New unsigned bands. Embrace them, listen to them, support them. Their future relies on equal measures of support and doses of reality. Rarely do they peak during their early days. Leave room to get excited in the future when they’re better at what they do. Otherwise we miss out.
This could be a terrible analogy but here goes: Video games rarely peak on the first iteration of an idea. Would you rather play the very first Grand Theft Auto game or GTA V? Launch titles are often lacking in polish. Even great debuts like Batman Arkham Asylum were improved upon. Video game journos know this and leave room for unbridled adulation in later instalments of a series. Otherwise they’d end up looking silly.
So are music reviewers far too easily excited? I own enough Mogwai records to know I’d much rather listen to pretty much anything other than ‘Young Team’. It’s not that the debut is flawed, more that the later records are incredible. Yet the music press has failed to reflect the genius on display as that band has grown. After the initial, ‘Hey! This is NEW!!!’ the music press tends to get bored like a five year old with a skylander figure. That’s what happens when selling print copies takes precedence over doing your job of reporting on music. The approach is fundamentally flawed.
New bands emerge, get uber hyped and die faster in Glasgow than anywhere else on the planet. Even if that sentence is false you’d be forgiven for thinking it has merit. If you’ve been following the stories of new bands at SXSW and other worldwide industry festivals where music journalism goes to die, then you’ll get a kick out of this - How Indie Finally OFFICIALLY Died: The Broken Indie Machine
Go read that and then come back. I’ll stick the kettle on in the meantime.
All done? Then let’s continue. Gord from The Strangers Almanac covered the topic of music criticism on a recent podcast. Nobody likes to put their creative efforts out into the world only to have them shredded by smartass keyboard warriors. Any fool can criticise and they usually do. Thing is, balance and objectivity is in short supply in the world of blogs. All those who see themselves as part of their local scene are likely to latch onto The Next Cool Thing and partake in the inevitable hype. That doesn’t necessarily do anyone any good.
As Simon from Fierce Panda once wrote in a print edition of The Fly a million years ago, it’s OK for a band to not be utterly amazing when you start out. Time and technology has not changed this fact.
The whole point is to make mistakes, discover your own voice, and go through a period of transition and growth – keeping in mind that you only get to make one first impression.
Magazine cover headlines of ‘The Hottest Band On The Planet’ sound great but magazines don’t give a fuck about anything except selling to their perceived demographic. They’re not interested in anything approaching actual journalism.
There’s a Glasgow band called PRONTO MAMA whose music I’ve been enjoying. They fit alongside other Scottish bands such as Casual Sex or Homework as the type of thing both critics and music fans will get behind.
They tick the boxes required for people to get hyped about them and their own bandcamp page states that they are, “one of the most talked about new bands in Scotland“. They sound great and I encourage people to check them out.
But if they’re one of the most talked about bands now with very little released output, what have they to aim for by album three? To become the most talked about band in the world? How likely is that..?
