anatomy · of · distance

It's worth it. I'm partial to Modern Art and it's chorus "Modern art makes me want to rock out!"

I saw this band right before they released 'We Formed A Band' and they were spectacularly funny/entertaining. That is, the front guy *is* the band, live. The others are just a backdrop. The album though, is, much like Jilted John (and Franz Ferdinand) : a one-trick pony. It's all downhill after the first track (the aforementioned). You're better off downloading individual tracks than buying the album proper.

I don't know, "My Little Brother Just Discovered Rock'N'Roll", which the Breakfasters had flogged to death, isn't too bad.

(Aside: I do wish that the Breakfasters would play different tracks from albums, rather than just choosing one track and playing it half a dozen times over a few weeks. It'd give more of an idea of whether or not an album is worth getting.)

I'll admit, I was in France recently and the French indie kids are going mad for this album. Maybe I'm just too old/too jaded? Or maybe the joke's are too thin for me? Who will be listening to this album next year? That's my gauge.
Still, I love Jilted John/Going Steady..... ;)

Maybe.

Art Brut seem a cut above all the generic "new-wave"/garage-rock/"art-rock"/"art-punk" bands of the day, because they're self-aware and don't take the thing too seriously. Perhaps they're the Pooh Sticks of the NME Carling New Wave?

Also, as far as conceptual art goes, allowing fans to start their own Art Brut beats Franz Ferdinand's idea of calling all their albums Franz Ferdinand and giving them the same cover art in different colours, even if their record company hadn't leaned on them to abandon that.

Franz Ferdinand are the perfect band for our time. They know exactly which buttons to press on an extremely fickle audience. The band are a better marketing dept than the actual one at Domino Records. I cannot bring myself to listen to their new music, for fear that I am joining the sucker queue at the back.
Art Brut are riding a tiny wave. Album 2 will sink without trace. So, yes, in that respect, the Pooh Sticks, Fuzzbox, PWEI.....

Franz Ferdinand seem to be no less commercial than the Sugababes or Madonna. Is there any way in which they are "indie" other than the way in which Britney Spears was "indie" before BMG bought Zomba, or the way Oasis were "indie" after they signed to Creation (on the proviso that McGee kicks all the indie student anorak bands off)?

Fuzzbox were big enough for Warner to release a best-of recently (a year or two after a 2CD best-of was released by some indie label or other). It was interesting to hear how they went from being shambolic, slightly gothy post-punk to polished yet uninspiringly bland pop.

I think "indie" used to allude to being on an independent label (ie - not affiliated with a major label mothership) and being distributed by an independent distributor (ie - not through a major label network). I *think* Domino can claim both still? Correct me if I'm wrong. In their favour, FF seem to have some depth, at least lyrically, if not musically. Innovative they aren't, however.
Fuzzbox didn't have to be "big" to have a retrospective collection - they just needed a clueless fan in A&R. Who bought it? Like local councils, major labels need to release something - anything - every Monday to justify their existence/funding.

The term "indie" has a number of connotations, including cultural ones of non-commerciality. If one looks at it as a strictly technical term, one gets anomalies like the situation in the late 1990s when the biggest selling "indie" artists were N'Sync, the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears (all signed to Zomba).

Certainly today, "indie" in the UK suggests a non-pop sound, invariably made by 4 spotty oiks on guitars, bass and drums. A miserable dirge your mother wouldn't like. But then again, what *does* she like?

Non-pop? So, for example, early Primal Scream would not be stylistically "indie" by today's definition? Or do you mean that "pop" has connotations of shiny, sassy Pepsi Channel R&B bubblegum, and anything less polished is not pop?

Early Primal Scream will always be indie. Indie schmindie. I loved it then and I love it now.

But it is also pop, is it not? Indie-pop, of which it is a fine example, is a subgenre of pop.

Yes, I'd say it was indie-pop. Are you picking up on the "non-pop" thing I said previously? Ignore me. I often speak before my brain is in gear. Sure, indie can be pop...It's just not always "popular."