Babyshambles release new (but all too familiar) material

A couple of days ago, Babyshambles put a track from their upcoming album onto Youtube, 'Farmer's Daughter' from September's Sequel to the Prequel. This followed the unveiling of the new single, 'Nothing Comes to Nothing', their first single since 'You Talk' reached UK chart #54*, their lowest chart hit to date. This observation may seem superfluous, but the song's chart position was indicative of its low popularity within Babyshambles' fanbase: 2007's Shotter's Nation, produced by Stephen Street (who produced the slick indie of acts such as Blur, Kaiser Chiefs and The Ordinary Boys), disappointed original fans because of its cleanness - to a lot of people, it just sounded uninspired. I liked the second album, but 2004's Down in Albion has lingered in my affections for longer, not for its rawness of sound but for its rawness of emotion, its lyrical brashness and the way that the scanty production allowed the crack(s) to show through. Album Two was certainly lacking in something, though great tracks like 'There She Goes' and 'Carry on Up the Morning' made up for it.

The Youtube commentariat have already cast their vote on 'Nothing Comes to Nothing', and it looks like the disappointment surrounding Shotter's Nation might be up for a renewal. A commenter named Jordan Schmidt announced, "they really nailed that Generic-Indie-Rock sound", whilst Keith Lennox wrote "meh, it's okay, nothing more than that". A more moderate commentator suggested that "the middle of the road is nothing to shy away from". Most fans were crueller. "The old, classic and messy Babyshambles sold out", Jack Davies claims, and one typical voice asked "Where are the bum notes and the passion of the off key vocals..." A lot of those claiming to like the song sound like apologists, one summarising: "fuck man doherty has to make a living somehow". Quite.

Apologism in the music industry is hard to avoid. People get deeply emotionally involved with their favourite bands, and it's hard to let go and admit that the band you've invested in have made a bad album. Some adjust themselves rather than losing the bands - Youtube user BreckRoadLover21, who is clearly familiar enough with The Libertines to name him/herself after one of their earliest records, probably identifies with the band enough to take to their new, cleaner sound. Those who think that the middle of the road is better than the 'Side of the Road' are probably later fans, or fans who've grown out of their old punk spirit, and they're the type of listener that the Angry Young Men of 2004's audience almost certainly reject - would the old Doherty, the one who yelled "THEY'LL NEVER PLAY THIS ON THE RADIO" over 'Fuck Forever', have expected to attract fans who hum 'Delivery' while doing the dishes?

'Farmer's Daughter' was perhaps a relief to more hard-line fans. Featuring Peter's stilted guitar playing - still slightly jarring to the unexpectant listener - the song is more like 'Carry on Up the Morning' than 'You Talk', but it's far from '8 Dead Boys' or 'La Belle et Le Bête'. Where are the reggae beats that hung behind 'Pentonville', or the disjointed guitars and uncoordinated vocals of 'Pipedown'? Some people are seeing this as Babyshambles' early decline. So many rock bands grow up and out of fame - rock 'n' roll was always a cult of youth, and stars like Mick Jagger and Iggy Pop, as well as clearly being exceptions to the rule, seem farcical next to the young bands. Whether it's fair or not is another question, but old rock musicians have to pass through the 'mocking' stage before they reach the Hall of Fame. Most never get there.

I don't know - sometimes I think that even I'm an apologist of sorts. I loved The Libertines, and Babyshambles, and Dirty Pretty Things (Hell! Even Yeti!) but recently, neither Carl Barât nor Pete Doherty seem to have been writing quality songs, and I'm losing faith in Pete as a lyricist in recent years. Perhaps the missing link in the last two Babyshambles album has been a driving, idiosyncratic guitarist - Mik Whitnall is a strong player, but his style belongs more in Oasis than a lo-fi once-punk band.

As a fan, I'm going to give Sequel to the Prequel a try when it comes out in September. The Youtube commenter who suggested "singles are meant to be commercial" might have put his finger on the problem with 'Nothing Comes to Nothing' - as a piece of songwriting, it's kind of generic, but I thought that about 'Killamangiro'; maybe it's too soon to judge the album. Then again, I think a lot of fans are expecting Sequel to the Prequel to be a little bit like the Damien Hirst artwork which adorns its cover - suddenly accepted into the establishment, the canon, and less interesting for it.

*'Side of the Road', released for Record Store Day 2010, didn't chart at all, but it was only released as a limited edition 7" vinyl.

Where is our music?

I just watched a BBC documentary on reggae because my parents lived through that era - they were at the heart of it, the 1970s in Handsworth, the reggae capital of Britain. Handsworth is an area of inner city Birmingham. Back in the 70s and to this day, it has been a centre for immigration, a place where the white students and working class were thrown together with black and Asian second generation kids, where police racism found its counter-pole in mixed-race bands and gangs, one of the episodes in history where the oppressive state managed to unite potential enemies in the complicity of rebellion. The programme followed reggae from its roots to its later commercialisation - from Bob Marley and Steel Pulse to UB40.


It is obviously in the nature of a retrospective documentary to simplify a complex era, make everything seem black and white as such. The forces of conservatism and liberalism are the perpetual intertwined threads, and documentaries make it their aim to show the two clear sides of the argument - in this case, the anti-reggae mainstream and the pioneering young groups of the time, the former the voice of the past, and the latter progression. For this reason, it's easy to come to the conclusion that those grainy videos and dancing 80s teenagers with dreadlocks were not actually representative of the time - they're just one movement in a much wider social context, and the opposition were not united against them: what most programmes like that miss is the general sense of apathy felt by the majority. I doubt many housewives or farmers in 1981 really cared about Bob Marley's death.

Even then, the videos and the ideas do seem momentous: the 1980s Handworth riots happened, they represented genuine social unrest, and the music was a by-product of sentiments in the communities.

Where is our music? That's what I want to know. Where is this millenium's movement? We have social unrest - but what were the student protesters listening to? Was it really Radio 1? Where has the niche gone?

My first idea is that it's all just me. There are lots of niches that will be remembered and turned into documentaries in 20 years' time, it's just that I'm either ignorant of them or apathetic towards them. I don't care about mockney rapping or dubstep so I'm out of the loop when it comes to what will be defined as the sound of the early 21st century. Others would claim the 'scene' to be our niche, but it's pretty much one of the two mainstream options these days: as a teen, you either watch the X Factor or you dye your hair black and listen to My Chemical Romance. 'Emo' and 'scene' are as popular as many other genres.

So, I could just be blind to the decent niche that I fit into. To solve my ego-centric question of why I have to go looking abroad or into the past for music I like, I tried to think of what people of my 'sort' listen to - my age, my gender, my peergroup. I'm usually underwhelmed - it's a mixture, often, of the mainstream. Not necessarily lacking in talent, but certainly not a musical 'movement', carrying political affiliations or messages or diverging from what's gone before. For example, what Beyoncé offers isn't bad, but it isn't a way of life, it's good pop. And in my view, pop is a slowly drifting ship tied to the commercial docks, with niche genres the rowboats that sometimes find themselves on the open sea. The thrills don't come from being on board the cruise liner; that's a smooth, dull ride.

Another thought: maybe the internet is killing that kind of niche movement. Perhaps by being able to find what's going on in Canada, Japan, Korea, Australia, my generation is breaking the mould; we no longer have to swarm around one genre at a time, we can stick our proboscises into all sorts across the world, and use the net to contact other lovers of our favourite genres, which is a kind of musical blood letting - it loses its charge and intensity at a particular moment because its communities are so geographically unconcentrated, and have no need to seek out peers in vivo; they have them in vitro, online.

Also, of course, there is the issue of illegal downloading: our new global method of music transmission doesn't get noticed because niche music loved by tech-literate young people is more likely to be siphoned into our Music folders from Torrentz.com than bought legitimately, so it doesn't make the charts or the bands don't sell enough to get promotion. We are killing our future documentaries, people. Do you want to be on TV or not? Stop it!

But yes. The whole thrust of today's post is this: I reckon my socio-cultural segment of this generation are the first middle-class young adults in a long time not to have a united front, musically. I have no idea if my peers are listening, en masse, to anything that the population isn't. That's at the core of it: is there any music unique to the group that I call 'us', or is it all being universalised by capitalism? We want to be original in at least a superficial way, find ourselves united as a collective (but an exclusive one, and one that listens to music we like personally). A more personal question - does that 'we' even exist? Is society losing its sharp edges, its social definition? Do I have a peer group, or am I just me?

The larger the audience, the more music has to cater for everyone to keep its fans, and so often becomes bland and the lyrics vague. I'd like to discover some music that isn't bland, something that's happening in my country, with lyrics which I can relate to, like reggae and two-tone spoke to my parents and their friends - like beat music or punk spoke to others.

What Makes Us Love Stealing Music?

Walking through a crowd of people a few weeks ago, my friend and I were discussing illegal downloading. "It is a crime!" she cried, far too loudly, and a couple of gatherings of people turned to eye us curiously. "You may not like it, but it's stealing, like going into a shop and taking a CD, but people don't care because there aren't the same consequences."

I nodded despondently. Faced with such an argument, it's very hard to disagree that illegal downloading is a bad thing. And for most of us, it isn't just about consequences: there is a moral framework in place in most of our minds which tells us stealing is wrong, according to principles of property ownership that we live by. So why does downloading music for free not feel particularly wrong?



Maybe it's because it counts to us among the many services that the internet offers: we can read The Guardian online without paying for a hard copy, same with most newspapers; we can watch music on Youtube, so what's the difference between that and having it on our hard drive? It's a blurry line, definitely. Especially when we go on to love the music, to listen to it all the time: we have a feeling of warmth towards the artist, and respect them, which feels like a kind of payment for the albums.

Then there's the idea that most of an artist's money comes from the gigs anyway. I'm sure it's true that they're one of the most profitable sections of a big band's income, but it would be wrong to think that this renders paying for albums and singles obsolete.

Of course, we also see bands like Radiohead distributing digital copies of their albums for free and we think, "see, it can't be that important for artists to get paid for MP3s!" But Radiohead have, as it stands, 259,682,938 plays on Last.fm - they're one of the most listened to bands in the world. The story is not the same for smaller artists.

"But I don't have the money," we whine. Or, "HMV doesn't stock it." "My iTunes is playing up!" "I can't be arsed to go out and get it." "Oh, I'll go and get it next week, after I've sampled it... by downloading it..."

We can all see from the shrinking music sections of what are, traditionally, CD shops, and the vast numbers of torrent and free MP3 sites that music isn't dying, it's just moved. It's not a shrinking business, it's just a failing one: what would happen if a huge free chocolate stall set up shop outside Thornton's? Music is getting freer, easier to access, and that's amazing - but in the end, it might just kill itself, because that band that sell half the number of albums they could have can't afford to make their next album. Reuben are a brilliant example - "dropped by their label 'cause they can't pay it back".

Reuben - 'Return of the Jedi'

"I'd like a job in which I'm able,
To put shoes on my feet, and food on my table,
Those nine-to-fivers, they look pretty stable,
But I get my wages from my record label."



One final aside: someone is benefitting from all this illegal downloading. The illegal downloading sites' owners, who get paid for advertising and some even for subscriptions. So, not only are you 'stealing', as my friend would insist, you're also funding criminals.

It would be great if music, as a source of joy and passion, could be free. But it isn't. And until then, the onus is on us to pay for it, or feel guilty - I think I can predict which one most of us will choose.

For When the Sun Comes Out

Ticking along behind the changing music scenes of the last twenty years, a certain breed of pop group has been working to make every moment sunnier. Belle and Sebastian have perfected their charming breed of 'chamber pop', and fellow Scots Camera Obscura have been right there evolving alongside them.

Here is a Camera Obscura track for your delectation: its bitterness and sadness smoothed over the top of upbeat, offbeat pop - summer incarnate. Listen and love.

Ain't No Substitute for the Blues

I love a bit of punk and ska, and when I'm in the mood, a little Britpop is a nice change too. Tango and indie pop and possibly a smattering of harder rock are all on the menu from time to time. But there ain't no substitute for the blues.

With my dad's ecletic (and often eccentric) music taste unavoidable while growing up, blues has featured heavily in my upbringing. Eric Clapton and BB King and The Animals have been there all along, on vinyl and CD and cassette. I've always loved the blues, but I've never explored it: it's 'old' music, it's outside of teenage fashion. One of the BBC's documentaries on it the other night inspired me to get out the parents' CDs, surf the web for more, and I'm so glad I did.

There are so many things which can be said about blues. For one, it's incredibly simple. Blues guitarist and singer Albert Collins said that "simple music is the hardest music to play, and blues is simple music." When you hear 12 bar blues, 1st, 4th and 5th chords, being played by the masters, you can't feel disdain - it's just not in the catalogue of emotions available. A beginner on most instruments can mess around with its structure, and the blues scales, but only the best can turn that messing into Blues.

There's something instinctive in it which cannot be captured in any other form of music. Those notes, those chords, that simple discontent (your girl's left you, you ain't got no money, you're leavin' town), they give blues music power and strength that most other music can barely touch upon. Blues can depress you or fire you up, turn you on or enrage you; somehow, it can do everything barely using more than three chords.

John Lee Hooker made this post happen. Listening to The Healer, one of his most famous albums, I feel whole again for the first time since... well, since the last music I really connected to. I may be a middle class white girl, but there's something deeply affecting about listening to the story of someone worse off, in the mouth of a brilliant singer or from the moans of a soulful guitar, hearing the same primal emotions, the same mixed bag of thoughts and feelings that we all have. Blues transcends cultures, while drawing you into its own like nothing else can.

Blues is a healer, all over the world.

Three Artists You Should Listen To

1. Reuben. Oh come on, do I need to plug them any more than I already do? Explosive guitar riffs, life-defining atmosphere, brilliant lyrics sung brilliantly over brilliant chord changes, expression I could only dream about, muscular power and sensitivity in perfect balance. Just do it. Please.

2. Belle and Sebastian. If you're inclined towards the indie end of pop, twee, light indie, anything like that, then you've probably heard Belle and Sebastian already. They're elusively ubiquitous, managing to tiptoe through the lives of so many, enchanting them, entrancing them, but staying out of the hype machine which rules the music industry. They plaster the summer straight over the top of this long British winter; they are a billboard advertisement for summery cocktails or The Seaside. The wry wit and tongue-in-cheek lyrical edge in many of the tracks counteracts the twee melodies and enhances the charm of the albums. I'd highly recommend them, even in winter.

3. Julian Casablancas. I like his dirty electro, his monotonous growl of a voice, the lyrics which catch the ear, the complex games he plays with the chromatic scale. But most of all, however bad I feel for it, I like his photos.

Jamie Lenman Interview and Update

Writing for The 405 gave me a viable excuse a few weeks ago to email illustrator, musician, and all round Great Guy Jamie Lenman, lead singer of Reuben. He agreed, and right now, I have 2 items on the home page of The 405, an interview with Jamie and a review of the tUnE-yArDs' new single, Real Live Flesh. My, unnecessary capitalisation pisses me off. It's hard to type, and if they thought it would make the name memorable, they were frankly wrong. I can never remember it. It's a good job the single is worth a listen, really.



My friend brought up an interesting point the other day. Should music criticism be as huge as it is now? Being a voluntary music writer, I tilted an eyebrow and rushed to the defensive guns of "Of course, then how would you ever find out whether music was worth listening to or not?"

But if that was my main argument, I was struggling. To be told what you like and dislike in music is the easy way out, and it's part of the reason why fashions still have their cold fingers laced around the ventricles of the modern music scene. (To reiterate: music isn't good because it sold well in your peergroup, or simply because it's new, and that's what fashion dictates.) Other arguments for music criticism are forced: if there were no reviews, there would still be adverts, the radio, sites like last.fm and Spotify, articles on new music... so you can't say that it is our only gateway to music.

What other arguments are there for music criticism? It's always irritating to hear our favourite artists being slammed by critics who we would usually respect, (or not), especially as every sensible person knows that while there are technical qualities to albums, most of our judgment of music is subjective. Music criticism can make or break careers, and most of it is guided by peer opinions and personal prejudices anyway.

Then again, my best retaliation came with the argument 'there has to be a filter in the music system'. In businesses, there are promotions up for offer, you get increasing salaries and responsibilities and jobs with each step up. You could not impose a system like that on the arts. Criticism, however harsh and demoralising, can give a band the boost it needs to get onto the (albeit unevenly runged) ladder, and then offer educated opinions on what should and could do very well. As long as the reader can identify whatever spin has been put on the article, and can think for themselves, criticism can be the most helpful way to separate the cream from the milk. And the off milk from the good milk...

And of course, everyone wants to do it. Most people who love music have sneaky reviews somewhere in their computer, or in their minds, ready for conversation; many write online, or for magazines. It's a natural urge, putting into words what music makes you feel, think, do.

Music can change lives, and the kinder end of crit acknowledges that.

Have a read of my items on The 405 anyway (or not); I'm really glad the website's taking off. I'm not just spouting spiel when I say it's an exciting thing to be part of, as it's growing so fast, getting so much more professional and organised. If you can get yourself to any of The 405 nights in London, I'm assured they are amazing nights out, and Oliver Primus would appreciate your company!

Peter Doherty arrested.

For drink driving, and driving without a license. In possession of class A drugs. Again.

Hopes of an imminent Libertines reunion are dashed; Carl Barât said he would get back together with Pete if Pete could stay off the drugs. And Pete agreed, as he always does - but they were false promises, as they always are. I was naïve to think it would turn out any other way - I was so hopeful for a Libertines reunion, tour, and then new material (which I am detemined would be good enough to sustain their legacy, even if it wasn't as youthful and invigorated as it was ten years ago).

What that man does with his life is his choice, but I know many fans will be disappointed now. I don't like it when Pete gets dragged through the tabloids, ends up in prison, has his musical creativity put on pause by the law and the media. I don't think any fans do.

Like he once sang:
"My boy who will believe your lies? Noone's going to sell you any alibis."

The Libertines: Reasons For Speculation

Is there a man who wears a leather jacket better than Carl Barât?

That is barely relevant, but I felt a need to pay a homage to the man who has taught me the ALT code for the letter â (ALT 131 of course), especially in such good times.

The Libertines reunited, briefly, last week, for a gig to pay tribute to the deceased owner of the Rhythm Factory in London. Carl, Pete and Gary are all scheduled to play Camden Rocks festival in early June too, and wouldn't it just be torture for them all to be at a festival and then not play together? And if a show happens, with Carl, Pete and Gary, followed by more little gigs like that...well a full Libertines reunion is on the cards, like we've been told. Pete & Carl have said they would record together next year, a promise which set fans' blood racing; definitely mine.

My worries are about John's decision. It is no secret that Peter has wanted to reform The Libs for a very long time. Carl is making positive noises now, and Gary seems to be going along with Carl. But John? John Hassall is busy with Yeti, a lower velocity group with seemingly a lot of mileage: things are on his terms and he doesn't have egos and drugs to compete with, he can stretch his musical muscle, make the sound he wants to. There are other bassists (cue Drew McConnell, enter stage left) but John was always the bassist for the job, with his fast fingers, his image, and his ability to fade into the background to let Pete & Carl take centre stage, while still being a strong presence. In the Libs book, it was said, "John is the only bassist." Perhaps he is. A Libs reunion would not be the same without him.

All the same, it is a good time to be a Libertines fan. Not as good a time as 2001 and 2002, waiting for an unscheduled gig on the dishevelled pavement of the Camden Road, or logging onto libertines.org back in its hayday. No, it's not as good a time as that, but it certainly feels like there is a future, regardless of your opinions on their reformation. There is unfinished business between the boys in the band, and I for one am waiting for the saga to continue.

How do you judge experimental?

It struck me while I was trying to get to sleep last night - when listening to experimental music or looking at experimental art, or even concept music and art, how do you judge it? If you can't judge it on musical skill because that 'wasn't the point', or on popularity, because that's 'not the point' either, then what do you judge it on? How do you tell a 'good' concept from a bad one?

The only way to judge, I suppose, would be on how well it fulfilled its desired intention, how well the concept was portrayed...but if it has done this so badly that you can't tell what the artist was going for at all, then they can hide behind a screen of superiority and self-righteousness, because you're clearly just missing the essence and meaning behind their masterpiece. So, surely it should be judged on how many people get the art or music. But surely that cannot be true, as if there's one thing I've learned in culture, it's never to judge quality on numbers: Bob The Builder got to the top of the charts.

An artist called Mary Riley started me thinking on this. How many times can artists paint canvases white and get away with it, ay? When will the art world stop nodding along and just say, without a hint of cynicism, 'That means absolutely nothing, and you well know it. Get a job'?

A 'modern music' observation

I haven't been on the scene long enough to have seen changes in musical fashion over and over again, though I know they have happened, but recently I'm really noticing a change in what is fashionable and it became noteworthy when Franz Ferdinand changed direction seemingly to go with this new tide, with the release of their third album, Tonight.

A few years ago, the rise of 'emo' came about in the hardcore scene, where all the cool kids who wanted to listen to metal but couldn't stomach it started listening to pop, disguised under metal overtones and dyed black hair. That was the fashion when I started really listening to music. I didn't listen to that music, as you can tell from my apathetic description, but I didn't see that three years later, those same 'emo' kids would be listening to electronica-pop disguised as indie under indie-style haircuts and skinny jeans.

I wouldn't have a problem with it if that fashion didn't interfere with what I listen to. However, Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand, being 'indie' (in the loosest way possible), have decided to buy in on the electronic dance side of things. I suppose, first Klaxons, CSS and New Young Pony Club happened, and proved to be the cutting edge for a while, so a couple of years later, a less cult form of their music emerged, with a more disco-retro feel, seen in Black Kids, Ladyhawke and MGMT, Vampire Weekend, Friendly Fires and Late Of The Pier. This music is not in itself offensive. But seeing their success, bands like the Chiefs and Franz inadvertently (or not) changed their direction and both their third albums are dancefloor records. They also seem to be adopting dance support acts.

It's not a travesty. I'm not a 'good old days' kind of girl. However, I did like the feeling of music post-Libertines, that guitar sound and raw edge that Franz Ferdinand managed so well in album number 2. It seems to be fading into the background for a while, making way for synthesisers, sharp production and sparkly costumes.

My observation, minus opinionated bullshit, is basically: everyone's going electro. Fashion shifts suddenly and irrationally and with a great deal of hypocrisy. But I bet you knew that.