Jamie T

[aleksy]

It's hard to imagine a positive white and studenty UK subcult/identity at the moment though. I don't think it can come from the supposedly witty and socially relevant Morrissey fans.

As someone willing to embrace their own inauthenticity, Paris Hilton is a more sympathetic figure than Lallen in This dispute

 

[crackerjack]

It is weird watching that middle class self-loathing though. Things like Vice mag go on about class all the time, as if there's nothing funnier in the world than a well heeled hipster. But the only person there i've ever spoken to was called Piers and talks like Brian Sewell.

 

[mms]

isn't it all down to whether your parents can afford to bail you out if you fuck up?

 

[swears]

It is weird watching that middle class self-loathing though. Things like Vice mag go on about class all the time, as if there's nothing funnier in the world than a well heeled hipster. But the only person there i've ever spoken to was called Piers and talks like Brian Sewell.

Piers Martin? Writes a really good column on electronic/clubby kinda stuff for Vice UK. One of the few worthwhile things about that mag. Good for him for not succumbing to a bullshit estuary accent.

 

[swears]

isn't it all down to whether your parents can afford to bail you out if you fuck up?

I suppose working class people can go home and recieve care and attention from their folks if needs be. Or are you actually talking about bankrolling creative projects and pricey rehab healthcare?

 

[gek-opel]

The point is not that these successful artists are white and middle class (utterly, laughably mediocre to the core as their music is) --- its that they are occupying the kind of "urban" slot that could be far better occupied by any number of vastly superior, avant-garde working class black performers (whose aura these artists implicitly wish to convey, whilst keeping the contents "real" "non-synthesised" etc etc-- note the rise of the Jamie Ts, Lily Allens has occurred at the same time as grime's decline)... its the fact that the artists are inferior, half-hearted, totally lame, and they are being preferred along race and class lines to the real deal, the artists who have the same aura, but actually have the contents to back it up. Why is it that despite having huge amounts of young black creativity in the UK is there only enough "space" in the industry to support 1-2 artists at appreciable levels of success at any one time...? The answer, I believe, is obvious... And I'm not just some afrocentric hipster (hipster perhaps) as large swathes of music I listen to is whiter-than-white...

 

[swears]

Good point, it's like grime-lite. I'd never really thought of it that way before.

 

[gek-opel]

Good point, it's like grime-lite. I'd never really thought of it that way before.

Kind of--- its difficult to express why I think that, cos the music has almost zero elements of grime production etc etc, but it occupies the SPACE that Grime could, perhaps, have occupied (maybe this is going too far- grime is far more ruff, both sonically and lyrically, than this much vaunted coffee-table jo wiley toss... but perhaps, just perhaps...)

 

[swears]

No, not sonically, but it has lyrics about everyday life in the capital, it's a bit "urban", it's young, etc, etc...

 

[gek-opel]

Haha- but not too urban like featuring black kids who aren't Corrine Bailey Rae,cos that surelt would be TERRIFYING.

 

[swears]

Didn't Joss Stone win best urban act at the Brits a couple of years ago? And she's from Somerset, or somewhere like that.

 

[crackerjack]

Good point Gek-Opel, but I don't think it's just down to racism.

1 Grime is (or, at least, has been) certainly more inventive, but it's sonically much harsher. You can't sing much of it on the bus.

2/ You could make a case for Jamie T and Lily Allen being better lyricists than the vast majority of grime artists.

3/ Grime would never really break out until it loses its association with violence. Look at hip hop: the artists who tend to do really well over here are people like Black Eyed Peas who don't go down that route. Occasionally you'll get someone like Fiddy whose SO successful in the States that he almost can't not succeed over here too, but the US has produced dozens of megastar gangsta rappers who don't sell shit over here. The UK just doesn't want to hear it.

 

[Edward]

Didn't Joss Stone win best urban act at the Brits a couple of years ago? And she's from Somerset, or somewhere like tha

Yeah, Mick Hucknall used to always win "best soul singer" and then it was jamiroquai, same with mobo when that came out, totally blatant racism.

i just checked jamie t's website, i managed to put up wth his stupid voice for about 5 seconds. truly unbearable.

i think we should have a thread about class if there isn't one already, Im gonna go an have a look....

 

[gek-opel]

Yer, of course, its not as simple as grime-getting-fucked by these middle class kids or whatever, and Jamie T and Lilly Allen obviously have more to do with The Streets than Boy Better Know or Roll Deep or what-have-you-- but surely there is some kind of native UK talent that lies in-between the (wrongly perceived) harshness of grime and the mediocrity of these urban lite/mockney bastards?

Grime fucked itself with the perception of violence (exacerbated by racist attitudes in police/promoters etc though to scene-killing proportion), and the much discussed lack of drive/organisation... but why the preponderance of faux-authentic public school educated acts? And why does the media completely fall in line with the ridiculously silly accompanying PR rhetoric as to the authenticity of these acts? You are correct, its not quite racism, but its not far off...

 

[Edward]

And why does the media completely fall in line with the ridiculously silly accompanying PR rhetoric as to the authenticity of these acts?

Because they are waiting for the next big thing to be given to them on a plate, because they are lazy, ignorant, because they exist to serve those who buy advertising.

I have met a few journalists who love music and are sincere but most of them are just worried about their career in journalism.

When I used to send out promos, I discovered the best way to get a good review was to write a press release in the form of a good review that they could just type out and submit to their editor. Really.
If you didn't write much of a press release there was more chance of getting a bad review.

 

[sodiumnightlife]

so much journalism today is just utter bollocks - i mean look at the NME, its doubled or maybe more its readership by halfing or quartering the quality of its writing. They don't champion anything new or exciting - they champion the view for fucks sake. I saw something in which the lead singer said his main influence was up the bracket by the libertines. Now as much as i loved that record at the time, forming a band whose main influence is a record released five years ago is like forming a band in 1982 and saying your main influence was never mind the bollocks. That band would have been laughed down or certainly not taken seriously, what's up today that a supposedly serious music magazine gets behind them? All this gets me thinking about something i've discussed with people before, and that is could art ever run out of ideas? Are human beings built with a hard limiter in terms of what they can achieve? There are very few bands that I consider are pushing any boundaries - I think Radiohead were the last big ones, and I do also like These New Puritans. thing is with both of them is that they are using electronics, and i definitely don't think that all areas of electronic music have been explored. Also these new puritans haven't completely left their fall-isms behind, but they are younger than me so I reckon they could turn into something extra special.

 

[Edward]

Art won't run out of ideas, but capitalism isn't designed to help good art be successful.

Loads of good art and music is out there, just don't expect to find it in the NME....

 

[swears]

All this gets me thinking about something i've discussed with people before, and that is could art ever run out of ideas? Are human beings built with a hard limiter in terms of what they can achieve?

Perhaps not, but as you pointed out in reference to music journalism, the current climate doesn't encourage new things.

 

[sodiumnightlife]

No i know that...I sounded way too pessimistic there, I don't expect to find anything of worht in the Nme nor do i find myself buying it. But i'm not convinced that humans can endlessy innovate. We'll have to see i suppose.

 

[gek-opel]

There are some constraints on innovation, (or at least- on the rate of innovation) and as previously discussed I think that there are non-capitalistic based reasons why there is a slow down (because we have gone through an era of unparalleled technological change and unparalleled trans-global cultural exchange in the last 100 years creating incredibly rapid shifts and mutations)... however, there definitely are still interesting innovations, but these occur at arms length from anything resembling the pop mainstream, due to the evolution of global markets and the long tail creating endless self-supporting niches, in a broadband world the margins don't have to fight to get access to the market, so they disappear from the mainstream view, unlike in the past when occasionally they might come to the fore...