Or Maybe John Harris is Just Old
Well, I never promised to only write about politics. And John Harris's latest splurge in the Guardian is so unbelievably armgnawingly eyebleachingly what even the fuck is this John bad that it would be remiss not to respond. Or at least take a level of self control far beyond my limited capability.
To summarise the article in a fair and balanced way:
"Wah wah wah, people don't make music like the Rolling Stones or Fleetwood Mac anymore. I don't like modern music. Why don't we get protest songs anymore? It's because of Spotify playlists called "chill gym tunes".
Jesus fucking Christ. There is so much to attack Spotify for. Shitty payments to artists. The refusal to pay royalties to artists with under 1000 streams. The fact it saved the careers of ponytailed record exec cunts when we should be hanging them from fucking lampposts. So how do you manage to fire completely off target?
And the answer is what it always is with John Harris. It's a reactionary whinge about young people, disguised as industry analysis. I hate to break the fucking news to you John, but people wanting music as something other than background have always been a majority, hence commercial radio. It's just that now you're out of touch with the stuff that exists in the cracks and it's easier to blame playlists than ask when you stopped caring enough to find it.
Too harsh? There is no way I can be too harsh to a man who claims with no embarrassment that:
I definitely think the large-scale decline of songs that deal in social and political commentary is partly to do with Spotify’s relentless muzak-ification: in the UK, the one high-profile artist who does that kind of stuff is the brilliant, Bruce Springsteen-esque Sam Fender, and his artistic loneliness speaks volumes.
Where to even start? I like Sam Fender. In fact I like him enough to appreciate him in his own right rather than because he reminds me of Bruce Springsteen. But "artistic loneliness". There's several layers here, each equally stupid.
Why should we give a shit about "high profile"? If we are to take anything away from "indie", if we are going to save it from meaning more than "white boys with guitars saying nothing much" the bit worth saving is this. Music that is made in bedrooms and appeals to 10 people is as artistically valid as major label bands that appeal to millions. This is not, speaking generally, the kind of music that generally shifts units. Crass managed one top 40 album. Blaggers ITA never got above 48. Conflict managed to get one single in at 100. And those are some of the bigger protest bands. Maybe John would find the music he's looking for if he stopped waiting to be spoonfed it. Go to a fucking gig. No, not Fleetwood Mac, someone you haven't heard before.
The really odd thing about this is that if anything there's more explicitly political music out there then there has been for some time. Some of them even have guitars so John doesn't have to come too far out of his comfort zone. (Although I'm afraid they're not all boys, John. Which may sound harsh, but I really can't see any other explanation for why you'd write something like that and not mention the highly prominent top 20 album having Lambrini Girls.
Or if that's not to John's taste, perhaps check out the grime punk of Bob Vylan, the socially conscious indie pop of Chloe Slater the intense poetry of Meryl Streek Meryl Streek, the noise punk of BenefitsBenefits or the scathing electronica of Doss. And that's only scratching the surface. I am absolutely sure there is brilliant stuff out there I haven't heard. If you aren't hearing bands with something to say about society, you aren't listening.
Admittedly of course these may be too political for a man that lists Rolling Stones as an example of what he's talking about. (I personally might have left the writers of Brown Sugar out of the article if I wanted people to take my call for bands with a political consciousness seriously, but hey).
But we've done this dance with John before. (It''s not surprising John prefers old music considering he's still writing the same fucking article 15 years later). In it, he complained of a lack of "hardened politics" and put out a plantitve plea:
To end, then, an appeal to some unknown neurotic outsider, stranded in God-knows-where, and minded to pick up a guitar and howl their outrage: please, prove me wrong.
People provided him with counterexamples and he was grateful and admitted he was wrong. No, of course he didn't. He complained that the new bands had "no real coherence or clout" and that he hadn't "yet found the new Clash/Rage Against The Machine/Billy Bragg/whoever". John, if you want a band that sounds exactly like the bands of your youth, go see a fucking tribute act. But don't portray your insistence on fucking corpses as the problem of people who are still alive.
The real irony of course is that I am also old, being a mere five years younger than John Harris. But if I ever become this comfortable with nostalgia, if I ever show this level of reactionary lack of curiosity, please just take me outside behind the stable and put me out of my fucking misery.