What are the Klaxons?

[Johnny Townmouse]

You decide.

[Hypodeemic Nerdle]

4)  Those longhaired blokes from Barnsley who did 'Wheels of Steel'.

[buttgammon]

I quite liked Atlantis To Interzone, but I do think they're just a bunch of pretentious little twats pretending to make 'challenging' and 'innovative' music by rehashing rave music with a bit of guitar and throwing in non-too-subtle references to William Burroughs to make themselves seem intellectual. They made one good song, but I doubt they'll make any more. I hope they choke on their plastic glow-sticks!

[The Boston Crab]

I actually can't hear much rave about them barring a few siren samples and cheap preset synth stabs, it's not 'dance music' by any stretch of the imagination. We also had this discussion about three months ago.

[hansen mork]

I actually can't hear much rave about them barring a few siren samples and cheap preset synth stabs...

And all that malarky is only in the one song.

[Johnny Townmouse]

I actually can't hear much rave about them barring a few siren samples and cheap preset synth stabs...

And all that malarky is only in the one song.

That is why, even after  "three months", I wondered what people think of them. The last two singles are very different from the first two, and I have seen a member of the band trying to put distance between himself and the whole New Rave thing (which has about as much credibility as the Camden Lurch scene or the New Wave of New Wave).

It seems like the band want to show they are more than just a novelty act.

[Sovereign]

they're shit, even shitter than that fat lesbian.

[slim]

I've heard two of their songs, courtesy of another poster here, and would very much like to hear their LP when it's released. Lovely bouncy stuff.

[pandadeath]

The Klaxon's are alright. Nothing special, just some decent dance music. Problems have arisen though after they jokingly called themselves Nu Rave in an interview, which caused the NME to use the term as the name of a new scene - seeing as the whole "emo" thing is on it's way out.

I saw them live and it was pretty fun, but the audience were NME reading arseholes, waving their glowsticks around and dancing with their hoods up. Idiots.

[Frinky]

I enjoy their audio.

[imitationleather]

I saw them live and it was pretty fun, but the audience were NME reading arseholes, waving their glowsticks around and dancing with their hoods up. Idiots.

Hehe. On Saturday I went to an indie club in London that I'd not been to for months and since my last visit it had gone under quite a transformation. Now rather than having the DJ out of view in a booth they put all his gear on stage so everyone can watch him press the play button on iTunes and wave his arms around a bit. Y'know, like how DJs used to do at raves in the '80s. Probably.

Also, all the kids who had previously been wearing leather jackets were now wearing brightly coloured hoodies and were waving glowsticks around. Sounds quite jolly, but because this was an indie club all the people there were just unfriendly and poserish tossers who really needed to chuck a few pills down their neck so they'd lighten up a bit. They might also then see the actual point of having glowsitcks. Needles to say, I took the piss out of them under my breath. I know that's a bit hypocritical because I've been playing with glowsticks a fair amount recently, but at least when I do it I'm actually on drugs and listening to proper dance music, not some horrible remix of Muse's last single.

A mixture of indie and dance sounds right up my alley (yes, I'm going to completely recite the points I made in the New Rave thread, so anyone who's read that may as well tune out now), but at that night it seemed so contrived and poorly done. There was also the issue that despite rebranding themselves as a New Rave club, they still played stuff like Arctic Monkeys and that jarred terribly with the rest of the set-up. Oh, and they also played Set U Free by N-Trance, which was just uncalled for.

So yeah, it wasn't great.

[Frinky]

So what Leather is saying is that scene kiddies ruin everything, and it's best to enjoy the music away from the scene. I'm not even close to liking dance music as a rule, especially not ironically (or is nu-rave not ironic? I don't know any more), but I certainly like the Klaxons. The stuff I've heard didn't seem all that dancey, anyway, even the remixes.

Oh, and they also played Set U Free by N-Trance

Hah!

[imitationleather]

So what Leather is saying is that scene kiddies ruin everything, and it's best to enjoy the music away from the scene.

Ah, that's what I should have written instead of that over-long post.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head as to why I've not been able to enjoy Klaxons, really. Before I heard any of their music I read some horrible piece about them in the NME where their music was described as "MDMA-zing" and that made me hate them intensely. Again, this sets the hypocrite siren off because it's not like I'm anti-drugs or anything, but ah well.

In the other thread I've been waxing lyrical about how much I like Hadouken!, and I suppose one of the reasons I like them a lot more than Klaxons is because I've not noticed any of the same sort of hype surrounding them. Of course, this doesn't mean there isn't any - no doubt every week the NME goes on about snorting ketamine and listening to 'That Boy That Girl', but I'm not seeing it because I don't read it anymore.

So yeah, it's best to do what Frinky said I said. New Rave is still a bollocks scene, though.

That's My Word.

[slim]

There's a band named after an exclamation from Street Fighter? Nice.

Yeah, I don't read any music mags - I got an mp3, it sounded good, I liked it. If that's meant to be anything like rave from the 90s then the twat that coined the phrase has no fucking idea what rave sounds like.

[Peking O]

Myths of the Near Future is a great, literate and fun pop album. I'm really enjoying it. They're pretty good at the whole self-mythologizing thing as well. I like all their "the world will end in 2012" bollocks. We need more of that in pop. This has been a number one album in the UK apparently? Great stuff. Here, have my current favourite track:

Klaxons - Isle of Her

[buttgammon]

Myths of the Near Future is a great, literate and fun pop album. I'm really enjoying it. They're pretty good at the whole self-mythologizing thing as well. I like all their "the world will end in 2012" bollocks. We need more of that in pop. This has been a number one album in the UK apparently? Great stuff. Here, have my current favourite track:

Klaxons - Isle of Her

As much as I was critical of them in this thread, I am willing to admit I am a hypocrite and I bought their album. Listening to it, it's much better than I expected. I liked Atlantis To Interzone and Gravity's Rainbow but I htought they were changing direction a bit with their last two singles and I didn't like it. Listening to their album, though, while it is more in the same vein as their more recent singles (naturally), that's not a bad thing at all.

[chand]

This has been a number one album in the UK apparently?

Only came out on Monday, didn't it? Probably will though, it's still a slow time for releases so they're not competing with many big hitters.

[Peking O]

Oh, I don't know when it came out. I got the "number one album" thing from this Pitchfork interview:

The mayhem, however, has just begun. While the record sales week hasn't quite ended, as of yesterday, Klaxons have the number one album in the UK. "It's absolutely ridiculous!" exclaimed Jamie.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/40868/Jamie_Klaxon_Talks_Success_Violence_Family_F

[Egyptian Feast]

The singer must win some kind of award for having the stupidest hair since A Flock Of Seagulls split up.

[The Boston Crab]

They're not actually as bad as first assumed, I just couldn't begin to get past the idea of a New Rave 'scene', it's fucking bullshit. Also, they're not remotely 'rave' new or otherwise but when you cut through that they've got a few decent singles for sure. They're mostly very very lucky buggers though in that they've managed to court favour with the hottest heroes of the contemporary electro scene so I've listened to their remixed records a hundred times more than their own, they've been remixed stunningly.

Copy and paste this into your browser, tags not working for some reason...

http://boyfromschool.com/GWFAS/Klaxons/06%20Atlantis%20To%20Interzone%20(Metronomy%20Remix).mp3

That's an absolute killer, maybe my favourite track of last year and I think 2006 was my favourite year for music since about 97 when Thomas Bangalter, Guy-Man and friends were putting out the best of the best.

[SOTS]

If you ignore everyone banging on about them, they're really quite enjoyable. The album was only £6.94 when I was in Tesco the other day so I picked it up, even though I wasn't going to bother.

I'd imagine their gigs would be rather comical. All the morons raving about with their glowsticks to "Atlantis to Interzone" and then spending the rest of the gig standing about looking a little lost.

[Ciarán2]

There's not much wrong with their album. It's not mind-blowing, and it's not reminiscent of rave, but it has its moments. "Golden Skans" is a very nice single. I hope they manage to stick around to make a follow-up.