It's the less tangible feeling that the Americans are outflanking the UK somehow on our own turf - difficult, intelligent, groundbreaking, literary "indie rock" records with a genuine emotio

Electrelane, 65daysofstatic, Working For A Nuclear Free City, Patrick Wolf, Guillemots, The Clientele, the Warp etc roster (now made up of, OH LOOK, YANK ALT.BANDS LIKE !!!, Battles, Grizzly Bear), Twilight Sad, King Biscuit Time, The Aliens, Shack, Camera Obscura...

It's there, but it's small, and doesn't work on the same fronts as the Yank analogue.

Oasis and Coldplay are kidn of to blame. There is a feeling that being ina band and releasing good records isn't enough with a lot of UK music, I suspect - you need to be massive, you need to be all over Radio 1, you need to be culturally relevent. NME is only interested in uncovering stuff that can help it survive.

The Bluetones, formed before 1997, admittedly, are still touring and releasing records, aren't they? To small but steady audiences.

x-post

that is one mediocre list of bands

I think the first six or so are fucking wicked, personally.

The Clientele are more popular in the US than the UK.

OK maybe untrue technically but their new album came out over there first.

Then there's more specialist, less overtly alt.rock scenes, jazz, electronica, experimental, etcetera, which are producing great bands like Acoustic Ladyland, who don't fit in anywhere.

x-post - exactly; that irony is one of the reasons I listed them. is the new one even out over here yet?

The best band mentioned in this thread so far is The Bluetones.

"our own turf"

die

In the 80s, American telly was a joke. We might watch Dallas or Knight Rider, but safe in the knowledge we were effortlessly culturally superior.

die

p.s. sorry fellation squad, just flaming :( and louis, I'm interested, my apologies.

chill blueski. wasn't saying it was a "good" article. thought there was a germ of an idea in it though. don't we have enough journo bashing thread already? (i admit i started the worst, but i sort of regret that now)

few more:
los campesinos
prinzhorn dance school
delays
monkey swallows the universe

the weird thing is bands like mclusky or electrelane feel, to me anyway, more american than british. i'm not quite sure why.

does MIA count?

until suddenly American dramas, thrillers and comedies were the only ones worth having.

I don't think I watch any American dramas, thrillers and comedies - occasionally but not regularly

British Sea Power.

The only TV I watch, pretty much, is downloaded yank concept dramas.

What those things that go on for 300 seasons and take 10 years of your life to watch?

Yeah.

Four Tet.

Electrelane, 65daysofstatic, Working For A Nuclear Free City, Patrick Wolf, Guillemots, The Clientele

basically none of this lot have the remotest chance of making the NME cover/Radio 1 playlist do they?

hate getting all DJ Martian about this :/

Piss-all, I think. Patrick Wolf threatened to earlier this year, but they didn't take to him.

Guillemots (doh) should have left them off...

Guillemots might have made R1 playlist (like, B list, maybe an A list once), but I doubt they'd get on the cover of NME. I also don't think they'd shift anywhere near as many records as, say, The Fratellis. They might just have been in wich a chance of scraping 100k last year with the Mercury nomination, but I doubt it.

radio 2 A listed mouthy! ok. are there more "indie" media outlets in america? better infrastructure? i'm pretty sure death cab or whoever don't get mainstream radio play in the US but then american radio is very, very confusing.

There's Plan B, Drowned in Sound, Playlouder, Artrocker. The Dad Rock mags cover the more trad new bands.

About 8x the population and god knows how many x the landmass. Spoon can shift 160k copies of Gimme Fiction over two years and still be a 'cult'ish concern over there. Proportionally small sales / audiences in the US are SO MUCH BIGGER than ones in the UK.

wish I could get behind The Long Blondes more but it's still "alright for this kind of music" :/

influentially though is it fair to say

Pitchfork > Plan B, Drowned in Sound, Playlouder, Artrocker etc etc?

US = 3.7 million square miles (9.6 million km²) and 300 million people.

UK = 244,820 km² and 60,209,500 people.

I've never seen Dummy mag in an actual shop either, and http://www.factmagazine.co.uk/ can be added to the (uk) web list?

Roots Manuva, Richard Hawley, Sway, Jamie Lidell, Anthony & The Johnsons, Elbow, Boards Of Canada...

Only 5x the population, but still. 160k records in the States = 32k records here.

British bands I like even if they're not awesomewy wevolutionary - not including duos and producers:

Hot Chip
The Clientele
Camera Obscura
Ladytron if they're still going
Saint Etienne (but only when produced by Xenomania now)

gets v difficult after that. The Go Team are off the list because they've clearly run out of IDEA and blown it with meh new album.

oh and The Shortwave Set

have you any idea how many records someone like electrelane sell mouthy? 65dos? do they have day jobs?

I haven't a clue, but I'm gonna get in touch with a friend of mine who's very good at discovering these things.

This reminds me of how Americans are absolutely astounded to learn there's a shop in London where people go and quite happily spend £1.50 on Mountain Dew and £2 on Twinkies. The exoticism of the foreign looks really fucking stupid when it's applied to a) the major world cultural superpower b) a country that basically takes 85% of its fucking cultural signifiers from the UK anyway.

This is basically the same thing Allison Graham does in the Radio Times each week, right?

Pavement as Seinfeld

I'm absolutely astounded to learn there's a shop in London where people go and quite happily spend £1.50 on Mountain Dew and £2 on Twinkies. But I'm from Devon. wtf is a Twinkie anyway?

There's a shop like that in Eastbourne! Should be coming to Devon soon I guess.

I didn't know about this shop either and I live in London. Never had a Twinkie but would like to try. I have bought a couple of Hersheys this year I confess.

I was gonna say this is a semantic thing "indie" in Britian since Britpop has become rather a meaningless catch all term. Mainstream rock is very different in the US anyway. Hard rock and metal seem to do the job that lad rock does in this country. But Dom's "exoticism" point kind of makes sense, I would ask him though, why then has Britian been wht you'd call the "haircut indie" rut for so long? Though in the end it may just boil down to geography and cash, I guess being Electrelane sized in a country of 300 million is a better bet than in a country of 60 million.

About 4 of the bands Southall mentions in his vigorous defence are better than any of the US bands namechecked in the article, but fortunately for ILM's sanity I'm out all day, so I can only mention Oceansize, Youthmovies and the UK progressive revolution once...

I'm from the US. Death Cab for Cutie is pretty goddamn "mainstream" these days. They did a huge tour with Franz Ferdinand co-headlining. They came to my college and everyone went apeshit.

I love the current music scene here except so many of our good bands are gone all summer to play European festivals. Yet US radio is so fucked up that nothing good ever really gets played. The average Brit probably has a better idea of who some of my favorite bands are than some of my best friends. That could simply be a "grass is always greener" kind of thing, though.

Also, that article could have stood to name some better American bands. Also also: the Gossip and Scissor Sisters are not big here at all. Not even the "indie kids" really listen to them. I was surprised to see them mentioned in the context of the White Stripes and the Killers.

Both versions of The Office are very funny.

Twinkies are gross.

the UK progressive revolution

*snigger*

No Tom, that's the name of Louis' band.

I apologise for using the "s" word

They've just released a split 7 inch with The Strange Death Of Liberal England.

I was surprised to see them mentioned in the context of the White Stripes and the Killers.

the reason for this is because they all had a hit in the UK before the US. they've also all filmed music videos in England in response to that. i doubt The Gossip or The SS will gain popularity in the US the way The Killers and The Whtie Stripes have done tho (not a huge amount itself tho right?)

The Kilelrs and Whit Strips were huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuGE for a while in the US. Kids don't really listen to rock music anymore, outside of say ... metal dorks and those emo teenagers.

As far as indie rock goes, it is a popular style here ... it's all over T popular TV and movies. I once saw a minute of some stupi d Teen Disney show, and the episode was about kids in middle school trying to start their own "indie rock "" band (yes, that's what they called it, wearing skinny jeans and all().

xpost to acrobat

yeah i know that sounds a bit silly, but there's something in it. i think john harris wrote an article in the spectator about it.

xpost ah fuck it (it was supposed to be a Smiley Culture sleeve)

you read the spectator?! or is that some 696 style lol?

I do like the idea of MIA as the Luke Haines of her day though, this gobby broadsheet-fave who stands up as some kind of "Actually, I think you'll find that _this_ is pop music" martyr despite a complete dearth of pop success.

why is Luke Haines always crouching in photos?

"ooh me Nobbies"

Sarah Nixey RIP.

Hope you advertising absinthe up in heaven now, baby girl

her cover of 'The Black Hit Of Space' should've been #1 for 10 weeks

or at least #41 for 10 weeks

you read the spectator?! or is that some 696 style lol?

-- acrobat, Friday, August 10, 2007 12:26 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yeah i stopped reading when johnson left... sike.

You should switch to The New Statesman, it's a winning mix of anti-semitism and Sophie Heawood, two of your favourite things.

lol i been in the staggers, waaaay long ago.

i resigned from submitting articles in protest at them not printing them.

I did that for some newspaper as well. Forget where.

Like when Andy Cole retired from internationals?

Andrew Cole

Sophie Heawood

That's the name of the person who wrote that laughable Kate Nash review last week.

I hear if you say "Candyman" three times into a mirror the fag she hags for appears. One more needed...

Also, current Guide cover girl Josie Long is, I believe, an old favourite of yours, Dom. I'll bet you particularly enjoyed the line "She couldn't be more indie, unless she was personally knitted by Belle And Sebastian".

I've been too busy trolling the SOTCAA guys over at C+B to properly focus on Long recently.

You finished with the misanthropy yet?

Anyway...

Lets look on the brightside, if we get the kind of economic meltdown peeps on ile are suggesting is looming we may yet get another young marble giants or disco inferno!

ew, this thread.

EXPLAIN

i don't really see much point in this, but sophie's a friend of mine, and you can say what you like about her writing but the personal stuff just makes all who indulge in it look like the most pathetic jealous and bitter asswipe losers. and i really don't see how you could imagine it any other way. i mean, on some level i don't care, because you're gonna continue doing it whatever, but it makes me embarrassed to post here, and turns my stomach. but hey, whatever gives you a hardon.

There isn't going to be an economic meltdown so I'm afraid we're stuck with the Kaiser Chiefs for now. Sorry.

there's this bit in rip it up and start again where grimey simey suggests that the amount of people on unemployment benifits was one of the driving forces behind the post punk years. you could i guess tie in the "lost generation" bands and early britpoppers with the early nineties recession. intresting the amount of sucessful acts who are now coming out of places like the Brits school and the seeming health of the british economy... </carmody>

As long as I don't do anything stupid as a result of my petty and childish dislikes of more succesful music journalists, like set up an unreadable bi-monthly indie magazine, I think I should be fine Steve.

xxp

... the generation of indie musicians we're talking about here are the first generation of musicians who've been eligible for the New Deal for Musicians grants, correct? Is that relevant?

Does anyone know anyone who's ever taken that up?

Was that an xpost Ailsa?

I hear if you say "Candyman" three times into a mirror the fag she hags for appears. One more needed...

-- Dom Passantino, Friday, 10 August 2007 12:30 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Dom, we only unbanned you a week ago, fucking cool it will you?

No, I was talking about the New Deal for Musicians thing. Attempting to actually keep on topic, assuming the topic isn't now Dom vs the world

Ever since the Sixties, when the success of our pop groups (from the original post)

What, like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, who played rock 'n roll and blues?

The title of this thread makes me want to vomit.

I'm not so sure that the infrastructure / influence of Pitchfork etc. being greater than than of Plan B, DIS etc. idea is such a bad one, that maybe bands who could be propelled to moderate success by a Pitchfork are left kind of languishing with some local popularity while getting little to no attention from a Radio 1 or an NME? Although the only proof I could offer for this dubious theory is that I probably like more current Glasgow bands than I do bands from the rest of the UK combined, and assume that other major cities are similarly strong.

I LOVE THE KILLERS. Wait, what's this thread about?

jeez, strange thread but loaded question--"gen-u-wine emotional core." So the music's actually comin' from some place real? I think the problem is that a lot of this "solidly bourgeois" indie-emotional-core music is frankly imitative; of whatever era in which the UK and the States fought and made love in that beautiful way. Brit-pop as it's called never quite rung my bell, but there is plenty of cool British music with emotional core. certainly I find the Clientele a bit uneven but there's some kind of emotion there, and perhaps they're a good example of the competition between UK and American emotional-core indie, which I guess means some alt-country indie-style roots and the proper reverence for the right '60s and early-'70s icons. in that respect, America does it more interestingly or at least they sing better or have better producers, in the sense that Americans are closer to the whole thing than Brits, except the Brits sort of beat the Americans for a while in the '60s, a couple years intermittently, and that's what everyone, young and old, is still pissed off or happy about today, hence this kind of stupid but interesting thread. Anyway, trick question: what is this elusive emotional core we all talk about? I honestly don't know, except stylistically speaking. I just think there are a lot of indie bands who are seeking an emotional core.

i hadn't noticed that acrobat had mentioned a "genuine emotional core". lol emos. we didn't have emo in the 60s or 70s, and the solidly borgeois stuff i mentioned was *not* emo, thank you very much but no thanks, seriously, go now. it's not about a competition with america, that's why britpop sucked so much, the jingoism of "breaking america", it's just that british lyricists sometimes want to write about british stuff, whereas the transatlantic rock market evolved a kind of ersatz, deracinated, placeless way of talking about the world that you still hear in bands like coldplay.

I LOVE THE KILLERS. Wait, what's this thread about?

-- Tape Store, Sunday, August 12, 2007 9:04 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Tape Store for the win.

Emotion is overrated.

british lyricists sometimes want to write about british stuff, whereas the transatlantic rock market evolved a kind of ersatz, deracinated, placeless way of talking about the world that you still hear in bands like coldplay.

well said.

But in the mid 90s, UK indie got more concerned with a sort of pop classicism and US indie got all post-rock and instrumental

Even though the vocals are very Neil Young, I hear a lot of obvious British influence in the psychedelic indie by the likes of Flaming Lips, Grandaddy, Polyphonic Spree etc.

I was waiting for someone to mention the Clientele who are pretty well known (in indie terms) in the States and plugging away playing gigs in bowling alleys over here.

http://rofl.wheresthebeef.co.uk/Vietnam%20Headshot%20CTD.jpg

hmmm

american rock rules but not because of all the gay bands in that article.

and i like quite a few of those gay bands.

shut yr gob m8\

Most of the American bands namechecked in the original article peaked around 2001 and are way past their prime!