"New Acoustic Movement" - classic or dud?

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Turin Brakes, Starsailor, Kings of Convenience et al - Moving, rootsy melancholia or toothsome adolescent twang horror? And is this even a "movement" as opposed to a stunt media creation ???

― Peter, Wednesday, 14 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dud, look take your bleedin' acoustic guitars and please stick 'em up Neil Youngs arse. I can't take it anymore, what next? A bloody Bob Dylan revival? Hey what's that lying there? Salvation in the form of 'Discovery' :)

― Omar, Wednesday, 14 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i suppose this is a good as place as any to ask what the deal is with the daft punk idolatry. i mean, yeah, that video with the dog was great, but come on! i would like to see ONE person say that they aren't all that thrilled at these french house-monkeys. that is all.

― ethan padgett, Wednesday, 14 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It was the ghost of Mr.Agreeable that came over me, that wasn't me who said all those nasty things about Mr. Young's rectum. :) There is a Daft Punk - Ha! thread somewhere were you could file your complaint, although recently we have turned the thread into The Church Of Zee Daft Disco & Lady of The Album of the Year.

― Omar, Wednesday, 14 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh Ethan. People have been. And I've been deleting their messages and banning them.

Anyway, the New Acoustic Movement. Um. I liked the second Turin Brakes single a lot because it sounded like Dylan but not the third because it sounded like Thom Yorke. Starsailor I think are horrible. KOC are harmless but don't do anything for me. I guess my judgement on it as a movement would rest on the attitudes they're approaching this whole acoustic thing with.

― Tom, Wednesday, 14 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Starsailor are a genuine toothsome kiddie horror, all our 6th form pasts come back to haunt us. The next coldplay indeed. What astonishes me, although i guess i should know better, are the glowing reviews they recieve at the hands of the NME and their ilk. It makes you think that the NME really *are* singing from a totally corporate songsheet nowadays and will claim black is white if Nasty Nigel tells them to... disgusting.

Turin Brakes I don't really know. KOC are complete twats as people, though their record is inoffensive enough. Erlend whatsisname said in a recent Mojo interview, "the world isn't waiting for another Belle and Sebastian with drums and bass"... so by expansion it *is* waiting for one without drums and bass? I don't think so.

Someone was flaming about the "hateful" New Acoustic Movement on another thread, weren't they? To me they are silly people who have Tim Buckley, Nick Drake etc in their record collections and make plodding, uninspired music that is massaged into a press phenomenon by their major label bosses.. so.. uh, why am i wasting time thinking about it?

― Steven Hampshire, Wednesday, 14 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What IS the "New Acoustic Movement"? Did it start with the Indigo Girls or Brenda Khan or J. Mascis or Frank Black or Everlast or MTV Unplugged? I'm just curious because I don't know what the hell you're talking about. I like acoustic guitar a lot. Especially if it's mixed in with some nice electric music, too.

― Ricky Stamos Noriega Shroeder, Wednesday, 14 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You forgot to mention that bastard David Gray.

― Michael Bourke, Wednesday, 14 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

David Gray sucks.

Tracy Chapman + Bob Dylan ÷ techno producer = David Gray.

― , Wednesday, 14 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

This "New Acoustic Movement" thing is just some new media creation to describe a new batch of really boring middle of the road bands. I think the movemnet should really be called "the pleasent but forgettable movement". I got the Kings of Convenience album I must've heard it 3 times but still can't recall a single note! Oh well...another album destined for my wardrobe to gather dust. So, yeah...dud...and Starsailor are double dud!

― jel, Wednesday, 14 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Was gonna send this one to Teletext..."David Gray lost songs? shame they couldn't stay lost"...

― jel, Wednesday, 14 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I thought that it meant that you were a "protest singer".

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 14 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't know what is happening these days... I've got plenty of indie rock from 93-97 but since then it seems to have been a downward trajectory... Nothing in NME seems to grab my attention and Steve Lamacq's show does nothing but irritate me... Maybe i'm becoming snooty in my old age but it seems we aren't allowed more than one popular british guitar act. Starsailor are the new Coldplay were the new Travis were the new Oasis... blahblahblah. NME bang on about faceless Shed Seven rip offs of instantly forgettable po-faced Mancs. True indie/britpop luminaries such as Thom Yorke, Damon Albarn, Stephen Malkmus, are all aborting the straight guitar seen, probably for fear of being flushed down along with all the Terris', Starsailors, Gay Dads, Carsons.. sorry, i can't be arsed to mention any more, i'm yawning as i type. Is there still a place for real songs any more? The reason i ask is because i'm listening to some of the more mediocre cds from a few years back by REM, Pearl Jam, Blur etc. and they're still infinitely better than any of the bull i hear on the evening session. Or will i have to stick to my Autechre, Beta Band and Godspeed albums forever?

― Charlie Frame, Wednesday, 14 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Someone was flaming ..."

And the flamer was me. Big steaming dud with knobs on. Could potentially discredit the better aspects of its source. Can't be arsed to say anything else.

― Robin Carmody, Wednesday, 14 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

So in response to my query, a bit of a resounding "dud", then. There was a bit of punk rock rhetoric from a Spanish magazine called "AB" on this subject last month: "False: it’s a major label marketing creation, all those people are ex-goth session musicians trying to become hippies. Never trust a goth – or a hippy. Real rebellions happen in the lives of single auteurs and artists, not in “movements” created between big magazines and big record companies. They’re trying to cheat you."

amen

― Peter, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's not a *movement*. Movement implies motion, momentum, force. As others have said this is a media creation, possibly one as dud as Romo, which looks like a feeble attempt to make something *happen*. Seems to me that it will get nowhere - do the kids want "moving, rootsy, melancholia"? No.

― Dr. C, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I take it you aren't British, or you would have seen Starsailor at no 18 in the singles chart a few weeks ago. I asked my classic or dud q out of a sense of genuine alarm!

Starsailor are like the band fromed by the "soulful" type of drama student at 6th form college. The "ironic" type would have created something more hatefully Blur influenced. They are one of those bands, like Baxendale, that I can't stop talking about, just because I *hate them so much* ... need a sanatorium...

― Peter, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If you're referring to me Peter, yes I am British, and no I didn't notice Starsailor in at #18. That means they have a record label with a competent marketing department and managed to sell, oh, about 37 copies. As I said - it's not a movement.

― Dr. C, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

thank you, Dave, I stand corrected. Not a movement. Definitely not a movement, then.

― Pete, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Let's hope not.

― Dr. C, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was under the impression that people have always played acoustic instruments even back in the 80's when Quincy Jones supposedly produced everything. Or am I mistaken and it's like the UK garage movement but without Billy Childish and with drum machines.

perplexed again

― Steven James, Thursday, 15 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I like the Starsailor tune on the latest NME cd. I don't like Daft Punk.

― John Smith, Saturday, 17 March 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one month passes...

Well, I think these bands such as Starsailor, KOC etc aren't even all that "acoustic", really. As far as I can see, lots of bands such as Dexy's and the Pogues were a lot more acoustic.

While I agree about the NAM being simply a handy tag to drape on all these ppl that would otherwise be hard to sell, I hope that the market niche generated will help something more exciting (and actually acoustic) to crop up somewhere along the line.

― Vince Cabrera, Tuesday, 8 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The 'New Acoustic Movement' is partly the music biz trying to ride the wave of David Gray & Eva Cassidy selling shitloads of records, partly standard NME horseshit & partly a bunch of half-arsed indie twats thinking it's 'weally twendy' to go acoustic. Not a fan. Nonethless there will always be great maverick songwriters like Joe Pernice, Peter Bruntnell and Bap Kennedy who write their songs on an acoustic guitar. Unfortunately, no fucker has ever heard of them and meanwhile the insipid indie cack gets all the attention. Ho hum.

― Brian Macartney, Thursday, 10 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

three months pass...

The New Acoustic Movement is better than what's going on in America right now. All the angry white suburban males who have a copy of "Walk This Way", a guitar, and arms covered in tattoos are crawling out of the wood work and into the radio etc etc etc. Limp Bizkit and all their offspring are making me angry. Be thankful for what you have.

― Lindsey B, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Both are equally bad as far as I'm concerned, just in different ways.

― DG, Monday, 13 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

five months pass...

I don't know anything about starsailor or about KOC. But I do know that The Optimist LP by Turin Breaks is one of the best albums i've heard in the past couple of years, as compared to the 3-chord-based drivvle that is forever droning out from most britpop artists, especially fuckwits like Travis. So i recon movement or not if it means getting music like Turin Breaks produced then i'm well up for it, even if it means putting up with David Gray releases.

― Jamie MacPherson, Monday, 4 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

How can anyone think these bands are garbage? KOC is refreshingly original and a great album. Starsailor is wonderful, and Turin Brakes is just as good. PLease, with all the commercial cock rock here in the US this is the greatest thing to hit us in years. Enough with the Fatty Freddie Durst shit and all this Kid "White Trash Rock shit.

― Freddy the ballsack, Friday, 8 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Classic by far.

― finkel, Friday, 8 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

this is the greatest thing to hit us in years

Let me register my severe doubt at this particular claim.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 8 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

nine years pass...

was freddy the ballsack one of calum's socks?

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Thursday, 24 February 2011 17:20 (fourteen years ago)

one year passes...

A dud to end all duds

― Morrissey & Clunes: The Severed Alliance (PaulTMA), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 16:50 (thirteen years ago)

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