Double standards

Lily Allen is angry about piracy! Muse are supporting Lily's anger about piracy!

http://www.nme.com/news/muse/47365

Apparently, internet downloads are killing new music. I'd argue that new music is doing a pretty good job of killing itself. Dozens of new bands are coming through every year, making music which pioneers new levels of blandness. Bands on their second or tertiary albums are filling them with remnants of how good their first album was. Listen to the likes of Temper Trap (or just listen to Friendly Fires to whom they are a tribute band) or The Big Pink (hammering a chorus until the listener's ears bleed) and you'll be able to hear just how lifeless and joyless a lot of new bands are.

Anyway, the internets is teh KILLINGE MUSEKS!! Perhaps Lily should look a little closer to home first. If her record label (Regal, part of EMI if i remember correctly) stopped putting so much pressure on radio stations to play out such small playlists over and over, then there would be more room for new music to be discovered. But of course, it is in their interest to have one artists hammered to hell on the radio and sell a million albums than it is to have ten artists get moderate airplay and sell a hundred thousand discs each because the overheads are lower. Ergo it is in the interests of record labels to have a small number of acts who sell massive numbers of CDs and downloads. Which is why Heart plays a Take That record every 15 minutes without fail.

And lets look at the two main acts party to this "outrage". Muse have a new album out, which sounds exactly like all their previous outings of pretentious prog rock. Any headlines help sell another copy. Lily Allen's most recent album was so repetitive and samey that its a proper challenge to listen to it all the way through. So why are they selling millions? Because Allen is a loudmouthed tabloid darling and Muse are apparently the saviours of all things rock. The NME says so. They've even given their current album and single the most stereotypical names ever in "Uprising" and "The Resistance", illustrating their current lack of any imagination whatsoever.

Anyway, i'm off to tape some songs off the wireless and see if i can do a high speed dub of the new Reynolds Girls tape without it going all squeally on me.

When Irish Eyes Are Sneering

I keep being told Terry Wogan is a national institution. I keep being told that the whole nation will mourn when he leaves the airwaves. I don't believe everything i'm told.

Lets consider the situation. Wogan has decided to leave the Radio 2 Breakfast Show at the end of 2009. The event of his final programme is three and a half months away. Wogan has plenty of time in which to decide when to make his decision public. He decides to do it on the one day when somebody else from BBC Radio is likely to be making some headlines, namely Chris Moyles celebrating his becoming the longest serving presenter of Radio 1's breakfast show. I've never liked Wogan's tedious drivel, but this calculated action only serves to mark him out as the most self-promoting arse ever to grace the airwaves. He couldn't bear to see somebody else get some column inches without upstaging them.

The BBC must be loving Wogan's timing as well, gobbling up the hope of Radio 1 getting some positive coverage by other media outlets.