2009 in music
One of the more pernicious music industry inventions has to be the annual BBC Sound of... survey of music critics and industry figures, which presents us with a helpful list of all the acts with the biggest marketing budgets for the coming year and whose records we are therefore expected to buy. Let’s see who was in the 2009 top ten (in ranking order):
Little Boots (disappointing considering the amount of time and money that must have been invested)
White Lies (hilariously death-obsessed, yet more Joy Division-reduced-to-mainstream-glum fodder although the one guitar band to break through this year)
Florence and the Machine (critical and commercial success - hurrah)
Empire of the Sun (good tunes but too wilfully weird to cross over)
La Roux (see below)
Lady GaGa (see below)
VV Brown (seems like you can have too many electro girls. Brown got literally nowhere)
Kid Cudi (quite big in hip-hop circles by all accounts)
Passion Pit (haven’t really broken through)
Dan Black (I saw him do a few songs at Glastonbury. He was kinda alright)
Lady GaGa is by far and away the year’s breakout star. The sometime Stefani Germanotta appears to have the same steely-eyed focus, wild imagination and visual flair as the young Madonna, although the levels of raunch that GaGa has brought from the very start were only achieved by Madonna at the end her first pure pop phase. Why, it's the perfect microcosm of the modern everything-goes, everything-sexualised, innocence-lost age. You know she can go anywhere she wants to, but how much further can she push the envelope? Perhaps her next image could be cloistered nun.
Something about the music, again ruthlessly efficient modern R&B-influenced as opposed to shinier, more playful 80s pop, is quite unsettling but this is probably a good thing. Pop music is for kids, not for likes of me. And I grudgingly have to admit that Poker Face is a great pop tune (although the Lady herself will never top this).
My sort-of-works-in-the-industry friend explained to me why female-fronted electropop was so heavily pushed this year – essentially a few acts of this type picked up a bit of “buzz” via micro-gigs in some unspecified trendy London district (let’s say Hoxton) a couple of years ago and so all the majors then sign them or people like them up and the results filtered through this year.
Inevitably there were more failures than successes (see VV Brown above, Ladyhawke, etc) but the acts that clicked such as La Roux sold spectacularly. It’s hard to put a finger on why the public responded so well to what is essentially a Eurythmics tribute act (right down to the weirdly androgynous frontwoman), but at least they are offering something a bit different to their peers. Florence and the Machine didn’t sell in the same numbers but Ms Welch has set her stall out for what ought to be a decent career.
But, one woman has dominated the headlines this year, and attained a kind of post-Diana Nation’s Sweetheart aura in the process. Now, I don’t watch the X Factor so pardon my incredulity, but is it really the case that all you need to do to be popular is go on TV, look pretty, be nice to some kids and have a bit of a cry? I rather fear it is. Such is the power of the Cowell ultrabrand - any previous race-related nastiness can be forgotten if you marry a black man and sit next to a lesser Minogue in comparison to whom you can’t fail to shine.
Was Dannii deliberately seeded there a year early as part of a long-term plan to guide Cheryl to ubiquity? Is Ashley playing for “the other team” but married to Cheryl in a mutually-beneficial arrangement that makes her look better because she could never be as roundly loathed as her hubby? By the way, one internet forum-dweller described La Cole as “good-looking but not remotely sexy”, which sums her up far more eloquently than I ever could.
The last SHOCKING development of 2009 was obviously Mr Cowell’s latest winning record failing to reach the Christmas number one slot, pipped to the post by some song about not doing what you’re told, propelled to the top thanks to a Facebook campaign wherein thousands of people did what they were told to and bought it. Well done everyone, I’m sure Simon will admit defeat and retire from the music industry and all public life any day now.
Several existing bands also embraced the electro thing this year, eager to learn new tricks. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs pulled it off brilliantly (see below), Gossip, Editors and others far less so, suggesting that you can only polish a turd so much. As far as the mainstream went though, bands who stuck to their guitars fared even worse. U2 and Green Day’s latest opuses failed to find much favour, Oasis finally spluttered to an end and even the Arctic Monkeys divided opinion and shed more fans by going a bit rawk.
Besides the headline sets by reliable old stagers Blur, Neil and Brooooce, the highlights of Glastonbury were very much pop-based – the reformed Specials and Madness, Lily, GaGa, Florence and a certain Mr Rascal. Young Dizzee took a look at the charts in 2009 and decided he wanted to take them over – cue a run of irresistibly catchy urban pop singles and associated appearances on Newsnight and Jonathan Ross which showed up the likes of N-Dubz and Chipmunk as the kiddie novelty merchants they are and cemented his position as musical man of the year (living).
The dead category was of course won hands down by poor old Michael Jackson. The tragic and puzzling circumstances of his death were utterly apposite given how downright odd the man's life was. Everyone was wondering how on earth he was going to manage that mammoth 50-show run at the O2, and fearing that either he'd pull out altogether or leave it all to lookalikes and backing dancers - the fact that the question went unresolved (save for tantalising glimpses of the rehearsals shown afterwards) seemed oddly fitting.
Jacko is also the trickiest example yet of that thorny issue of whether you can separate the artist from his art. For me, when you strip away all the insanity and allegations and Bashir-ness, you're left with a towering body of work which in pop terms (certainly as far as Thriller era) is unlikely to be surpassed. Whether all the personal stuff can ever be entirely stripped away, and whether "stripped" is an entirely appropriate choice of word, is open to debate.
My arbitrary top 5 albums of 2009:
5. Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You
This may not be "cool", but it sure is fun. Lily effortlessly avoided the trap of being overshadowed by all the newly-hyped female acts by delivering the song of the year in The Fear and generally being a cheeky, opinionated little so-and-so. And most importantly, one who works with a bloody good producer.
4. Noah and the Whale - The First Days of Spring
One of those albums where your enjoyment thereof depends entirely upon your listening circumstances. On your [generic mp3 player] while going for a run? Not so fun. In a candlelit room late at night, reminiscing upon loves lost: perfect. Also one of those albums that genuinely works as a suite of interlinked songs. Raw and emotional stuff, to say the least.
3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
This could have been their "let's have a go at electro" album. Instead, it makes their previous work, good though it was, feel like rehearsal shows for their real opening night. Immensely catchy, atmospheric tunes fronted by a real charisma magnet in Karen O. Yeah! indeed.
2. Wild Beasts - Two Dancers
The main vocalist sings in a falsetto. The songs are a kind of indie-funk. The subject matter is the yoofs, yobs and weekends on the piss of "broken Britain", yet many of the lyrics are wilfully anachronistic. Reading up on them, I discovered that they're based in Leeds now, therefore songs such as The Fun Powder Plot and Hooting and Howling cover almost exactly the same ground as Kaiser Chiefs fare like I Predict A Riot, and yet the two bands don’t sound like they inhabit the same universe, let alone the same city. Captivating.
1. Manic Street Preachers - Journal for Plague Lovers
So, with Send Away the Tigers they made a brilliantly fun, unselfconscious AOR rock album. Of course they followed it up with a Holy Bible sequel, complete with decade-old Richey Edwards lyrics. Nobody could accuse the Manics of standing still, and nobody could accuse them of half measures after listening to Journal..., which loses the overriding sense of despair of its sister record but keeps the angular post-rock shapes and adds a barrel-load of insanely catchy Bradfield riffs. Frankly, young bands should be ashamed that it takes a bunch of middle-aged blokes to make a record like this in 2009. The rest of us should be grateful that at least somebody has.
Merry Christmas!
Little Boots (disappointing considering the amount of time and money that must have been invested)
White Lies (hilariously death-obsessed, yet more Joy Division-reduced-to-mainstream-glum fodder although the one guitar band to break through this year)
Florence and the Machine (critical and commercial success - hurrah)
Empire of the Sun (good tunes but too wilfully weird to cross over)
La Roux (see below)
Lady GaGa (see below)
VV Brown (seems like you can have too many electro girls. Brown got literally nowhere)
Kid Cudi (quite big in hip-hop circles by all accounts)
Passion Pit (haven’t really broken through)
Dan Black (I saw him do a few songs at Glastonbury. He was kinda alright)
Lady GaGa is by far and away the year’s breakout star. The sometime Stefani Germanotta appears to have the same steely-eyed focus, wild imagination and visual flair as the young Madonna, although the levels of raunch that GaGa has brought from the very start were only achieved by Madonna at the end her first pure pop phase. Why, it's the perfect microcosm of the modern everything-goes, everything-sexualised, innocence-lost age. You know she can go anywhere she wants to, but how much further can she push the envelope? Perhaps her next image could be cloistered nun.
Something about the music, again ruthlessly efficient modern R&B-influenced as opposed to shinier, more playful 80s pop, is quite unsettling but this is probably a good thing. Pop music is for kids, not for likes of me. And I grudgingly have to admit that Poker Face is a great pop tune (although the Lady herself will never top this).
My sort-of-works-in-the-industry friend explained to me why female-fronted electropop was so heavily pushed this year – essentially a few acts of this type picked up a bit of “buzz” via micro-gigs in some unspecified trendy London district (let’s say Hoxton) a couple of years ago and so all the majors then sign them or people like them up and the results filtered through this year.
Inevitably there were more failures than successes (see VV Brown above, Ladyhawke, etc) but the acts that clicked such as La Roux sold spectacularly. It’s hard to put a finger on why the public responded so well to what is essentially a Eurythmics tribute act (right down to the weirdly androgynous frontwoman), but at least they are offering something a bit different to their peers. Florence and the Machine didn’t sell in the same numbers but Ms Welch has set her stall out for what ought to be a decent career.
But, one woman has dominated the headlines this year, and attained a kind of post-Diana Nation’s Sweetheart aura in the process. Now, I don’t watch the X Factor so pardon my incredulity, but is it really the case that all you need to do to be popular is go on TV, look pretty, be nice to some kids and have a bit of a cry? I rather fear it is. Such is the power of the Cowell ultrabrand - any previous race-related nastiness can be forgotten if you marry a black man and sit next to a lesser Minogue in comparison to whom you can’t fail to shine.
Was Dannii deliberately seeded there a year early as part of a long-term plan to guide Cheryl to ubiquity? Is Ashley playing for “the other team” but married to Cheryl in a mutually-beneficial arrangement that makes her look better because she could never be as roundly loathed as her hubby? By the way, one internet forum-dweller described La Cole as “good-looking but not remotely sexy”, which sums her up far more eloquently than I ever could.
The last SHOCKING development of 2009 was obviously Mr Cowell’s latest winning record failing to reach the Christmas number one slot, pipped to the post by some song about not doing what you’re told, propelled to the top thanks to a Facebook campaign wherein thousands of people did what they were told to and bought it. Well done everyone, I’m sure Simon will admit defeat and retire from the music industry and all public life any day now.
Several existing bands also embraced the electro thing this year, eager to learn new tricks. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs pulled it off brilliantly (see below), Gossip, Editors and others far less so, suggesting that you can only polish a turd so much. As far as the mainstream went though, bands who stuck to their guitars fared even worse. U2 and Green Day’s latest opuses failed to find much favour, Oasis finally spluttered to an end and even the Arctic Monkeys divided opinion and shed more fans by going a bit rawk.
Besides the headline sets by reliable old stagers Blur, Neil and Brooooce, the highlights of Glastonbury were very much pop-based – the reformed Specials and Madness, Lily, GaGa, Florence and a certain Mr Rascal. Young Dizzee took a look at the charts in 2009 and decided he wanted to take them over – cue a run of irresistibly catchy urban pop singles and associated appearances on Newsnight and Jonathan Ross which showed up the likes of N-Dubz and Chipmunk as the kiddie novelty merchants they are and cemented his position as musical man of the year (living).
The dead category was of course won hands down by poor old Michael Jackson. The tragic and puzzling circumstances of his death were utterly apposite given how downright odd the man's life was. Everyone was wondering how on earth he was going to manage that mammoth 50-show run at the O2, and fearing that either he'd pull out altogether or leave it all to lookalikes and backing dancers - the fact that the question went unresolved (save for tantalising glimpses of the rehearsals shown afterwards) seemed oddly fitting.
Jacko is also the trickiest example yet of that thorny issue of whether you can separate the artist from his art. For me, when you strip away all the insanity and allegations and Bashir-ness, you're left with a towering body of work which in pop terms (certainly as far as Thriller era) is unlikely to be surpassed. Whether all the personal stuff can ever be entirely stripped away, and whether "stripped" is an entirely appropriate choice of word, is open to debate.
My arbitrary top 5 albums of 2009:
5. Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You
This may not be "cool", but it sure is fun. Lily effortlessly avoided the trap of being overshadowed by all the newly-hyped female acts by delivering the song of the year in The Fear and generally being a cheeky, opinionated little so-and-so. And most importantly, one who works with a bloody good producer.
4. Noah and the Whale - The First Days of Spring
One of those albums where your enjoyment thereof depends entirely upon your listening circumstances. On your [generic mp3 player] while going for a run? Not so fun. In a candlelit room late at night, reminiscing upon loves lost: perfect. Also one of those albums that genuinely works as a suite of interlinked songs. Raw and emotional stuff, to say the least.
3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
This could have been their "let's have a go at electro" album. Instead, it makes their previous work, good though it was, feel like rehearsal shows for their real opening night. Immensely catchy, atmospheric tunes fronted by a real charisma magnet in Karen O. Yeah! indeed.
2. Wild Beasts - Two Dancers
The main vocalist sings in a falsetto. The songs are a kind of indie-funk. The subject matter is the yoofs, yobs and weekends on the piss of "broken Britain", yet many of the lyrics are wilfully anachronistic. Reading up on them, I discovered that they're based in Leeds now, therefore songs such as The Fun Powder Plot and Hooting and Howling cover almost exactly the same ground as Kaiser Chiefs fare like I Predict A Riot, and yet the two bands don’t sound like they inhabit the same universe, let alone the same city. Captivating.1. Manic Street Preachers - Journal for Plague Lovers
So, with Send Away the Tigers they made a brilliantly fun, unselfconscious AOR rock album. Of course they followed it up with a Holy Bible sequel, complete with decade-old Richey Edwards lyrics. Nobody could accuse the Manics of standing still, and nobody could accuse them of half measures after listening to Journal..., which loses the overriding sense of despair of its sister record but keeps the angular post-rock shapes and adds a barrel-load of insanely catchy Bradfield riffs. Frankly, young bands should be ashamed that it takes a bunch of middle-aged blokes to make a record like this in 2009. The rest of us should be grateful that at least somebody has.
Merry Christmas!
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