

Basically, people like utter garbage and the general population’s taste is woefully bland. People are fucking shit. They shop at WalMart and Morrison’s, they buy Supermarket Pop like this dross, they watch Big Brother, and I’m a Celebrity, Tuck an Angry Hornet Under My Foreskin*. They buy a Ford Focus and drink in the Hogshead and All Bar One. They shop as a pastime, not as an obligation. Most people are fucking dismal, boring, dead, spiritless fucking ghosts.

And to communicate with them in a cool an unpretentious manner, record label marketing people write shite like this, from the Hoosiers’ RCA label page:

For those of you who have only just discovered The Hoosiers I will start at the start, for those who claim prior knowledge of The Hoosiers, I suggest you skip this bit and join us at the next paragraph. Deal?

Quickly, for I have little time as I must pop to the shop to pick up some milk: The Hoosiers (formerly The Hoosier Complex) are a triumvirate of odd-pop from Exeter, Reading and Stockholm. Before they were a three piece, they were a two piece and before that they were three one pieces. Its simple maths really, not rocket surgery – which, ironically, is where Irwin, (vocal “assaultist”) met Alfonso – formerly Alan (stick-ferret/drums) – ten years prior, in a local school band named Ronnie Rocket and the Rocket Surgeons.

No, no fucking deal. You make this deal with what remains of the empty shell of achingly meaningless tedium that you call a life if you so please, but only if you truly have not one last spark of spirit or dignity left in your dead soul.

What depresses me the most is that in most people’s view, the title of this album is entirely accurate. The Trick to Life for most people, it would appear, is to aspire to this sort of hellish existence, sound-tracked by, erm, whom, I wonder? Well at the bottom of the Hoosiers’ RCA page it recommends that, if you like the Hoosiers, try the following: Backstreet Boys, Kelly Clarkson, Natasha Bedingfield, Sandi Thom, Lil’ Chris and The Fray. These people do their research depressingly well.

The Boo Radleys – Wake Up Boo!
Johnny Boy – You Are the Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve
Radiohead – No Surprises
Dave Matthews Band – Ants Marching

*The actual program may be called something slightly different.

I’m in America at the moment at my brother’s wedding, but I very kindly recorded this before I went away. I’ve thrown in some stuff about weddings and some summery happy tunes too.

Also, he’s getting married on Cape Cod, and I worked there as a waiter for two Summers when I was a student – with my everso English accent the tips were quite splendid – so I’ve thrown on a few songs that remind me of my Summers on Cape Cod, although not all are obviously related. All in all it’s a cheerful, happy mix with a nice atmosphere to it, so you should like this one.

By the time you hear it though I could very easily have sworn myself into exile and ruined my relationship with my new in-laws forever. Wish me luck, Toadlings, wish me luck.

Toadcast #4 – Summery Songs and Wedding Bells

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1. Billy Bragg – The Marriage (0.46)
2. Tom Waits – Better Off Without a Wife (5.10)
3. Clem Snide – Happy Birthday (9.38)
4. Gomez – Make No Sound (13.36)
5. Dave Matthews Band – Two Step (19.56)
6. Vampire Weekend – Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa (26.49)
7. Judy Garland – Get Happy (30.20)
8. Tom Waits – Never Let Go (34.59)
9. Bell X1 – Bound For Boston Hill (38.12)
10. Suburban Kids With Biblical Names – Funeral Face (43.37)
11. Luna – Sweet Child O’ Mine (48.41)
12. Len – Steal My Sunshine (54.07)
13. Billy Bragg & Wilco – Hesitating Beauty (59.28)