As all of my loyal readers know, what I say goes and I am the absolute and only authority on what equals good music. I’ve written this blog for almost a decade now, my lists go back to 2007, it’s clear that I know what I’m talking about, these pages deal solely on facts and not on feelings, and everyone else’s takes are merely ‘opinion’ and are generally invalid. But is that always the case?
Sometimes I envy NME. And The Guardian. And Pitchfork. And Melody Maker. And Q Magazine. And the Manchester Evening News. And Rolling Stones. I envy The Roling Stone’s money, but I don’t envy being them, as that would mean losing 50 years of my life and a complete morality lobotomy. And Crack Magazine.
How many others are there…?
And Kerrang. And the Telegraph And NME. I said that one, didn’t I? I envy it twice. And Mojo. And Uncut. And Mixmag.
I envy all these vessels of music journalism- to different degrees and holding it to varying degrees of importance- because, I don’t know if you ever noticed, but they manage to get their albums of the year list out at the actual end of the year!!
How do they do that?? I mean, even if Mojo is in a terrible place mentally, and is considering if it’s really worthwhile writing anything anymore, it still manages to garner up the motivation to try and and convince us that David Bowie’s ‘Blackstar’ was the best album of 2016 (nonsense, I have the science to prove it was actually 27th) on December 11th!! I didn’t even get around to explaining the truth until October 30th 2017!!
I mean, sure, write an incisive piece of what the success of From Earth With Love unexpectedly meant for the people of Lappeenranta, Finland in 1997. That probably comes close enough to proper journalism for the other writers at your office not to laugh at you and flick bogeys at you when you’re trying to eat your dinner.
Or maybe just write gushing pieces about how The Rolling Stones used to make 14 year old groupies eat their own faeces while they pissed on them and hi-fived, before pushing the young groupie so hard against the floor that she couldn’t breathe- choking in the mixture of piss, shit and blood from her nose that broke in the collision with the floor- and then all did lines of cocaine off her back. God, there used to be proper rock stars back in the day, didn’t they?? How often do you think frickin’ Twenty One Pilots do that?? The pussies wouldn’t have the stomachs! I mean, that groupie almost definitely didn’t die, did she?
You can only interview bands that you think are great and that we’d enjoy listening to. Perhaps their story will put their music in sufficient context for us to properly appreciate the songs? Don’t interview a band you hate and tell them how shit they are: you are not Lestor Bangs blowing the fucking minds off some sheltered faux superstars, blinded by the shining of the walls of their ivory towers, you’re just a prick who’s really irritating Snow Patrol. These artists are clever enough to understand how life isn’t a zero sum game, they are aware that some people don’t like their music, but they’ve decided to cater to those that do, those that have been throwing money at the band for years, people who had their first wedding dance to Chasing Cars.
Yes, these people are fucking idiots, but part of growing up is recognising that telling idiots that they’re idiots is not an honourable pursuit. However, me telling you that you’re a pathetic edgelord dingus is entirely necessary.
Necessary Evil 