Hyped by the press acts you never understood

[A Hat Like That]

Crazy to think that was written 2 years after this aired:

Yes.

Terris were perplexing. Felt like a joke at my expense.

(I even went to the NME Premier Show on January 26 at the London WC1 Astoria with Feeder, A and My Vitriol. Missed Ferris).

[Ron Maels Moustache]

6music, please stop trying to make Afrobeat happen. It's some wailing over some random notes. Just kick off Gilles Peterson off the playlist committee, problem solved.

Has happened and has been happening for decades outside your tiny little purview, staggeringly ignorant post.

[badaids]

There was a band in the mid to late 90s that were massively hyped for ages by the inkies and were complete toss.

As I recall They had a very fat lead singer called Tiny and were meant to be all edgy indie rock.

I want to say it was Audioweb. Don't think it was them but that had a name like that.

I just assumed that they were mates with the muso journalists. Despite their cheerleading no one gave a toss about them.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Ultrasound

Cardiacs-adjacents whose popular song was a Pere Ubu cover and lead single had a Gary Glitter joke. I'd assume they post here but Tiny had a lovely head of hair

[the science eel]

Ooh, the fucking Cardiacs too

ooh but ERASURE and their BANGERS

[Ron Maels Moustache]

Does The Fall on this website count?

No, this website isn't the press.

[peteprodge]

Has happened and has been happening for decades outside your tiny little purview, staggeringly ignorant post.

It's making an impact like, um, Terris.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I'm just going to imagine Afrobeat is a band of middle class Fall imitators with lyrics full of affected slang and the most appalling choice of name for an indie band not the objectively excellent genre of music

[shlug]

Lewis Capaldi

You'd think from his jokerman persona on social media his music would have a bit of edge and not be by-the-books grey pop nothing shite. Now I know how the older boys felt about the Gallagher's offstage image versus their Beatles knock-off hits.

[peteprodge]

I'm just going to imagine Afrobeat is a band of middle class Fall imitators with lyrics full of affected slang and the most appalling choice of name for an indie band

Naah, it's some genre which is mainly some people wailing like they've stubbed their toe.

Occasionally it can be very very good. Oh, if it was all like that, that'd be amazing. But so much of it is just painful to hear.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Crazy to think that was written 2 years after this aired:

That sketch is perfect.

Btw does anyone know who wrote Kick in the Sun? It's such an accurate and entirely plausible pastiche of middling '60-influenced jangle pop.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

I remember thinking Andrew WK must be some sort of joke that the industry was playing

[SpiderChrist]

Naah, it's some genre which is mainly some people wailing like they've stubbed their toe.

Occasionally it can be very very good. Oh, if it was all like that, that'd be amazing. But so much of it is just painful to hear.

That applies to most genres, doesn't it? Most music is crap, you have to dig for the good stuff.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I remember thinking Andrew WK must be some of sort joke that the industry was playing

not too far from the truth

[dr beat]

That sketch is perfect.

Btw does anyone know who wrote Kick in the Sun? It's such an accurate and entirely plausible pastiche of middling '60-influenced jangle pop.

Phil Pope I think? IIRC Rhys Thomas mentioned this on his podcast.

I think Pope also wrote Mr Wells which is a masterpiece of parody.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

I did suspect that it must've been his handiwork! He's... grrrreat (and brilliant).

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

There was a band in the mid to late 90s that were massively hyped for ages by the inkies and were complete toss.

As I recall They had a very fat lead singer called Tiny and were meant to be all edgy indie rock.

Ultrasound were great, and I don't recall them ever being described as edgy indie rock. They were an epic glam-prog band.

[Head Gardener]

Richard Hawley & The Libertines, maybe together they would have worked...

[purlieu]

Boards of Canada. Music Has the Right to Children is one of the two electronic albums that are allowed into Best Albums Ever lists (the other being Selected Ambient Works 85-92) and I can't stand it. As someone who's been a fan of downtempo, melodic, ambient-leaning music for almost three decades now, I still cannot fathom why anyone even likes the album, let alone why it's seemingly considered better than just about every other electronic album ever. Geogaddi has a couple of tracks I like, but that's about as far as I'll go. Lifeforms, 76 14, Orbus Terrarum, Hydroponic Garden, In Sides, Tri Repetae, Electro Soma, Morphic Resonance, Seabiscuit, Chill Out, Dead Cities, Dubnobasswithmyheadman, Far Away Trains Passing By, Hypersona, 15 Levels of Magnification, Snivilisation, Dreamfish, Lady Burning Sky, 1194, Substrata, Remembranza, Grey Mirrors, I Care Because You Do, Rubycon, Pale Ravine, Apollo, Modus Operandi, Colourform, the number of electronic albums that deserve to be in Greatest Albums Ever lists is massive; none of these albums are considered for inclusion, however. But Music Has the Right to Children will always be there. Ridiculous.


edit: on a similar note, Huerco S. His early outsider house stuff was pretty cool, but when he dropped an ambient album and it was somehow heralded as the start of some sort of ambient revival and ended up in Pitchfork's top 50 ambient albums ever list only a few months later it was ridiculous. It's a decent record, but there are thousands of ambient albums of similar quality released every year, and many dozens each year that are considerably better. Ambient tends to get a particularly raw deal in general, almost everything on that Pitchfork list was something by an artist at least partially related to other genres or released on labels that mostly focus on other genres, with every notable ambient-focused label conspicuous by its absence - nothing from Fax, 12k, Type, Home Normal, A Strangely Isolated Place or any other worthwhile ambient label.

[Head Gardener]

tbh none of the albums you listed come close to Music Has The Right... they set a benchmark which I reckon even they have struggled to better

[The Mollusk]

That applies to most genres, doesn't it? Most music is crap, you have to dig for the good stuff.

Except afrobeat which is largely mint.

This thread has already veered way too hard into "I just don't bloody get it" generic moaning about 15 times on the first page though so it's not worth getting too annoyed about. The forum is having a massive sway into loads of these types of niche gripe/fascination threads at the moment, it's weird. Someone do a thread on Fela Kuti please.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

I tried to do it properly! Why did the NME like Terris? Why are they still living rent-free in my head more than two decades later?

[lazyhour]

Public Service Broadcasting. Their success is utterly mystifying to me.

[Brundle-Fly]

Well, it's The Stone Roses, isn't it?  Don't get me wrong I like a few things they did but I just could never understand why that debut album made such an impact. It just sounded like meat 'n' two veg sixties influenced indie rock to me. I thought Happy Mondays were far more sonically/ culturally interesting but I suppose, they were pretty hyped themselves too, truth be told.

And I really tried with Arcade Fire, ticked a few personal boxes but they didn't click with me.

[Kankurette]

Half of the acts Select used to bang on about, Terris being an example. If a band give it the big one about how they're going to save music, they're inevitably going to be shit. I mean, that Manics quote? Fuck off, gobshite. And JJ72, who Melody Maker never shut up about, had a singer with a horrible whiny voice. They should have let the bassist sing instead.

Also never got the hype behind the Libertines. I found their music bang average. But then I rarely agreed with the music press on anything anyway.

ETA: I thought most of the NME fascination with Ultrasound stemmed from Tiny being a heckin' chonk.

[The Mollusk]

I tried to do it properly! Why did the NME like Terris? Why are they still living rent-free in my head more than two decades later?

Haha sorry wasn't aiming to single you out personally

[Brundle-Fly]

Half of the acts Select used to bang on about, Terris being an example. If a band give it the big one about how they're going to save music, they're inevitably going to be shit.

Birdland, 3 Colours Red, Babylon Zoo, Towers Of London, The 'Burn, Fabulous, all spring to mind. JAMC had a lot answer for.

[badaids]

tbh none of the albums you listed come close to Music Has The Right... they set a benchmark which I reckon even they have struggled to better

This is spot on. Hundreds have tried in the last 25 years all have failed. Clocolan has come closest with his straight out parodies.

I feel your pain purlieu, but for me BOC are brilliant though.  Will they ever make another record? It's got to be 10 years since the last one.

[Kankurette]

I had no idea the Cardiacs were so popular on here.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

that BoC album isn't THAT good