To be fair Damon didnt have any warm up show, they just rehearsed a couple times before the show. It wasnt his best performance, but Tender, This is a Low and Song 2 were good. Girls and Boys and Parklife were ok...

andy wrote:

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Well i know most of those bands and they dont really do anything for me.

There's nothing wrong with thinking a decade is better than others. The 60s were amazing, the 70s ok, the 80s shit bar a few bands, the 90s amazing, the 00s okay and the 10s are okay at best so far.

There's nothing wrong with dont liking the sound of these bands, it's always subjective, but that's how music is, you feel it or you dont. I know 70% of the bands in your playlist and they dont do anything for me, what can i do about it. 

Plus, those "old britpop bands" are coming back with new material, they're not recreating the past, they belong to that era, it's not because they are in their 40s that they should be considered old news.

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 I often wonder if the 1960s were that good at the time.  Certainly there were some great and influential bands, but there was a lot of pap.   I'm also quite sure that some of the better ones, such as The Velvet Underground, remained undiscovered until the seventies.  As I got into music in the seventies, my memories are of a lot of crap, interspersed with some great acts and I suspect the sixties weren't that different.  

The good thing about the 1990s was that the type of music I liked became more mainstream.  It's probably fair to say that it was the only time what is known as alternative music was more popular than anything else. I remember a good friend at a Suede gig moaning about people jumping on the indie bandwagon who should fuck off home and listen to Simply Red!

In fairness the 80s gave us Spacemen 3, can't argue with that.

90s, Luna supported Velvet Underground, brilliant.

Well, everything written above raises some intersting points for discussion and could probably have a thread of its own. Re. the 60's it is always important to bear in mind the incredibly skewing effect that LONDON has all on that has been written since 1969. The experience of the majority in the 60's was in provincial England, a very different place to the swinging capital. There are a few hip provincial exemptions of course. Also, there are artists from that 90's indie time who were never especially popular with the unwashed masses that are still providing us with works of brilliance; I'm thinking primarily of P J Harvey and her Let England Shake album. That was brilliant and, in my opinion, the best of last year. I would also mention Jason Pierce/Spiritualized in the same breath. Still ploughing the same furrow but still harvesting wonderful music.

There was a programme on Radio 4 a little while back making the same point, the swinging sixties didn't really penetrate beyond Carnaby St and they chose the Pakamac as a more representative object for the rest of the country.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sh3pm

I do remember wanting platform shoes in the early 70s quite desperately as so far as I could tell, everyone had them, but I was only about 8 and my mum reckoned they would wreck my feet at that age, she was probably right there. The only pop culture you ever saw was Top of the Pops, I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the 1976 repeats, maybe 1977 will be better, but then again, even that is likely to be more Brotherhood of Man than Sex Pistols. I don't remember punk happening at all at the time, passed me by completely at 11. I'm sure if you were to look at a random week's Top 20 from any era there would be loads of cheesey rubbish you don't even remember in between the gems.

calumlynn wrote:

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The 90s weren't that good...

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 What!  They were pretty good from my viewpoint.  Having endured the 1980s which should have been my time (Sixth Form/University years), when Happy Mondays and Stone Roses broke through along with Nirvana, leading onto Suede all the way through to I suppose New Labour coming to power, and the demise of what was known as Britpop, I had a blast.  This Is Hardcore symbolises the end of the 1990s for me. Well that and getting married in 1998 

PS - still very happily married)

Was that during the Brits? I knew Damon cuddled with Noel...

I always find these awards shows a bit akward. Ok, they all know who everyone is, but do they really know each other? Naahhh. Don't see Albarn grabbing a cup of coffee at Jarvis' place when he is in Paris.

How about this then, Damon and Noel. It's getting very touchy-feely in the world of that music genre whose name must not be spoken.

http://www.nme.com/news/damon-albarn/62212

calumlynn wrote:

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andy wrote:

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Well i know most of those bands and they dont really do anything for me.

There's nothing wrong with thinking a decade is better than others. The 60s were amazing, the 70s ok, the 80s shit bar a few bands, the 90s amazing, the 00s okay and the 10s are okay at best so far.

There's nothing wrong with dont liking the sound of these bands, it's always subjective, but that's how music is, you feel it or you dont. I know 70% of the bands in your playlist and they dont do anything for me, what can i do about it. 

Plus, those "old britpop bands" are coming back with new material, they're not recreating the past, they belong to that era, it's not because they are in their 40s that they should be considered old news.

-- Edited by andy on Wednesday 22nd of February 2012 08:43:00 AM

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Yeah but presumably the reason they don't do anything for you is that most of them aren't songwritery guitar rock that sounds like 60s and/or 90s music. Stuff like that was GREAT in the 90s, and I guess some bands did it quite well in the last decade too, but it's much less relevant now. The alternitive to that doesn't have to be, I dunno, ambient electronic music or something- what I mean is that melodic, lyrical pop music comes in many forms. You can still find music that gives exactly the same kind of feeling that Pulp or Suede at their best do, but without being cliched indie rock. As an example, a lot of people get that from Wild Beasts (I don't personally, just cos I find them a bit posh and pompus) or WU LYF (a juvenile but great band).

It's just really naive to say that modern music is crap or whatever- there doesn't have to be some big, unifying mainstream movement for music to be good. The 90s weren't that good- I guess 92-93 would have been pretty exciting with Denim, Suede, Gift-era Pulp, Saint Etienne, The Auteurs- but there was LOADS of rubbish music too. We don't need indie rock to repeat itself, and there is plently of music around at the moment to enjoy, if you give it a chance, instead of immediately dismissing it as not being "your kind of thing" (obviously i'm not suggesting that you do that, just that loads of people I know do).

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Oh there was a lot of rubbish music in the 90s, fully agreed. but the cream was covering the bad cake, if that makes sense 

And you're right i dont mean nowadays music isn't my kinda thing, what i mean is that the music i love now comes from unexpected place, little bands that make their music on their own with little to no money and album after album, climb (or not) to the top. This happened with the Black Keys, this is happening with Dr Dog, and hopefully with the Golden Animals someday, three of my fav 2000s bands, although the Black keys tend to go the wrong direction... BUT those bands aren't life changing, and it's got nothing to do with cliché rock or whatever. I dont think of music as genre. 

I could totally see myself get into a band at that life-changing level, as it happened before with Pulp, but i'm still looking for it. Today: good bands yes, life-changing bands, no (at least for me).

but it goes beyond that: maybe it's a sign of time, but music is less important now than it was 15/20 years ago. Buying a CD was an act of militantism, and it was damn expensive, so you had to choose, to be sure of what you were, what you wanted, what you needed in your life. It was a little treasure in your hands. I remember picking both Oasis and Blur records in the 90s, and that was like "wow, are you mad, you gotta choose", "Oh right ? Well fuck that!"... that's how intense music was. And i know a few people on here like those bands here, but the music was good. 

Nowadays what ? Maybe our time is reflecting on the way people make music.

What's in the air, the vibe, is important to music. It's either the right time or not and it seems it's not, although there's some good records being made. I'm not the only one saying it, a lot of people think the same. What band from the past 5 years will we remember in 20 years as something that really meant something to people? So far, i cant really name one. Blur meant something to people, Oasis, Pulp did, Coldplay did (although i despise them), the Libertines did... What now. who's responsible: bands, a&R, people that buy records... probably everyone.

Music became like any other product, i guess we have to get used to it and dig (deeper) for ourselves in every corner of the internet to find decent music. I kinda like that but i also kinda regret those kinda bands not being where they should be: up there in the charts, and going drunk to 10 downing street, mocking michael jackson... stuff like that. Stuff you'll remember for the rest of your life, with their great records on repeat.

Violin Thing wrote:

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It was the NME Awards two years ago I think when Jarvis hosted.

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I might be losing my mind... this only rings a bell... I remember reading a pre awards interview in NME... can't actually remember watching it... how could I have missed it...? 

And yes... I am aware that I've used rather a lot of full stops...

Didn't Jarvis play a game of scrabble while presenting that night or something?