It’s that time of year again. Optimists are betting on a white Christmas, pessimists are wondering if they will make it to Christmas, and all the while turkeys continue to look nervous while their cruel oppressors sharpen their meat grinders. Fortunately, any turkeys with access to an iPhone or Blackberry (I can’t see many abattoirs having Macs with Wi-Fi set up) might just have been able to see the BBC’s Sound Of 2010 longlist before their untimely demise, with nothing to look forward to but the innards of your pervy Uncle Trevor.
The Sound Of 2009 list more or less got it spot on, as the wise chestnuts at the Beeb predicted the global phenomenon that turned out to be he/she Ladyboy Gaga, stupid haired electrowhore La Roux, and the mind numbing, talentless black hole that is White Lies. Sigh. On the plus side, they highlighted some of the best new bands around, such as The Big Pink, whose album is hellishly good, Florence & The Machine (swoon), Passion Pit and The Temper Trap. I’m not sold on Mumford & Sons, but you could throw them in too if you like. Their number one hope was Little Boots, who last year I said I was looking forward to seeing more of. This year I hope she falls into a vat of hydrochloric acid.
So, onto this year’s wannabes. Of the 15 nominees, I’ve heard of a grand total of two. Either I’m getting more and more elite, or the BBC are broadening their horizons. One listen to that useless twat Moyles in the morning suggests the former. Here’s the list.
Daisy Dares You
Delphic
Devlin
The Drums
Everything Everything
Giggs
Gold Panda
Ellie Goulding
Hurts
Joy Orbison
Marina & The Diamonds
Owl City
Rox
Stornoway
Two Door Cinema Club
Anyone else think that band names are getting worse? Mind you, Joy Orbison is a great name. Expect next year’s list to comprise of a fat mouthy northern band called Oasis Joy Chubby Brown.
Daisy Dares You… to do what exactly? Judging by her pic on the BBC website, she’s daring you to call that 0898 number and listen to her play the guitar with her feet. I’ll quote direct from the Beeb’s description. “Sixteen-year-old Daisy Coburn makes bubblegum punk - impatient, impudent teen pop about friendship and families and fancying boys.”
Ah. As expected, utter tripe. Daisy is about as punk as a Milky Way bar. “At least she’s fit,” you might hope for. Nope. About as sexy as a dead walrus, though you might like that sort of thing. If you are still tempted, let me reveal the last nugget of crucial information. Her debut single will feature Chipmunk. Little Boots, I hope you have decomposed in that acid, because you are about to be joined.
Delphic might as well ride around on the bandwagon they have jumped on. My guess is they were a poor indie band seeking that missing ingredient to make them better. The correct answer is talent, but their answer is electronica. The Beeb croon, “This is what would have happened if New Order embraced ambient techno, or Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant had spent his time at raves.” Really? Who do they get to write this bollocks? Who do they get to choose the list? Oh wait, I can find out… I shit you not, one of the people on the list is Kate Finn, whose job is “Hollyoaks music supervisor.” Says it all really. The list is massive, but I don’t believe that more than two people would have willingly singled out this band if there wasn’t some form of backhanded bribery/blowjob treatment going on.
Devlin is a rapper whose first album will be called Bud Sweat & Beers. Like the album title, his lead song “London City” seems to be an excuse to namedrop chav fashions and bullshit, and how a girl’s arse does wiggle. Devlin is a poor man’s Mike Skinner, who was a poor man to start with. The beat isn’t terrible, but everything else is.
The Drums have arrived just in time with the surfpop revival that is currently lurking around over the shores in Yankeeland. “Let’s Go Surfing” is almost impossible not to like, with its twee melody, whistlealongability (how’s that for a word?) and general feelgood vibe. It’s also available as a free download on their website. Not bad, and so far the best on the list, though I really am hoping for a lot more.
Everything Everything cite Radiohead and The Beatles as their chief influences, which is funny as I would say their chief influences are Wham! and The Young Knives, which is an ungodly mix. I can’t quite convey how utterly ghastly they sound, the attempted falsetto is just horrific, but the Beeb just love them. “Both deliberately arty and unashamedly catchy, Manchester band Everything Everything could point to a way forward for the stale indie scene.”
I love how people always say that the indie scene is stale, when the truth is it’s doing quite nicely without this lot sticking their oars in.
Giggs is the side project of Manchester United and Welsh wizard Ryan Giggs. If you read that sentence and believed it, I apologise, though I would love to hear Giggsy try his hand at 'Old Man River' at the Sports Personality Of The Year shindig. Giggs is a south London rapper, who on “Slow Songs” is joined by the aforementioned Mike Skinner. Two mentions in the same feature aren’t enough to redeem himself, as Skinner adds nothing to the song, which is indeed slow, so slow that you wonder if Giggs might be a bit simple. Especially in the video when, 12 seconds in, Giggs stares into space with a look that is unintentionally comedy gold. Again the beat isn’t too bad, but the lyrics again are cringeworthy.
Gold Panda certainly has the Midas touch, not that King Midas himself ever touched a panda. I wonder what happened when he touched himself… down there. The Beeb describe Gold Panda as, “a left-field producer and remixer called Derwin who makes instrumental soundtracks to half-remembered, dreamy summer days. He scours charity shops for old records and VHS tapes to turn into distorted samples, and wraps them in minimal, warm beats.” Utterly fascinating stuff, “Quitter’s Raga” is only 1:53 long but hard to forget with its random juxtapositions of Japanese samples. If The Avalanches became Samurai warriors, this is what they would sound like.
Ellie Goulding is already being tipped to win this year’s Sound Of 2010, but not on this evidence. The Beeb proudly proclaim, “If Kate Bush, Bjork and Stevie Nicks shared a flat in Shoreditch in 2009, but were a little bit more sane, this noise would emerge.” Only if the three of them sold their souls to Simon Cowell. “Under The Sheets” wouldn’t be used to wipe Kate Bush’s arse, and I’m pretty sure one of the lyrics in the chorus is, “in our house made of bacon.” That’s probably incorrect, but this just isn’t any good. Ellie singing “like all the boys before” over and over sounds like a virgin’s proclamation that they have shagged everything under the sun. Maybe after ten pints, a bottle of Absinthe, a doner kebab, and then another bottle of Absinthe.
Hurts. It sure does. The Beeb try and big them up as, “A moody and exceedingly stylish duo from Manchester, Hurts inhabit an enigmatic, cinematic black & white world where they construct melancholic 1980s-inspired electro-pop.” I didn’t realise that side partings were now considered stylish. I don’t know what the bint in the video for “Wonderful Life” is doing, but it adds nothing to proceedings. You feel she’s just there to mask the godawful music, but her flailing cannot perform miracles.
Joy Orbison is Pete O’Grady, a dance producer from Croydon, whose work is a mash up of house and garage, kind of like Burial getting a Paul Van Dyk remix. It actually works pretty well, especially on the track “BRKLN CLLN,” and has the feeling to it that it would work as both dance choon and chillout material. For some reason Pete still works in a mailroom. If his work skills equal his music skills, he should be head of Royal Mail.
Marina & The Diamonds should win this hands down. Having already reviewed her single Crown Jewels E.P last year, it’s clear that she has the talent to make it big, and the quirky offpop she supplies is like a shot in the arm of liquid mercury. Beeb, if any scene is getting stale, it’s the pop scene, but Marina is more than capable of turning the tide. “Hollywood” is a single good enough to be bought by teenagers and hummed along to by uptight business people. Splendid.
Owl City is Adam Young from Minnesota, who until he reached number 1 in the US with “Fireflies” had never left the area he grew up in. If I had my way, he and his twinkling nonsense of a song should have stayed there and been buried under an Indian burial ground. To be fair, the song isn’t bad, until he starts singing, and it just ruins any illusion you may have had. Deeply unbearable.
Rox is a student of the Brit performing art school who, if by her showing on Later… is anything to go by, will do just fine indeed. Funky soul in the style of Lauren Hill meshed with that Winehouse lass, the right song could do wonders for her, but even without it there is definitely room for her in today’s music scene. One to keep an eye on.
Stornoway have been championed for long by Planet Sound, whose imminent closure due to Teletext’s costcutting is personally akin to that of losing a parent. (Sir) John Earls certainly has an ear for picking bands out of the gloom, and these could well be his greatest find. A totally listenable mix of folk, brass and whatever else they can lay their hands on, they are so good that I allow myself a wry smile when I see their namesake town on the BBC weather map in the mornings. Fun fact: one of them has a PhD in duck ecology. And I thought Media Arts with Film & TV Studies was a Mickey Mouse degree…
Two Door Cinema Club have sacrificed university places to make a name for themselves, though whether or not they were to study duck ecology is so far unconfirmed. The Northern Irish lads aren’t too bad either, which suggests they made the right choice in forming their arty-indie stylings. I can’t see them setting the world alight, though they may form their own Foals-like following and do pretty well for themselves.
So, that’s it. This motley crue are what we will be listening to for the next 12 months. Christ on a bike, 2010 is going to be an awful year for music. You want 15 bands to look out for? Ask your mates. Ask your psychiatrist. Ask us here at Gobshout, because we certainly are a lot more clued up than those upstarts at the BBC. If this is what the licence fee goes towards, I’ll settle for visual and audio static, thank you very much.
Seeing as no-one asked, here’s who I would look out for this year.
Detroit Social Club, debut album coming in the spring, is going to be awesome.
Nat Johnson & The Figureheads, indiefolkpop extraordinaires.
Dogs, mod rock approved by Weller himself, also new album expected this year.
Airship, best unheard of support act I’ve seen.
Underground Heroes, pop/punk that is better than the genre suggests.
The Incredible Flight Of Birdman, Morrisseyesque splendour.
Kill It Kid, because someone will be upset if I don’t mention them, but they are good.
Manila Chapter, Myspace says this lot are playing with Detroit Social Club in Newcastle on December 17th; that will be an amazing gig.
Posted In Comment, Dec 08 2009.
Words - Paul