So the start of the year seems to be a bumper month for music. Yeasayer, Vampire Weekend, Spoon, Beach House, and Midlake are all releasing new albums. For me all exciting albums by exciting bands. But if I hear one more word about who I should be listening to in 2010 from the BBC or any other website that listens to the BBC, I will never listen to any of the bands on those fucking lists ever again. Never heard Ellie Goulding, already sick to death of her. I once saw a Banksie sticker that said “If you put your fastfood menus through this letter box we will never ever buy your food.” Or words to a similar effect. That’s how I’m beginning to feel about these annual taste making lists. I think Goulding might have even been on the list last year and now she’s returning eternally like a bad kebab.
Some research has shone that the public are getting sick of these lists as well with bands not immediately selling off the back of being listed. It appears that in some cases people want to decide themselves before they just buy whatever the list suggests they do. Most bands on the list, thankfully, sink without much of a struggle, but we are always left with a residual Florence & The Machine or a virulent case of the Little Boots. Or worse a nasty attack of the White Lies. And is it only last years list where Lady GaGa reared her wonky head? Yes, although it feels like she’s been scronking on the radio for decades. She is the one genuine superstar to appear though.
Of this years shower only Gold Panda and the peerless Joy Orbison look like an interesting proposition. The rest appear to be more wafting electro-pop and more (always more) sub-New Order guff.
It’s boring and it’s annoying.
Like Ellie Goulding.
