Hello all. Here at Solid Gold Easy Action, I am beginning a new once-weekly feature that highlights certain bands' fall into the abyss of suck. Too often in this post-post-post-post modern culture, bands are given free passes for too long after they have shown the obvious inability to put two good songs together. While this often pertains to older bands who have overstayed their welcome in the world of music (ie: Rush), those bands are not what I will focus on, mainly because they (ie: Rush) have a history of contribution to music and still are influences by way of past records.
Rather, I would like to focus on bands that showed so much promise, seemingly with so much talent, that were given too much goddam money to do what they wanted and who then proceeded to go and fuck it all up. So without further ado, I present the first ever weekly feature on Solid Gold Easy Action:
WAIT...SO THEY SUCK NOW?
FEAT. BLOC PARTY
Happiness is fleeting for the fool. The Year is 2005.
Possibly one of the biggest bands in the world following the release of the where-the-fuck-did-this-come-from album Silent Alarm, Bloc Party looked like they could become something that would effectively steamroll indie rock for the next 10 years. Instead, they fucked up the formula that brought them so much success, which I will set out here...
Bloc Party's Formula For Success:
(Do not take this if you are pregnant or think you might become pregnant. Consult your doctor before taking BPFFS, as it can have serious side effects if taken in large doses, such as compulsory dancing and screaming of things like "We've got crosses on our eyes, walking into the furniture" in an English accent)
Success=dueling guitar lines+driving rhythm section+repeatable lyrics+cool factor/being British
Sadly, this band that spawned such fantastic (dare I say classic?) songs such as "Positive Tension", "Helicopter", and "She's Hearing Voices" among others, has released possibly two of the WORST records I've ever forced myself to listen to, namely 2007's atrocious A Weekend In The City and 2009's yawn-fest Intimacy. If i could understand why they just...for lack of a better way to say it...stopped being good, I would tell you, but goddammit, Bloc Party make no fucking sense.
Bloc Party make about as much sense as this.From a unbiased and completely musical prospective, you might say that their label should drop them so fast it would make their ears bleed. But this music bullshit is a business, so Bloc Party and their mess of a career is shoved down our throats. Bullshit abounded everywhere. In magazines and across the blogosphere, accolades came raining down upon the heaping piles of shit that were the second two albums. But oh, wait a second, nobody was listening to it. I mean, really listening to it. Lets take A Weekend In The City for a jaunt, shall we?
A Weekend In The City:
In two words, this album is both pompous and dull. The single highlight of the album is the second track, "Hunting For Witches", which again, makes no goddam sense, but hey, this is becoming a theme isn't it? This veritable hoo-ha retard circus of a record switches between its own upper-class narcissism and overwrought dramatics, making it almost impossible to listen to in one sitting. It's like they sat around and actually thought that putting a ballad every other song was some sort of genius idea. It's not. It's fucking insane. A Weekend In The City wears on the listener, which is the exact opposite effect of Silent Alarm. The brilliance of Silent Alarm was wrapped up in its ability to constantly bring us back for another spin, another discovery of a lick we love or a lyric that gets stuck in our heads. Instead of this, we are forced to endure the endless self-important social commentary about modern life from frontman Kele Okereke, who disturbingly begins to sound more and more like Bono for indie kids. He drones on and on in "Uniform" about how indie kids are so mad hypocritical, then moans for a fucking queen's age about a young lost love in "I Still Remember". We don't need this new you, Kele. Give us back the iconic lines, like in "Positive Tension": "Something glorious is about to happen/ The reckoning". Or from "Luno": "I can heal all the blind/ I can cure all the sick/I can say the right things".
Those are real expressions of inner passion. Not the bullshit all over A Weekend In The City or Intimacy. Honestly, I'm not even going to give Intimacy a fair trial, because I swear to jesus it's not an actual record. It's a collection of electronically manipulated sounds with wailing over it. "One Month Off" is alright, but only alright.
Where did this all go so wrong?
Like I said in my introduction, some bands are given too much money and too much artistic license. There is such a thing. And this is what I believe happened to Bloc Party. Yes, nobody expected them to make another Silent Alarm. That's fair. But what people did not expect was that Bloc Party would sacrifice their wonderful combination of songcraft and balanced righteous aggression in order to "progress" musically. Progression is sometimes a very horrible thing. Just ask Rivers Cuomo. Not that they care though, they just keep on forging ahead into this netherworld of suck without reserve or restraint.
And that is why Bloc Party sucks now.
I'm coming for your old dumb ass, Bob Dylan.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have any suggestions as to what band should be featured next
week, just leave their name down there in da commentz. If I pick your
suggestion, you win so much stuff. I swear, so much stuff.
Really though, plz leave suggestions/feedback/social security numbers.
A Weekend In The City:
In two words, this album is both pompous and dull. The single highlight of the album is the second track, "Hunting For Witches", which again, makes no goddam sense, but hey, this is becoming a theme isn't it? This veritable hoo-ha retard circus of a record switches between its own upper-class narcissism and overwrought dramatics, making it almost impossible to listen to in one sitting. It's like they sat around and actually thought that putting a ballad every other song was some sort of genius idea. It's not. It's fucking insane. A Weekend In The City wears on the listener, which is the exact opposite effect of Silent Alarm. The brilliance of Silent Alarm was wrapped up in its ability to constantly bring us back for another spin, another discovery of a lick we love or a lyric that gets stuck in our heads. Instead of this, we are forced to endure the endless self-important social commentary about modern life from frontman Kele Okereke, who disturbingly begins to sound more and more like Bono for indie kids. He drones on and on in "Uniform" about how indie kids are so mad hypocritical, then moans for a fucking queen's age about a young lost love in "I Still Remember". We don't need this new you, Kele. Give us back the iconic lines, like in "Positive Tension": "Something glorious is about to happen/ The reckoning". Or from "Luno": "I can heal all the blind/ I can cure all the sick/I can say the right things".
Those are real expressions of inner passion. Not the bullshit all over A Weekend In The City or Intimacy. Honestly, I'm not even going to give Intimacy a fair trial, because I swear to jesus it's not an actual record. It's a collection of electronically manipulated sounds with wailing over it. "One Month Off" is alright, but only alright.
Where did this all go so wrong?
Like I said in my introduction, some bands are given too much money and too much artistic license. There is such a thing. And this is what I believe happened to Bloc Party. Yes, nobody expected them to make another Silent Alarm. That's fair. But what people did not expect was that Bloc Party would sacrifice their wonderful combination of songcraft and balanced righteous aggression in order to "progress" musically. Progression is sometimes a very horrible thing. Just ask Rivers Cuomo. Not that they care though, they just keep on forging ahead into this netherworld of suck without reserve or restraint.
And that is why Bloc Party sucks now.
I'm coming for your old dumb ass, Bob Dylan.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have any suggestions as to what band should be featured next
week, just leave their name down there in da commentz. If I pick your
suggestion, you win so much stuff. I swear, so much stuff.
Really though, plz leave suggestions/feedback/social security numbers.
2 comments:
john: please do one of these articles on TV On The Radio. Maybe it's too early to tell but I feel like every music critic and media outlet promotes them like the second coming of Michael Jackson.
-Dan
good one dan. i will consider it
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