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When I was younger, I used to read the NME every week. You could set your clock to the time- every Wednesday afternoon on the way home from school, I would walk through the doors of the corner shop at the end of my road, walk to the exact spot on the shelf the NME always sat and pick up that week’s copy with excitement- for a few years I hardly ever missed an issue...
After this long while I noticed one thing, the NME is OBSESSED with Oasis...even recently, after they've broken up, they are STILL putting them on the front cover. Now you may wonder why this annoys me? Well, it’s because the NME’s obsession with said band not only stopped them from publishing more about new, up and coming bands, (the NEW Music Express..the clue is in the name) but its more indicative of a wider obsession with 'lad rock' that has made mainstream music shit...
Oasis...
Casing point, BRITPOP. Now Britpop, that is to say the large scale revival of British guitar music in the mid to late 1990s, brought us many great band: Pulp, Suede, Blur, Elastica (ok, they weren't great, but hey..) and as well as this, Oasis. Now everyone remembers Oasis, the hits, the Gallagher brothers’ swagger, the bust ups, the god awful albums they made after 'What’s The Story...'. Less people are as familiar with Blur- 'Song 2' is as famous as anything Oasis ever wrote, but after that they become more obscure in 'mainstream' circles. Pulp, well you might know 'Common People' and MAYBE 'Disco 2000', but any more? Unlikely... And as for Suede, the first band to do the whole 'Cool Britannia' thing that kicked off Britpop and winners of a Mercury Prize...if you know any Suede songs you are, probably, a musical elitist like me...
..but who the fuck are Suede?
Yet Suede and Pulp are, in my opinion, far better than Oasis and all the 'oasisalike' bands that polluted the airwaves like cholera. Blur too, although they did 'make it', are known more for their American rock stylings of later years, rather than the charming, witty, very British guitar pop of their first few albums. Why? Because the dominant shadow of 'Lad rock' eclipsed these better bands. The record company execs decided they wanted a portfolio of artists to release records in the ages between each Oasis record that would appease the masses and as a result, almost shut the door on the best music of the era. Not only did they deny the people 'back then' easier access to great music, but people today too. All because songs about being drunk and high, that made little sense and were often blatantly ripped off (cough Wonderwall cough) were deemed what the public 'wanted'.
Of course, Blur weren't the only of the 'better band' brigade who were at least allowed a slice of the big time. Radiohead came out as towering leviathans of awesomeness, beloved by critics and fans alike. The Manic Street Preachers spent MOST of the decade being generally brilliant. But even then, they were tarnished with the brush 'lad'. 'Design for Life', arguably one of the Manic Street Preachers’ bests songs was hailed as an 'anthem' of the Brit-rock generation and has appeared in compilations off top 'Party Tunes' because it contains the line '...we only want to get drunk'. The song isn't about hedonism, its actually about the complex class structure of British society and solidarity with the working classes. It also contained references to imagery from the Holocaust and the inscription above a library near where the band member grew up. A song with a complex and opaque meaning? Never...
I guess the point I'm trying to make (if there is a point in truth) is that this obsession with 'lad rock' and machismo in music is actually doing quite a bit of harm. I'm not just against Oasis, in fact I own their first two albums and they're not that bad, in truth. I'm not even a wimpy indie type who just wants bands to sound like the Smiths, you may have noticed I like and listen to as much Hardcore and Metal as I do 80s Indie and I'd be a liar if I said AC/DC or Iron Maiden weren't full of macho.
But it’s gone too far. Today the charts are packed with music full of dank, hollow misogyny and bad lyrics that have no meaning at all. Yes I sound like a musical elitist, but I don't care. If labels weren't so insistent that this is the music we all want and need, they might sign and put out some half decent artists. Add a bit of variety to the singles charts. If they did that, maybe people would start buying CDs again and not continue bleeding the music industry to death via file sharing...just a thought.
So, in conclusion to this ramble, 'Lad Rock' is rubbish. If you want to discover good, meaningful music, don't listen to the mainstream. Get your girly side out and admit it, boys do cry and it’s ok to listen to music with a bit of emotion..
If you got this far and didn't close the page, well done indeed...
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