Rules Of The Game #5: What's Wrong With Pretty Girls

[koganbot]

Latest column. Comments welcome here.

What's Wrong With Pretty Girls?

EDIT: Here are links to all but three of my other Rules Of The Game columns (LVW's search results for "Rules of the Game"). Links for the other three (which for some reason didn't get "Rules Of The Game" in their titles), are here: #4, #5, and #8.

UPDATE: I've got all the links here now:

http://koganbot.livejournal.com/179531.html

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

And not one mention of rock1sm! Well done :)

The "but they don't play their own instruments" excuse is one I spouted plenty of times as a teenager and have only just grown out of in the last few years. I now place more value on the quality of the end product rather than the integrity of the musicians.

A THEORY:
- Britpop explosion means a bunch of teenagers (male and female) decide to take up the guitar [NB I was one of these teenagers].
- Sudden demise of Britpop leaves teenagers frustrated & musically uninspired, but unable to accept new 'pop' overlords eg Spicers/Westloife due to 'integrity hangover' instilled by Britpop
- Fast forward ten years, said guitar-wielding teenagers are now in charge of/prevalent within music industry trends, but have split into two factions: EMO/INDIE, for the snottier (nearly all male) 'musicians' intent on proving their worth (inspired by Manics etc); FOLK for the wimpier chaps/chapesses who couldn't get anyone to form a proper band with them, and hence write songs about miserableness/crap boyfriends (inspired by Pulp etc).
- So we end up with James Morrison, Arctic Monkeys and KT Tunstall representing the new UK talent, and whether they're good or not they are frustratingly traditional and serious. I find it really depressing, and I doubt whether the next crop of teenagers will be inspired by this lot - of course they won't, they're all too busy waving around glowsticks and wearing bright pink hoodies and having a whale of a time to notice who is on stage. I don't blame them one bit.

Thankfully there is light at the end of the 'serious musician' tunnel, with a small crop of UK producer-performer acts coming through that seem to actually enjoy themselves and are less worried about 'doing it properly' (Calvin Harris springs to mind although I don't particularly like him myself). Thank god we don't need to be holding a guitar to make 'proper music' anymore!

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

If we're thinking of a cause and effect theory then the fact that people my age grew up with Spice Girls, Steps and Backstreet Boys as their introduction to music is quite promising for current and future new acts to not be so snotty about integrity. However, I worry for when people a few years younger than me are the new 18-20 year olds getting into music careers as their intro to music was Busted, Green Day and My Chemical Romance - I hope I'll be living abroad by the time this lot get their turn!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

The teenagers ten years ago were all Green Day fans too, but I get your point ;-)

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

True! I'm thinking American Idiot era of Green Day fans here. They seemed to act as a bridge into rock music for a lot of teenagers who were 13/14 at that time.