orsonwellesrabbit

Only really started appreciating him earlier this year and now not a week goes by where I don't listen to at least an album's worth of his stuff.

Truly unique. A force of nature.

You all seem to be missing the woods for the trees, and the trees are large pines dusted with snow and the tears of small children. Following this to it's logical conclusion, we can conclude that Cowell is the antichrist, and he sends his many floppy fringed minions to establish a OWG over the Earth. It is, I believe, in Revelations.

Contrarily, the Jews do not believe in the antichrist, and I know of no Jew who watches X Factor. It follows that only the Jewish can save us, and so I wish them a Happy Hannukah and pray they loosen the nefarious grip Leona Lewis has on the minds of the young. Also, a two state solution is a real, viable alternative to the current bloodshed in the Middle East, and so I ask you to pray with me for this social utopia to be established.

FYI, Leona Lewis may be a technically proficient singer, but she can't carry a tune. This means that she is carrying something else - possibly the antichrist's child? If she is with the child of the hoof footed one, this explains the rather disgusting title of her song "Bleeding Love." Far from it being a piercing social analysis of the effect a broken hymen and/or late period may have on a young girl, it is in fact nothing less than a subliminal cry for help. We must liberate Leona Lewis, friends.

Susan Boyle is an average singer who looks like a bag of slapped bastards and therefore is considered more talented than she actually is. We must help her find work in her local Debenham's when the inevitable backlash begins.

Apart from that, I agree with everything the author of the article says.

in this section here.

We forum posters are vultures. We are foam-mouthed jackals, ready to pounce, teeth bared and bollocks bouncing. Like a rapist without the wit or social skills.

But understand that we do it because we care, dammit. Sometimes we become hopelessly lost in the hall of mirrors the modern music scene has become, unsure of the merit commercial success afforded to a erstwhile indie band has in this day and age. Unsure of ourselves, hell yes. And we take comfort in spite, stroking it's bitter cotton threads with our sticky, cookie-crumb fingers. We masturbate with the lube of cynicism, and bite with glee the pillow of an imaginary muso Valhalla, thinking only of that while XFM and Zane Lowe take us thoroughly from behind, making us promise not to tell matron, 'lest the other children laugh at us.

Sometimes we savage unnecessarily, a knee-jerk, dare I say it, elitist reaction, to be sure. We often forget to think of the children first. But we do it out of love for this crazy thing called music. We do it for sake of The Almighty Tune. Quite often caring, loving, finding sweet salvation in The Riff, in The Melody, entails being a quite gigantic prick. We're trying to change, Mr Tom. We are trying to change.

They're having a laugh. I for one salute them.

Another very gifted person we've lost. The world is a poorer place.

If someone values a piece of music highly enough, they will pay money to listen to it. If they do not value the music, they will either

a) download it illegally because they judge it to be not worth a fiduciary investment or;

b) avoid it all together.

It's basic economic Darwinism.

As one poster mentioned, DVD and game sales are increasing, so it's hardly a case of a general decline in consumer spending. More to do with the fact that the general quality of music is declining, and the few new artists creating something of merit are being marginalized and/or ignored all together. Music critics are generally less trustworthy than ever, due to the pressures of pleasing advertisers and the vested interest many have in creating "scenes" and "movements". The only way for the discerning music consumer to discover quality new bands is through the internet, so it makes sense for them to try before they buy.

Next week, I solve the Middle East conflicts. The week after, the issue of third world debt. Stick around.

Still don't care the slightest for Bellamy's vocals.

Muse aren't about meaningful songs or coherent structure or worthy posturing. They're about spectacle. About how much pomposity and silliness you can cram into a three minute pop song. Shallow, yes, but even the shallowest bodies of water can still sustain life. These boys have life in abundance.

Will they ever stake a claim as a truly great band of historical significance? Only in the minds of the terminally confused, the lovably stupid mainstream folk who enjoy discovering a band on their fourth album and trying to devise sincere reasons for why they never 'got' the earlier stuff. See also: Kings Of Leon.

Spectacle then, a band playing to an audience of easily impressed come-lately spectators. At the top of their game, for sure. Thoroughly deserved success, no doubt. Showmen. Certainly nothing more than that. Thankfully, nothing less, either.

I don't know if you can separate the man from the myth, the rumours, the music, the man-boy, the ranch, the children, the childhood, the family, the culture, the media, the whatever. Everything is entwined with everything else in the world of Michael Jackson.

He left a mark. On the charts and, allegedly, on some children. The music was awesome. The man a bit of a tool. I was born when his star was already on the wane, so I never really understood the obsessive element in his fanbase.

Fuck it. Enough already with the bloke. He's dead and gone.

I'm afraid I have to agree with the complete lack of ambition part regarding British guitar bands. I pretty much know what I'm going to get straight away with them: A "dancey" drumbeat (bum-t-t-ch-t-bum-t-t-ch) with some "spikey" guitar chords, piss-poor production posing as "artful" or "stripped down" and flat, toneless vocals disguising their shitiness as "4 real" piffle. The Monkeys are special because you can see they're actively trying to do something a little different. I've enjoyed following them as they grow progressively weirder and weirder. The fourth one - if it comes - will be top.

What the fuck?

I heard 'Sea Within a Sea' and it feels like the perfect summation of 90% of guitar-based music released since the beginning of this decade.

Endless fascination with 80's musical trends which should really stay in the 80's.

Endless fascination with the 'post-punk sound'.

Here the reasonable must interject and kindly point out that, unfortunately, the eighties were shit and the only people saying any different are morons.

Cue repetitive drumbeats with 'dark' and 'echoing' bass lines. Tacked onto shitty staccato guitar riffs.

Roll on the synths, and all the pseudo-experimentation their use entails.

Roll on the the stupid haircuts and the death of melody.

When a band like The Horrors are held up as being on the cutting edge of music, all is pretty much lost. They're not really to blame.

An idiot child singled out for praise in a class full of idiot children is still an idiot - he or she simply happens to present his or her stupidity in a slightly more acceptable way.

It's not so much about invention as it is influence. Because The Horrors seem to drop the right names and allude musically to the right fads, they're wonder of wonders accepted and praised by the critics. Fuck The Horrors and all their shit. If this is what passes for great music, then fuck the reviewer of this album, too.

Animal Collective? You lot keep going on about them. I listened. I've decided their music is probably the most literally fucking horrible shit I've ever heard.

Besides, it's not like 'Kid A' was completely unexpected. They'd already hinted at abilities beyond the alien rock they'd been making before - 'Talk Show Host', 'The Amazing Sounds of Orgy', etc, so to say it was shocking is a bit daft.

Kid A also features loads of guitar. There are guitars on the following songs:

How To Disappear Completely

The National Anthem

Optimistic

In Limbo

Morning Bell (not particularly audible, but it is there)

I think they're what bands should be. Critics piss and moan about how nobody 'changes' or 'progresses', and then when somebody does, they piss and moan about how band X's new album is 'impenetrable' or 'difficult' or 'pseudo-intellectual.'

I'd love to transplant the Beatles in their transition from Rubber Soul to Revolver (read: The Bends to OK Computer) to the present day. They would get absolutely slaughtered for it.

Fuck the critics. If they knew anything about music, they'd have platinum selling albums, wouldn't they?

Is he a junkie or something?

cos y'know, they're apparently the 'new ting-a-ling', but...I just can't. I can't. Indie music is leaving me more and more cold these days. It's all staccato riffs to the bass-ride-snare-ride-bass-ride-snare cod-disco beat thing, or alternatively the single-high-note riff with breathy vocals/single-low-bass-note with menacing vocals. Where's the fucking tunes, man?

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fields, BRMC, and maybe one or two others are the only 'guitar' bands I'm feeling, to be frank. Radiohead, too, but where's the new rock n rollers? We need something to stem the tide of this NME-endorsed shit before it's way too fucking late.

But I think things are only going to keep up in the direction we're all agreeing is the wrong one.

But Nicholls dug his own grave by swearing up and down that he would change and experiment with the band's sound on each successive album. God knows why he didn't (money, probably) and this is where it's brought them: They are now the Nirvana/Beatles pastiche they always threatened to be. The second album was half brilliance/half insanely dull, the third one had maybe two good songs whose names I can't recall, and this one is just a steaming pile of cockroach vomit marinading in the dead cerebrum of a Kurt Cobain wannabe. I really wish he'd develop a serious mental illness and write another '1969' or 'Sunshinin.'