Why Does Everyone Hate Gomez So Much?

Oddly, I also think they sound a bit like the Beta Band, who I do not find boring and like a lot.

And I concede all this having bought and enjoyed a couple of their albums. Add a little animosity to the mix and it spells backlash!

gazuga: That's the explanation I was looking for, more or less. But aren't big DJs the new coffee-tablers now (Oakenfeld, Fatboy, etc.)? Does that mean that the big backlash is coming against them now, leaving the field open for Gomez-revivalism? (Obv kidding here.)

As a huge early-Gomez fan (which is a silly disclaimer, but I was severely underwhelmed by In Our Gun), and a North-American who recommends Gomez to all his ignorant friends, I've developed a theory over the years:

UK critics hate Gomez because they see them on TV. And if you've ever seen Gomez on TV, you'll see that they look like a bunch of reasonably attractive fratboys. The fact that they look like young, "cool" blokes affects their music - it is heard as poseurish and vapid. Those of us who have no 'in' to the music besides the music itself fell in love with the aesthetic articulated in the album art and the songs. Dense, textured and soulful.

Some people have also argued that their music is essentially meaningless (that the lyrics are stupid, etc etc). Given the crazy lauding bands like the Flaming Lips get, though, I think that's a matter of selective labelling.

I think I've only heard a couple of songs. I didn't hear anything in the tunes, arrangements or singing to attract or interest me.

Anyway, Gomez, always seemed so fucking ordinary to me. And ordinary coupled with cool stroke good looking washed off real quick with people I reckon. Maybe they were too young man and there's nothing the music critic hates more than a reasonably clued up, articulate, cool(ish), successful (key word) male, uninterested in courting said critic and happily fulfilling all the now long-forgotten ambitions that they themselves started out with.

Also, there's absolutely nothing the British press (across the board) loves more than scything down anything that pokes it's head above the parapit of mundanity - and that's how Gomez was billed. For some reason, in this stinking country, success (especially in the creative sector) inspires a sometimes pathological ambition in our press to embark upon a relentlessly ruthless campaign to level the playing-field. Go figure.

Sure, Gomez's music is able but bloodless, and their lyrics are at best banal, and everything gazuga said, but I don't find anything to actively offensive about them. I rather like some of their songs in an MOR comfort-music kind of way. Of course, that's exactly the kind of thing that capital-c Critics hate.

And they're from Southport, which is nowhere near the midlands...

I didn't realise you were saying 'the press' build 'em up and knock 'em down. Your amendments ('successful' and 'after praising them to the skies') seem to me to change what you were saying completely.

I'm sorry if I misread you. I wasn't trying to be disingenuous.

If the press scythe down anything non-mundane, they presumably praise the mundane, yes? Unless you're saying they praise nothing?

Assuming you *were* actually thinking of Gomez as an example of of the non-mundane, would it have been alright to praise them against a context of a probable war with Iraq?

Think your "(what I view as)" is pretty crucial here.

Second part - why do you ask? (Note - as I earlier said, Gomez WERE BILLED as an example of the non-mundane).

Of course (What I view as) is vital, yes.

I think I was trying to make two points. 1. that to operate or to attempt to operate outside of mundanity is usually resultant in press derision or is ignored. 2. that 'success' in whatever way you want to frame it usually results in press scourging. All other points were perfunctory I reckon. Besides, I can feel my grasp of the initial thread slipping slowly away.

How do Gomez fit into the model you're outlining?

I don't like it and it's successful = it has been hyped to the skies by evil pro-mundanity press conspiracy

I like it and it's unsuccessful = it is being ignored by evil pro-mundanity press conspiracy.

I don't like it and it's unsuccessful = phone the Daily Mundane! Tell them to get their hype balloons inflated! It's the next big thing!

I don't like it and it's successful = Starship

I like it and it's unsuccessful = Johannes Baader

I don't like it and it's unsuccessful = Christ on the cross

I think Gomez recording sound very flat which si why i don't like them.

!!!!! gomez are not on TV! unless you count jools holland, but no one watches that, so that hardly counts.

And if you've ever seen Gomez on TV, you'll see that they look like a bunch of reasonably attractive fratboys

!!!!! but they look like ugly students!

this thread is bizarre, no one hates gomez, no one cares! i'd completely forgotten about them until this thread

So, ummm, let's hear it for Gomez!

ever. With the possible exception of Rednex.

*crickets*

urge to kill...rising...rising...

I think it's deeper
than just folk and techno, but
that's pretty canny

three songwriters with
more subtlety than anyone
gives them credit for...

(I know no one cares
but I'll say it anyway
just to miccio)

I think the issue
is that they aren't as "british"
as they seemed at first--

I'm no longer scared
of those who hate on Gomez
I like them, they're smart

and their tunes are back,
along with bad attitudes,
Brechtian resolve

they are all obsessed
with old americana,
goodbye to blighty

A No Depression cover story seems an apt fate.

But I like that song, even if it has zip to do with old Americana anything. It's pure post-pastiche pop with nifty time changes and fake strings and oceans of reverb.

But...um, I guess the new album referred to above is now coming out in the US? I assume? Anyway, I'll report back, I guess.

- Leno describes the song they are about to play as a "hit single." !!!!
- At first I think, this is not what I expected Gomez to look like at all, but the more I look at them the more it makes sense.
- They are a Marshall stack and half a drummer away from being a really interesting emo band.
- But then this song could also easily be a recent Pearl Jam single.
- Look, Mr. Lead Guitarist, if you're playing one song on national television, you should be able to figure out a way not to have to change the settings on half your pedals by hand right at the end of the song, just so you can play two notes. I guess it did make the camera zoom in on you, though.

heard some greatest hits type comp in a pub recently.

so when's the Lindstrom remix package coming out?

is this really the only thread ILM has on Gomez?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/52/A_New_Tide_Album_Artwork.jpg

A New Tide is the sixth studio album by the British indie rock band Gomez. It will be released on March 30, 2009 in the UK, and on March 31, 2009 in the US.

Track listing:

1. "Mix"
2. "Little Pieces"
3. "If I Ask You Nicely"
4. "Lost Track"
5. "Win Park Slope"
6. "Bone Tired"
7. "Airstream Driver"
8. "Natural Reaction"
9. "Very Strange"
10. "Other Plans"
11. "Sunset Gates"

It has been rumored this will be the last studio album by Gomez.

Gomez is set to appear on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon next Tuesday March 31 and we'd love to have you there.

Is this really only their sixth album? It seems to me like they have about a million by now.

"Get Myself Arrested" was ok.

I've heard "Airstream Driver", it's depressingly dull. In Our Gun is the best thing these guys did by about a million miles.

Wait. They're still going???

Yeah, I was gonna say...I think people hate Gomez because they suck. Is this too radical a concept on this thread?

theyre utter shite

they still latched onto the Jam Band touring thing in the US?

My dad quite likes them.

I still like them lots
and I have exquisite taste
Sometimes though I don't

^^^this dude's review of In Our Gun was really refreshingly out-of-synch with the general critical consensus <3

In a few short days,
they will play in Ithaca
no one is going

^^I re-read that piece
Man I was so in the tank
I am not ashamed

http://www.soundstagedirect.com/media/whatevers_on_your_mind_gomez.jpg

Gomez is set to release their seventh studio album, Whatever's On Your Mind, will be released on ATO records on June 21, 2011.

01. Options 3:37
02. I Will Take You There 4:42
03. Whatever’s On Your Mind 3:41
04. Just As Lost As You 3:10
05. The Place And The People 5:22
06. Our Goodbye 3:16
07. Song In My Heart 3:18
08. Equalize 3:00
09. That Wolf 2:59
10. X-Rays 4:34

I'm intrigued by the album they made with Tchad Blake because I love Los Lobos, Latin Playboys, and the sound of Tom Waits records sometimes. Is it worth hearing if I don't like smug folky britpop soul and thought the performance I just watched on Austin City Limits was kinda meh?

lotta jealous beliebers

"78 Stone Wobble" remains a nifty number, despite everything, but it's about the only thing I can still bear to listen to from them. Do Gray and Ottewell still sing with those preposterous accents? I can't say cause the crippling mediocrity of In Our Gun killed all desire to listen to anything subsequent.