Why I Love Keane

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routes

we can delay.ay.ay...
my mate who used to be a runner at a record label swears that Kasabian actually was the result of a bet between 2 A&R people. the first A&R bet the other that he could make any band the other A&R chose into a successful group within 3 years. The second A&R had seen Kasabian supporting some other band and thought of them instantly because they were IMPOSSIBLY bad... so suggested them. and the rest, as they say, is boring.
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Joey Joe-Joe Jr. Shabadoo said:
talking of Bateman...

The reckless, heady abandon at the heart of ‘Call My Name’ is unleashed in glorious fashion here: it’s a song about throwing caution to the wind, and from the magnificent drops into the verses to the tasteful guitar strums, that’s exactly what Royal-T and Cole deliver in combination. “You’ve got me confused by the way I’ve changed,” accuses Cole. It’s a line that means precisely nothing. It doesn’t matter. “My name, my name – SAY MY NAME, BABY!” she commands; and as one both performer and listener let themselves go. Lead becomes gold.


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When I read that quote that i knew it had to be an ILX bod who wrote it, and I was right.

That remix is fantastic though and that article is actually OTM when it comes to garage remixes.

Back on topic, I think It would take a shit-into-gold Funkystepz remix to ever make me say anything nice about Keane. But hey, they managed it with Bruno Mars so maybe one day...
 
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rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
who wrote that?

i think anyone who releases a huey lewis or phil collins greatest hits should include the passage from american psycho in it. but i dont see it as being ironic, its only ironic if you think PC and HL are shit. for a lot of people (and a lot of people like them), it just explains what makes them so good. irony is in the eye of the beholder, etc.

i like william boyd but i dont doubt he would like keane at all, based on something like any human heart.

rather than dismiss it with a sneer, we should try and understand just what it is that makes someone like boyd - who we regard as being smarter and non bland - to like a band perceived as being so bland like keane.
 
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rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
one of my favourites (hard to choose, though i dont think much of what they have done since has matched what they accomplished around 2005 before they became more aware of how they were perceived)

 
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SecondLine

Well-known member
rubberdingyrapids said:
one of my favourites
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I just don't get where this discussion stands in relation to that complaint in the 'music journo hall of shame thread' a while back about the fact that nobody behaves like they're intervening in a cultural war any more, the stakes are too low, there's no passion or fervency attached to taste etc. etc.

I can't remember who was making that point but I struggle to see how decrying the lack of a modernist impulse in underground dance music on the one hand and accepting and appreciating Keane's blandness on the other is consistent

It sounds to me like a poptimist attitude of the kind that's been bashed a lot lately, whereby the more chart success something has the less critical discernment is exercised on it
 
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SecondLine

Well-known member
I listened to the first Keane album a lot when it came out as I was in my young teens (dates me). Saw them at the brixton academy too. In hindsight, he sounds a lot like I imagine David Cameron does when he sings in the shower (or wet room more likely)
 
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rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
SecondLine said:
I just don't get where this discussion stands in relation to that complaint in the 'music journo hall of shame thread' a while back about the fact that nobody behaves like they're intervening in a cultural war any more, the stakes are too low, there's no passion or fervency attached to taste etc. etc.
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i thought we were engaging in that here, between those who hate keane, and those who like them, such as myself. boyd set it off with an earnest support of the band, and i really like that he didnt once feel he needed to address the arguments of those who dont like them (he prob just doesnt know), he was completely sincere. and thats a lot of what cultural wars are about isnt it? totally believing in the music you like.

i used to hate travis, coldplay etc etc for being all mopey and i sometimes still do but i think they have some great melodies too. so even if keane are soul music for bullingdon alumni, doesnt mean they cant transcend that or that ppl not from that background cant feel it or that it has no emotional resonance (do wonder if a lot of ppl's hate for them is for how blatantly m/c they are). i actually have a relative who really liked their older stuff and hes as far from their social background as you can imagine and i dont think he likes their stuff for its aspirationally m/c qualities (actually its prob more that hes just getting old and they appeal to his MOR side - used to be into electro and soul etc). what im saying is that boyd is actually engaging, instigating even, the pop battle lines/pop-tribe war etc (hes just not on the 'right'/cool side of the cultural war it seems), people are just too above it all, too above the idea of claiming allegiance to a scene/style, or one band, too above really LOVING something, to really entertain that someone writing about keane could be serious. which says it all really. thats the real problem, not really willing to go tow to tow for what you like.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
that i think coldplay have occasional melodic genius is my greatest musical secret. MOR can be absolutely brilliant, but keane are awful.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
baboon2004 said:
that i think coldplay have occasional melodic genius is my greatest musical secret. MOR can be absolutely brilliant, but keane are awful.
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I overheard a guy in a pub the other day talking about how Coldplay have "got soul", and suppressed a shudder. I dunno, maybe they're not actually as bad as I like to think they are, but I enjoy hating them nonetheless.

They're probably my college's most famous living alumni, sigh.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Another one! It's not even written by the same person. Is this an incredibly slow moving super-ironic and subtle joke or what? I am genuinely confused now.

It had to happen at some point. We are all just little blobs on the great big wheel of fortune and sometimes things come to an end and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. Not that the pop group Keane have officially split up, you understand – I might not be able to write about it if they had, the feelings run too deep – but they're releasing a greatest hits album, and then taking a "break", and frontman Tom is rumoured to be writing a solo record. Like frontmen do when their bands split up. Hmmm.
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http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/nov/11/keane-splitting-up-chaplin-solo-greatest-hits
 
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crackerjack

Well-known member
William Boyd is an upper-middle-class ex-public school white guy in his early 60s. If he can't be left in peace to enjoy Keane it's a bit of a rum do.
 
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