John Harris's article in the guardian - The slow death of punk

You could actually listen to the free CDs you presumably get sent, find the gold in amongst the crap and tell people about it, rather than writing articles about how things aren't as good as they used to be, but that would take more effort

MENCAP OTM.

I agree with Harris, I think.

Wire, Gang of Four and A Certain Ratio

*yaaaaawn*
[where's Talking heads? XTC?]

they're also depressingly conservative
And this from a man who championed many an Oasis-lite Britpop band back in the day.

old-fashioned instruments, analogue recording equipment and supposed "honesty".

For god's sakes! It's not like Cast or Ocean Colour Scene won!

The wash-out that has so bedevilled British music, however, seems to me to have its roots in the inclusivist, well-behaved, cosseted place that the UK has largely become. Think about it this way: have you heard any good Swiss music recently?

Indeed. Unlike all those brilliant bands from Somalia, cos it's so much better for your rock industry to have war and famine.

Yes, thanks. Next!

Yes, that terrible cul-de-sac into which modern jazz drove itself into the late '60s. I mean: electric Miles, Art Ensemble/Braxton/Circle/AACM, BYG/Actuel Paris '69, Bailey/Oxley/Parker/SME, Brotzmann, Paul Bley, Carla Bley, Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, the third coming of Gil Evans, the second coming of George Russell, Don Ellis' Electric Bath, the Blue Notes/Brotherhood of Breath, the Keith Tippett/King Crimson/Soft Machine/Julie Driscoll axis, the Surman/Westbrook axis...there really was fuck all going on, wasn't there?

Almost makes me regret that Robert Wyatt didn't win; if he had, that would have scuppered Harris' entire argument.

i dont understand this.

i kind of agree with harris on several points, the musical conservatism mainly, and the pathetically dull whimsy of keane, zutons and their depressing ilk, the fact no bands have said anything about blair, but even though 9/10 ILXers seem to hate them, the libertines' new album does a lot of what harris is lamenting the loss of.

I haven't heard any great Swiss music recently, but would immediately take Yello's New Mix In One Go or the first Young Gods album over anything the Libertines have done.

Hives and Mando Diao are not as Swiss as you think, though.

Bands not having said anything about Blair... puh.lease.

So did I. But there too, he kept going on and on about New Labour. In the end you were forced to believe it was Tony Blair who made British music shit, not Oasis.

why arent hives or mando swedish? they might not sound like it but thats whats on their passports. im going to seek out harris' book.

Favez, Knut and stuff on Mental Groove has all sounded fine to me in the last year or so. I have no idea whether they exhibit "rock'n'roll attitudes" nor do I give a shit.

I wondered if Harris' Britpop book (which I haven't read) might constitute a kind of catharsis for him, so he could finally get over it, but I don't think he can.

ooops!

Personally, I don't see that as hugely important. People sing about what they know. If Franz Ferdinand were to release a 'Guns of Brixton' it would ring pretty hollow. As it is, they sing about Terry Wogan and, though it doesn't change the World, its nice enough.

Is 'nice enough' good enough to warrant an award? Of course it is, in such sales-driven music industry circles. Is it enough for those who want some political insight in their music? Well, no, but that isn't what this award is about.

Personally, my main reason for listening to music is not for the political insight it offers. Put it down to the day when I finally realised that Chumbawamba (not that, really, they offered all that much insight) really, truly, were utterly godawful and wondered why I'd been listening for so long.
I'll listen to a song for the way it makes me feel. If it has lyrics that stimualte my mind (whether spiritually, philosophically, politically, or plainoldeveryday-y) so much the better. If it doesn't, and they work, that's okay.

It seems strange to judge a band's worth purely on how overtly political their output may be. To claim that was all punk was about seems something of a drastic over-simplification.

I don't think conflating politics and rock n roll swagger is helpful either, as he's done in this article. If people want to swagger (eg. Libertines (who I'll happily admit to liking); Oasis (who I won't); Mick Jagger (even now..)) that's great for them. The attitude doesn't make the music, though. Fiery Furnaces seem to make music with force, energy and excitement without needing to act like pricks. If Harris is suggesting that, to be truly 'punk', or to be truly political and relevant, an artist needs to act like an arsehole then that says a lot more about the commentator than the commentated-upon (commentees??).

Quite, and I don't know how old Harris was "at the time" but I don't think he really thinks this. I actually think this is part of a wider problem of tabloid-style broadsheet commentary, where people are called up on to make sweeping and absolutist statements because it's a more effective way to get attention

I'm a little puzzled by this.

Are you saying that you honestly believe that The Clash lived like a gang of heavily armed freedom-fighter deperados holed up in their secret South London refuge, planning to overthrow the government and ever watchful for gangs of equally heavily-armed police militia to suddenyl turn up and kick their door down, mowing down anyone who tried to do a runner through Tulse Hill Estate to Brockwell Park and freedom, in a ,erciless hail of bullets?

If so, I'm sorry to shatter any illusions, but The Clash were a bunch of musicians who got their wrists slapped by the magistrates a couple of times for nicking stuff from hotel rooms and for shooting some geyser's racing pigeon with an air rifle.

What they did do (and even this wasn't really all that revolutionary when you think about it) was to use their imaginations to take what they knew and then extrapolate it, using examples from history of what had gone on and what was still going on elsewhere in the world, to come up with a vision of what those things might end up like in the future if things were allowed to carry on going in the way they appeared to be going at the time.

Why should Franz Ferdinand be unable to use this tricky "imagination" thingy?

"As it is, they sing about Terry Wogan and, though it doesn't change the World, its nice enough."

They should sing about Terry Wogan being violently slaughtered live on television by an insane half-man half-robot chat-show host from the future with laser beans for eyes. That would be nice!

Nicer still if it actually happened of course.

What type of beans are laser beans similar to? Haricot? Broad? I am trying to get an image in my mind...

Only a sort of glowing neon red and emitting shafts of light that can turn a bad toupe to dust at a range of 20 metres.

x-post

I'd love to see the smile wiped off that smug fucker's face.

x-post

Didn't JH write a very similar article about something very similar not long ago? Perhaps it is Guardian policy the day after an award.

He's right though, more or less.

The very same

"I like him."

In the name of all that's good and holy and decent.... why?

"I don't recognise him in that song, it is wildly inaccurate."

In what way? I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the song.... does it suggest that that's his own hair?

Are you saying that you honestly believe that The Clash lived like a gang of heavily armed freedom-fighter deperados holed up in their secret South London refuge, planning to overthrow the government and ever watchful for gangs of equally heavily-armed police militia to suddenyl turn up and kick their door down, mowing down anyone who tried to do a runner through Tulse Hill Estate to Brockwell Park and freedom, in a ,erciless hail of bullets?

You're right. Bad example. Bad argument, actually, looking at it. I don't suppose David Bowie ever sat in a tin can, far above the world, or Cerrone ever really got eaten by plants, or Morrissey ever executed a Prime Minister either.

Perhaps one day, Franz Ferdinand will release an excoriating attack on the meaningless and senselessness of capitalist society, and I'll be proved utterly wrong. After all, Starship managed it.

They'd still be the Band That Namechecked Terry Wogan, though.

(this ground is just horrible bog anyway - the extent to which art/ideas are defused/polluted by being converted into widgety consumer goods which can then be treated as deflection-catharsis or background convenience foods rather than incitement-triggers or special-attention demanders seems more of a problem for music-minded worriers: maybe it also says something about conflicts/suspicions of the psychological processes at work in this field as compared to, say, books, or even films)

but - just after FF won last night i put on GO4's 'Entertainment!' to let a whippersnapper hear what it was they are often referenced against, and what the 'real thing' sounded like...and yes there is this mix of simultaneous rush at the earnestness and prescriptiveness and outward-focus and non-arch-awareness nature of it, and part-cringe at how pre-80's-individualist-relativist-politics 'simplified' some of it seems now... like listening to that current batch of union leaders sounding as if they've stepped out of a 1970's time capsule: fascinating and sort of reassuring and at the same time a bit anachronistic-funny and endearingly 'inappropriate' (or are they?)

maybe wyatt's schtick of being a fish half-stranded by a change in the river had more resonance to it than i thought

Do you read The Guardian often? I find that it is often full of perfectly good articles that don't stretch a point in the manner of this article.

The "do better" seems like an attempt to silence criticism. Why should someone have to prove their journalistic skill to disagree with the argument offered by a journalist? I can argue that someone gave me a bad haircut without being expected to pick up the scissors.

The "do better" seems like an attempt to silence criticism. Why should someone have to prove their journalistic skill to disagree with the argument offered by a journalist? I can argue that someone gave me a bad haircut without being expected to pick up the scissors.

Thank you! This is exactly what I wanted to say.
Will you be my official spokesperson?

"also terry wogan is a trailblazing genius of post-modernm broadcasting"

Either that or stelfox is, in fact, Terry Wogan.

Oh well, that's still OK, 'cos as far as I'm concerned:

"I think Terry Wogan is a trailblazing genius of post-modern broadcasting" = "I have a learning difficulty / am suffering from acute mental health problems; please ignore everything I say".

I'm sure that has been shouted at a few music journalists. It doesn't really make for a valid argument, though.

I have a problem with the notion that rock music is irretrieveably shit atm, because I keep hearing albums that ROCK and are really good. Almost none of them are coming from the mainstream, but I still suspect Harris isn't listening to his daily postbag enough

Talking a lot of self-indulgent drivel to bored post-menopausal housewives != subversive in any way, shape or form.

"I watch Eurovision and thing Terry Wogan's commentary is funny" = "I have a learning difficulty / am suffering from acute mental health problems; please ignore everything I say"

I agree, and also: you can't really use the argument that you have to view it from his perspective as a rock writer, if what Harris is so down about is conservativeness in the music. "depressingly conservative" even.

That means he wants more modern approach to rock, ie more modern technology (electronics maybe?). He even talks about "old-fashioned instruments" - that would probably be guitar/bass/drums, yes?

I mean it's either you sit in your little rock niche and accept that everything about it is conservative, or you break out of it and start listening to all the more challenging stuff out there.
Just don't sit around moaning, Harris. Do better! ;-)

I watch Eurovision and think Terry Wogan's commentary is funny

C'mon, I can't be the only one...

Of course the place that it actually secured him was the number two position in the UK charts in November 1977 and a seemingly endless (at the time) number of appearances of Top Of The Pops.

What this does go to prove however is that the British public have always had apalling taste and that the charts have always been full of crap.

I watch Eurovision on Dutch TV. The commentary is deadly serious, dry as ice. As sand, in fact.
Which is how it should be.

You cannot take John Harris seriously - this plank thinks Oasis/ Blur of 1994 was the best thing since Punk. The man is a plank.
-- DJ Martian (altmartinu...), September 9th, 2004.

Martian, so priceless.

I feel that FF don't have enough good tunes, or that their music is not pretty enough. I don't know whether politics come into it.

That was YOUR article?

You seemed very upset, and I thought that would be the reason why. You seemed to have taken the criticism very personally.

So what you're saying is that Wogan invented the idea of post-rationalising by pretending that something he'd done was actually a deliberately intended and fiendishly clever work of irony, rather than simply being just good old-fashioned common or garden shit, as it might otherwise have appeared at first glance?

Well, that's just yet another reason to kill the fucker in my book!

Terry Wogan and his supporters are an entirely different matter, obv.

but whats this about women 'expected to squeeze into low cut frocks' ?!! well much was made of ms dynamite deliberately *not* dressing in that way, and she won the mercury 2 years ago, so i dont get his point.
i don't recall pj harvey's low cut 'frocks' of late either*.
nor the lady from the zutons'.

also on the 'no songs written about blair' point, 4 words :
you. and. whose. army. but i'm sure we all thought that anyway.

* don't bother bringing up the topless shots
from the nme in 92 i'm way ahead of u.

just to repeat that usually i really like john harris.

Comets On Fire, Lickgoldensky, Das Oath, Shoplifting, James Yorkston, Mclusky, The Hunches, Coachwhips, Death From Above, Pelican for ten...

I wouldn't be too sure about "smarter".

As far as I can see, most of the people on this board are far wittier, far more amusing, far less pompous, far less smug, far less irritating, and (far far more importantly) actually know far far more about music and care far far more about music than this puffed-up self-important imbecile who force-feeds his appalling lowest-common-denominator "taste" in music to the general public every weekday morning.

The fact that he is a star (of sorts, at least) and few if any of the contributors to this board are (beyond the confines of their own minds, I mean) merely demonstrates what a strange world it is and how far I am - and wish to remain - out of step with it.

Well, you aren't the only one who reads a lot of things they disagree with. To some extent, now, you're responding to someone attacking something you enjoyed. Harris's piece was also attacking something people enjoy. Franz Ferdinand don't change my world, but attacking them because they don't swagger seems rather unfair.

Are you, perhaps, criticising a perceived ILM attitude rather than a discussion about a newspaper article? There have been a few personal comments made, but generally as far as I could tell people were more interested in considering the points Harris had raised than with sniping at the author for no reason. I've got nothing to say about the journalist in question, either way. I find the piece he wrote provocative (as it was surely intended to be) but, in the end I disagree with what he's saying. Can we not express our disagreement?

Was that posted here? I'd be interested in reading it.

I agree that JH should have a haircut.

I don't like what I think Petridis said about hip-hop records.

If you can convince me that is truly the case then I shall get a T-shirt and a number of badges proclaiming this fact manufactured promptly and wear them with pride.

Do you really not know? They had this huge showbiz bust up after Orville got Cuddles to sneak into Terry's dressing room and nick his spare syrup to line his nest with. I thought everyone knew that!

I didn't really understand stelfox's comments over on the essential reading thread (there were too many 'this's and 'it's and I wasn't sure what they were referring to.) but if he was attacking an uncritical ilm consensus (ilm too small to have a canon, surely) then fair enough, I suppose.

I'm going to defend Alexis. Sure, he was plain wrong about the 'dance music is dead' piece, but he as much as admitted that that was pretty much his personal journey (from mixmag editor to...) and I think Phil Sherburne's article pretty much put that to bed. And the overreaction in blogland to his, pretty gentle, dig in the Wiley piece was ridiculous. He's a good writer and he knows his stuff and does his homework. I think he's writing to his audience too well, perhaps, but that's his job. What we should really be sticking the knife into is the godawful OMM.

I haven't read John Harris's book but the topic bores the pants off of me (plus how the hell did he get a gig as a political commentator on radio 5). As to his article post Mercuries. Well, couldn't you have said something similar in 1968 or 1979 or 1990? (to roughly quote Paul Morley).

ps Wogan: there's a place for a raised eyebrow, and he fills it.

Some kind of undead Wogan zombie?

Emu never actually said anything or made any sort of noise at all did he?

I was spelling ironically, like wot I learned to do from Terry Wogan.

petridis is really rather dull and not in any way a good writer.

What we should really be sticking the knife into is the godawful OMM

this i cannot disagree with, but i'd rather see someone else do it.

It's "Since I Left You" by The Avalanches isn't it?

Alex In NYC thinks there's something by Killing Joke in there too, but really we're just humouring him.

"Stop doing fucking list articles or the bear gets it"

Rockist!!

I have to admit that I've never heard this gem; am I correct in assuming that it contains hilariously racist comments from his hilariously sterotypical "comic" black character creation "Chalkie White"?

Even if we can't agree about Wogan, surely we can all at least unite in despising that vile little xenophobic cretin?

Touring with Bucks Fizz and Stu Francis it says.

besides like someone else said, i think its good harris sticks mainly to rock writing, and doesnt do what others at time out (im guessing this is the same guy) do like sharon o connel who obviously knows only a little about rap but does all their rap reviews.

Why I like Wogan is 'Pause For Thought' and its surrounding bonhomie, especialy with the Scottish buddhist.

Aaaah yes. A woman, who must now be in her 60's, whose husband makes her dress up and act on stage like a naughty schoolboy; two aging men with a stage act the highlight of which is when they rip two young girls' skirts off; and a guy who's built his entire career on the theme of crushing small soft pieces of fruit. All good, clean, wholesome, family entertainment - fan dabby dozey!

ihttp://www.krankies.com/Brochure_front.jpg

ummmmmm . . . .

how about:

Basil Kirchin
Norbert Moslang
Andy Guhl
Rudolf Eb.er
Joke Lanz/Sudden Infant
Fear of God
Dave Philips
Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock
Schimpfluch Aktion Gruppe
Voice Crack (R.I.P.)

so there!

best

Drew Daniel

besides like someone else said, i think its good harris sticks mainly to rock writing, and doesnt do what others at time out (im guessing this is the same guy) do like sharon o connel who obviously knows only a little about rap but does all their rap reviews.

You're thinking of John Lewis. And I write reviews for Time Out so don't try it.

That they don't, but most of my favourite bands don't either. I can't see how it diminishes their worth in any way

I'm not sure who Terry Wogan is. If he's the guy who covers Eurovision every year then from memory he's an alright chap, but I never really paid much attention to the commentary be honest.

She's degrading herself in public for money.... isn't that bad enough for you?!

(Of course the same could probably be said of Franz Ferdinand.... and Terry Wogan....)

"i think there is some accuracy to the idea that franz are the apex of the circular vocabulary of rock in all it's forms."

I was never much good at geometry and stuff but.... can a circle actually have an apex?

Er, if it's a circle would it not end where it begins? It being, like, circular and that?

OK, still not sure whether it would have an apex as such.

".... And this circle doesn't fit it's little square...."

Well DUH! (As our American cousins would doubtless say, in their delightful sentence construction for the modern idiom)

Featuring Amanda Platell as Stewart Osborne, Mark Steel as Dadaismus and Johann Hari as Donnie Smith The Quiz Kid.

My cunning plan is that if I ever get famous enough to be asked on Newsnight Review I will write my reviews out and hire Ian McShane to go into the studio and portray me.

You need someone with a bit of quality and a bit of class.... and much bigger tits....

I was never much good at geometry and stuff but.... can a circle actually have an apex?

-- Stewart Osborne

Would it be fair to say it had an infinite number of apexes? I'm just asking here.

But surely if that were the case then the phrase "franz are the apex of the circular vocabulary of rock in all it's forms." would actually mean "Franz Ferdinand are completely unexceptional in every respect" and then.... uh.... oh, sorry, I was sure I had a point but then I seem to have mislaid it somewhere in the middle of this infinite number of other identical points.....

Well, nor most of my favourite bands either but if we're talking about movements, or things that gain great popularity then you would hope that they carried some wider sigfnificance. I'm not quite sure what Dizzie's is, but there's something liberating about listening to 'Showtime', there's a whole world to come of it. Franz Ferdinand aren't a step towards anything.

And as far as the apex question goes, I reserve the right to use words with a sense rather than certainty of what they actually mean. or in another sense: I think I was admirably clear given how drunk I was when i wrote that. Corkscrew, though, that's hot.

Miller's was good also.

This thread feels bonkers, sometimes not deliberately.

I have now actually read Harris's article. I think it's bad, full of non-sequiturs and nonsense.

My feeling about FF is still, after seeing some MM Prize highlights, that their music is too much about angularity and jaggedness, not about pretty tunes and sweet songs, for me.

response from laurence about the article above...

jesus, 'break a band'. if indie label guys are so mired in corporate-speak that they can utter this kind of thing, what's independent ('unfunded'!) about them? unfunded is very strange adjective for a business.