Boards
Friendly Fires / The Music Industry
You see, the problem with Friendly Fires is that whilst 'Paris' is a stormer (despite sounding so 2003 it hurts), they've only actually got one other song and the rest is pap.
In fact, this problem is now so rife amongst A&R types, that it's just utterly soul destroying.
A band has one good song and that's enough to turn them into the next best thing ever. Take Team Waterpolo for instance. They only played their first show on Thursday and they already had offers, a lawyer, a booking agent (who also books Babyshambles and CSS) and more industry hype than a bucket of Black Kids.
BUT THEY'VE ONLY GOT ONE FUCKING SONG. They look fucking awful, the demos are made on GarageBand and when a colleague of mine met them about management, they'd not even worked out how to play live yet.
I'm not saying these bands can't develop and become something amazing - especially as the seeds are there - but this early buzz is suffocating bands more than ever now. Labels aren't giving bands ANY time to develop and are being forced to put out albums written in days (seriously) to capitalise on the press lunacy.
The blame lies sqaurely at the foot of the internet.