Melody Maker's review of Kula Shaker's "K"

--

I've just been informed by that porridge-faced wanker, Simon Mayo, that Kula Shaker are "the next Oasis". Of course, the obvious questions don't even get asked. Dissent is useless. Oasis are so big, such a huge commercial fact, they've created their own gravitational pull that sucks everyone below 30 along with them. They're as unavoidable as Coca-Cola or bad government, they're the indie Royal Family, a deadly virus to which there is only one cure: REMEMBER THE MUSIC'S CRAP. What Oasis have done is frighten everyone into a sudden fear of dissing "The Kids". To question The Kids is to miss the point, to be snobby, up yer own arse, a killjoy, a misery; Oasis have hardened The Kids consensus into a towering monolith that everyone must work around, accept, try and understand, try and JOIN. They can't all be wrong so the problem is you, right?

Well, fuck the kids. The kids will put this album at Number One. The kids are wrong. The kids are stupid. And, most importantly, "The Kids" DON'T FUCKING EXIST; the fallacy of consensus is created to pull as many tenners as possible into the slipstream, carried along by momentum and NOTHING ELSE. And this month's high- push-product is Kula Shaker and, Christ all mucking fighty, they're the worst of the lot.

There's enough woolly-minded idiocy and crass contrivance in this one record to consign the whole indie-pop scene into the abyss. But at least they're (open yer hymn books) Real Songs Played On Real Instruments. It's not even as if this could've been made in the last 30 years: Kula Shaker are so scared of '96 (is it a white thing? I dunno) and want SO BADLY to be dead and reborn in 1972 it's fucking ALARMING. Crucially, retro-accusations are less important than pointing out how deadly dull the bulk of this LP is, in a way that only true scumcunt hippies can be: "K" makes you feel genuinely ill, queasy, too much cheesecake too soon. It shits itself in fear of the future (1973) and stinks of living death.

In order, then: Hendrix in hell forced to tutor a disinterred Northside ("Hey Dude"); Cream at their most hideous ("Knight Of The Town"); Zep at their folksy worst ("Temple of the Everlasting Light" - I'm not making these up); fucking barbershop raga that's beneath contempt ("Govinda"); a repellent Madchester autopsy on Steve Marriott ("Smart Dogs"); a three-song burst of acoustic beardiness ("Magic Theatre", "Into The Deep", "Sleeping Jiva"); the two worst singles of '96 ("Tattva", "Grateful When You're Dead"); what you hope is gonna be an old-skool acid track but turns out to be more of the same ("303") and a closing fade-out ("Hollow Man") so stomach- churningly repugnant you feel like strapping suicide bombs to your body and marching straight over to Jo Whiley's house.

The trouble is it isn't that easy. Turn on MTV, open the NME, turn on the radio, walk into a record shop, and you'll be told that this is the way it is, this is what being you is, that this is a good thing, that we all feel the same way. Fuck that. This isn't the way things are or the way they have to be - this is living in FEAR of being young, this is a bad thing, and we here all AIN'T happy as can be, all good friends and jolly good company.

Don't be a sucker to this lame game. Time to tighten up and party.

--

Sums up why I was so depressed in 1996, I suppose ...

----

Melody Maker (21 Oct 95)

Digbeth Institute, Birmingham

INDIE is in Birmingham. Indie goes down a rapturous storm. Indie makes everyone happy tonight. Indie is lovely. Indie is the fleetfooted reduced to leadboot toetap. Indie is every single embarrassing moment of your life returned to like eternal dog's vomit. Indie's emotional limit is the delineation of when you feel a bit shit. Indie succeeds in this. Indie is tight T-shirts and rhythm sections. Indie is everyone wanting to look like one of the Beastie Boys even though the Beastie Boys have stopped doing this.

Indie doesn't see any point in voting because everything stays the same and comfy. Indie reaps the benefits of democracy and is unwilling to try and preserve it. Indie is communal contentment over mass ecstacy. Indie is an overheard conversation that makes you want to stab in the halfdark.

Indie is four people getting together wanting to create something sublime and immortal having had their lives swallowed by pop and needing to do the same, surveying the infinite possibilities and deciding three guitars some drums and some good songs will just about do. Indie is the scornful look from people your brain could eclipse and burn a million times over. Indie is every single transcendent spirit of humanity withered and died to the desire to succeed.

Indie is musical bigotry, political apathy, casual racism. Indie is a popularity contest that hates shallowness. Indie is revenge. Indie is the class weirdo with their own thrown in the sixth form centre. Indie is the dual luxury of the glamour of alienation coupled with party invitations. Indie is sauce over sex, ignorance over intuition, Gene over Gravediggaz, Powder over Pram and if you think that's petty you weren't here tonight, this was petty-lite. Indie is utterly wonderful.

Sleeper are great and I love them as much as you do. WILL THAT DO ARE YOU HAPPY NOW IT'S DOWN IN B&W JUST REREAD THIS SENTENCE FOREVER JUST FOR CHRISSAKES DON'T TALK TO ME. Indie is the only world in which Wener's cretinous Tory! Tory! Tory! blathering would not only be tolerated but applauded for their "bravery". Indie is the only type of pop that hasn't superseded poetry. Indie is happy. Indie is harmless. Indie is in love. Indie is moving with a bounce and a skip tonight and is proof that nothing is more revolting that the sight of the inheritors of the earth enjoying themselves. Indie has won. Indie will always win. Indie is where your assumption of universal complexity crumbles into the stark realisation that some people really are complete cunts. Indie is dead and buried. Indie is alive and well. The crowd roared.

And sure, Kula Shaker were no worse than Stereo-fucking-Phonics (I saw both bands very early on, sadly). But as you probably guessed, that's no praise...

But Kula Shaker probably were born in 1972

back! back! back!

http://arts.independent.co.uk/music/features/article2991258.ece

those kulkarni reviews up there are fucking godhead.

He's still only 34? Fuck me.

kulkarni's indie gig review is one of the most pissed-off pieces of music-writing i've ever seen, and although it's largely successful, i'd rather see his fire directed at the current crop of View Monkey Enemies, or Just Kate Allens.

well yeah, but um the melody maker folded, the nme is shit, and the mainstream media seem to be more keen on employing each other's nephews and nieces (etc.), and they'd never throw that kind of heat down on a hyped act. maybe some bullshit website or everett true vanity project would print it, but that's not the same thing.

kulkarni's indie gig review is one of the most pissed-off pieces of music-writing i've ever seen, and although it's largely successful, i'd rather see his fire directed at the current crop of View Monkey Enemies, or Just Kate Allens.

http://www.drownedinsound.com/user/view/46684

only one thing to do: bring it down from within. go undercover y/n

(it would take a monumental effort not to be sacked within a week for slating a band they're meant to promote)

dom, you've made a good start, but SFG are small fry. let's raise the sights, shall we?

i am probably talking shit re they don't do that any more -- it's just those two reviews, especially the 1995 one, i can *still* remember, so they matter to me a great deal.

Kulkinari is the only writer from the mid 90s NME/MM axis that I would still bother going back and reading, _but_ his musical taste was dreadful and Sleeper were actually better than any band he used to plug of his own accord (lol monster magnet lol).

it's A-OK to slag off James Blunt and Athlete in the modern music presses, but if you DARE touch our new young Sheffield darlings....

to blanket-murk indie like that probably doesn't take into account the fact that there may have been some good songs, and hey, i even LIKE 'hollow man' (last track on K) if not the rest of the album. i guess you need a measure of absolutism to make people sit up and notice (not to mention strengthen your rhetorical thrust).

Kulkinari is the only writer from the mid 90s NME/MM axis that I would still bother going back and reading, _but_ his musical taste was dreadful and Sleeper were actually better than any band he used to plug of his own accord (lol monster magnet lol).

-- Dom Passantino, Monday, September 24, 2007 11:23 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

think he liked wu-tang clan. iirc the wu came to london c. 96-7 and MM put them on the cover. kulkarni did the story. i don't think he really got to interview them though. it was kind of confusing...

taylor parkes is worth going back for. and johnny cigarettes invented lol britpop zing culture, no?

I thought Neil had (still has I'm sure) great taste, at least in its range which was quite rare in the more visible writers of the time. He was pretty obviously a product of John Peel so to speak.

Didn't realise that was your review Dom, my friend actually emailed it to me to say how good it was (I don't read DiS much)

NK was the first indie press writer to go to bat for R&B music as well, wasn't he? Or at least R&B that wasn't Janet Jackson.

him and steven wells, probably.

actually simon price, big booster of 'crazysexycool' iirc.

This reviewer is so ageist he should never have been allowed to be one.

The 90s was badly in need of retro music. Hip-hop and house/electronica was about to destroy music, and Britpop was needed to re-estalish the tune ass all that mattered again.

Kula Shaker may not be particularly good but they should not be critized for being retro and writing proper tunes, because that's just a positive thing.

the tune ass

I heard Geir Hongro wants to kill all black people. Confirm/deny?

you've made a good start, but SFG are small fry

Scouting for Girls have the number 12 album this week unfortunately.

Dom, Monster Magnet are great!

I used to go to school with a girl who had a... that guy from Monster Magnet (Dave something) poster on all of her workbooks and folders. She was about 6'3". They sucked.

Covering ALL yr folders in MM is going too far I admit. You have to leave some to cover in Kyuss posters.

It's a satanic drug thing, you wouldn't understand

xpost

I heard Geir Hongro wants to kill all black people. Confirm/deny?

This is not about skin colour. Black people should also write proper tunes, and when they do they do it just as great as white people.

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/e/ea/200px-Aabf09.jpg

"And that's the end of that chapter"

Kula Shaker weren't that bad in retrospect. Oasis were actually worse than Kula Shaker, I think (worse tunes, stupider lyrics - some achievement! - more derivative, dreary plodding feel) Athlete are far worse than Kula Shaker, Scouting for Girls are are worse than Kula Shaker by a distance as great as the distance between the 2 farthest points in the galaxy. I suspect most 2nd division britpop and nearly all lammo music is not only worse than Kula Shaker, but actually much worse. (this is not saying much I know)

<i>Kulkinari is the only writer from the mid 90s NME/MM axis that I would still bother going back and reading, _but_ his musical taste was dreadful and Sleeper were actually better than any band he used to plug of his own accord (lol monster magnet lol).</i>

i have just discovered that jw locked the 'RONG' thread on nb, so let me just say RONG, and that monster magnet>>>>>>sleeper, and that kulkarni is deathlessly genius. his musical taste was fucking dead sharp, and i own many fine albums thans to his advice.

Man, if ONLY we still had an ILXor who was capable of starting Sleeper vs American rock band threads....

Kula Shaker should be judged by the only criteria that matters, their melodies, which is were they fall short of - among others - Oasis by ripping off old Stone Roses songs and calling them their own.

ripping off old Stone Roses songs

How dare they steal those original Roses tunes.

"...fashion journalist Alexis Petridis in The Guardian..."

Ha ha ha 10/10 Dom.

Oasis entire career has been based on lifting other bands' songs, Geir!

Oasis are lifting riffs, Stone Roses are lifting actual melodic lines. Important difference. "Into The Blue" is an entire lift of "Bye Bye Badmen". Oasis were only influenced by, say, the piano theme from "Imagine" without ever copying it note for note.

Lots of hip-hop tunes are based upon lifting riffs or tunes from older tunes note for note though. Which is one of the reasons why hip-hop is inferior.

Surely a great tune stays a great tune? In fact, copying an extant magical melidy is the best thing to do.

melody, obv.

Surely a great tune stays a great tune?

But when it is composed it is composed and it doesn't need to be recomposed.

It's better to compose a new tune in the exact same style, and chances are it may be a great tune too.

Geir is on his hobby horse here and shouldn't be encouraged (I kinda thought he'd grown past some of these ideas but I guess getting misty-eyed for britpop has reawakened the zealot in him), but I can't help myself: Geir between the sort of "theft? tribute!" melodic cribbing that Oasis does and sampling, I know the latter seems more creative to me. Oasis picks your pocket and tries to look innocent; hip hop folds your dollar a half-dozen times and hands in back to you in a shape you wouldn't have guessed at. Lifting a riff honestly and recontextualizing it = writing; aping a style or two as Oasis did = pastiche.

Geir Hongro's Tribes Of Pop

If I wrote a really entertaining and very biased review ...

it might not be "great" or "useful", but if it was well-written and entertaining and made me laugh, or even get wildly angry, then yeah, job well done.

Geir Hongro, if all that matters is tune, why don't bands just play the lead melody one note at a time on a keyboard with no arrangement or production at all? Surely these indie bands you big up and love so much have a sound that adds to their appeal? For you anyway...

Why would anyone listen to any of those Britpop acts when you could listen to any of the superior acts from the 60s and 70s that they ripped off? Pulp were pretty good, though.

The tune isn't all that matters, it is just what matters the most. Plus the belonging chords matter just as much, which means it needs at least a backing instrument that is able to play chords.

Why would anyone listen to any of those Britpop acts when you could listen to any of the superior acts from the 60s and 70s that they ripped off?

Because the world needs new songs. Not the same old songs, but new ones. In the same style, but with new melodies. After a while, you get sick of humming the old songs, and you need new songs to hum.

what happens once robert pollard has written a song with every possible melody? (eta: 2015)

Before anyone has managed to write a song with every possible melody, Sufjan Stevens has released a concept album covered every single American state. And with non-concept albums in-between even.

"Because the world needs new songs. Not the same old songs, but new ones. In the same style, but with new melodies. After a while, you get sick of humming the old songs, and you need new songs to hum."

But why not new styles as well? What's the difference?

Nothing wrong with new styles as long as the contain hummable songs. The new styles of the past 20 have been too much about rhythm and repetition though, not enough about melody and harmony.

Plus entirely new styles are not needed. One should rather mix the styles already existing, creating new conglomerations of already known stylistic elements.

Eh? Don't you think your criteria for what makes a song enjoyable or worthwhile is bit limited, Mr Grongo?

It's the only criteria that mattered until 1920 in classical music, and until the late 80s in popular music.

That's nonsense. Classical composers were always experimenting with different orchestral arrangements, new instruments, etc...
And there's been experimentation with production techniques in pop since at least the late 60s.

I was going to send this thread around to some friends b/c of the interesting review but then the thread got derailed. still derailed i see.

That's nonsense. Classical composers were always experimenting with different orchestral arrangements, new instruments, etc...
And there's been experimentation with production techniques in pop since at least the late 60s.

But melodies were always an important part of 60s pop and 19 century classical music, even if there were other elements too the melody was always there at the bottom.

geir do you like harry warren?

i regret reviving this thread.

fucking geir.

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Monday, September 24, 2007 2:48 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

Votes for imagebombing?

there should be a 'killfile last 100 posts' function

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/04/DeadKennedys-NaziPunksFuckOff.jpg

ilm has been silent for 17 minutes, as the LBZC plots its next move

http://www.scaredmonkeys.com/fun-images/PotKettle_small.jpg

I couldn't find a .jpg of three pots and one kettle, sorry.

http://www.encircling.us/photoplog/file.php?s=81e3599dee7c9ece39484a1c18e56897&n=296&w=o

TS mr idée fixe vs the holy trinity of lazy, adolescent snark.

(ha, xposts)

That looks like a Yello video that never was.

Personally I think their comeback album is indeed better than any of their two 90s albums. They have stripped away all of the "indie" elements and gone fully fledged hippie-pop with quite a hint of 70s softrock/pomp pop. Which fits them greatly.

I like "Tattva."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqncFetwku0

Yeah, they sucked

I'm happy to say that KulaShaker never graced my stereo - I thought they were bollocks.

this DG guy OTM

Mr Snrub OTM 2 posts ago

I've just been informed by that porridge-faced wanker, Simon Mayo,

lol

still basically feel that -- from this distance in time, and his value as a naysayer* notwithstanding -- kulkarni said NO to britpop in a very britpop way: the same one-note grab-you-by-the-lapels bellow

*his deep value was always as a yaysayer, to all kinds of things not britpop

best melody maker cheerleader for hip hop, metal and R&B. But I did love his angry polemics to Britpop

i know you do -- i'm just saying with a bit of distance the angry polemics are less distinguishable from what's being polemicised against than they were at the time

that is quite astute

you should write about music!!!

perhaps the 90s were a good time in general to grab lapels and bellow, utterly confident in the righteousness of whatever it is you were bellowing. they strike me as a time of plenty, where one didn't have to second-guess oneself because Everything Was Turning Out OK, especially in The West

this is only a vague notion I have, though, and I'm willing to be disabused

i am slightly astute sometimes but actually it's someone else's insight

you should write about music!!!

:)

this wasn't a bad album really. cute in a way

Seems appropriate. RIP.

https://nobilliards.blogspot.com/2024/10/kula-shaker-k.html

TPL review is patient with K and finds at least a couple of nice things to say.

Personally I quite enjoyed Hey Dude on TOTP last night. It's a great riff, one that pops in and out of my head pretty regularly.

leave Cornershop the fuck out of this imo

they do not deserve to have 6 AM Jullander Shere compared however favorably to Kula Shaker

INDIE is in Birmingham. Indie goes down a rapturous storm. Indie makes everyone happy tonight. Indie is lovely. Indie is the fleetfooted reduced to leadboot toetap. Indie is every single embarrassing moment of your life returned to like eternal dog's vomit. Indie's emotional limit is the delineation of when you feel a bit shit. Indie succeeds in this. Indie is tight T-shirts and rhythm sections. Indie is everyone wanting to look like one of the Beastie Boys even though the Beastie Boys have stopped doing this.

Indie doesn't see any point in voting because everything stays the same and comfy. Indie reaps the benefits of democracy and is unwilling to try and preserve it. Indie is communal contentment over mass ecstacy. Indie is an overheard conversation that makes you want to stab in the halfdark.

Indie is four people getting together wanting to create something sublime and immortal having had their lives swallowed by pop and needing to do the same, surveying the infinite possibilities and deciding three guitars some drums and some good songs will just about do. Indie is the scornful look from people your brain could eclipse and burn a million times over. Indie is every single transcendent spirit of humanity withered and died to the desire to succeed.

Indie is musical bigotry, political apathy, casual racism. Indie is a popularity contest that hates shallowness. Indie is revenge. Indie is the class weirdo with their own thrown in the sixth form centre. Indie is the dual luxury of the glamour of alienation coupled with party invitations. Indie is sauce over sex, ignorance over intuition, Gene over Gravediggaz, Powder over Pram and if you think that's petty you weren't here tonight, this was petty-lite. Indie is utterly wonderful.

Sleeper are great and I love them as much as you do. WILL THAT DO ARE YOU HAPPY NOW IT'S DOWN IN B&W JUST REREAD THIS SENTENCE FOREVER JUST FOR CHRISSAKES DON'T TALK TO ME. Indie is the only world in which Wener's cretinous Tory! Tory! Tory! blathering would not only be tolerated but applauded for their "bravery". Indie is the only type of pop that hasn't superseded poetry. Indie is happy. Indie is harmless. Indie is in love. Indie is moving with a bounce and a skip tonight and is proof that nothing is more revolting that the sight of the inheritors of the earth enjoying themselves. Indie has won. Indie will always win. Indie is where your assumption of universal complexity crumbles into the stark realisation that some people really are complete cunts. Indie is dead and buried. Indie is alive and well. The crowd roared.

I read this entire thing in the voice of Lenny Henry as "Chef!"

Pram? Yes, that comment turned out well.

I miss Neil :(

my friend (who is trans) has said that she basically ignores what cuckston became when listening to pram's 90s stuff, and i tend to feel that one shouldn't throw the art out with the artist if they only went bad later

I've just been informed by that porridge-faced wanker, Simon Mayo,

Well he was the breakfast time DJ for a long while.