đŸ Archived View for library.inu.red âș file âș solidarity-federation-mogul-rock.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 13:59:45. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
âĄïž Next capture (2024-06-20)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Mogul Rock Author: Solidarity Federation Date: Winter 1998 Language: en Topics: music, United Kingdom, Direct Action Magazine Source: Retrieved on January 19, 2005 from https://web.archive.org/web/20050119074631/http://www.directa.force9.co.uk/archive/da9-features.htm Notes: Published in Direct Action #9 â Winter 1998.
The British pop music press used to be fairly easy to designate into its
various categories; there were the glossy mags for teenie boppers, the
more serious magazines for the middle of the road types and the inkies â
papers â for the pop fan who was a bit more serious about their music
than the teenie boppers, but less staid in taste than the typical glossy
reader. These people (and I was one) were catered for by three weekly
tabloid newspapers; Sounds, Melody Maker and New Musical Express.
Of the three of them one is no more; Sounds went bust. The two main
indie/alternative orientated papers Melody Maker and NME remained, in
the same building owned by the same people, but seemingly at each
otherâs throats. It was not so much a battle of ideology, aesthetics or
genre as a battle of floors. As the â90s progressed, the circulation of
both these papers began to fall and they began to lose readers and their
way. The arrangement had always been nice and comfortable; certain bands
were big and still vaguely credible, other bands the labels wanted to be
big and were putting money into them. The papers survived off big
features on these two, leaving a little space for the enthusiasts
amongst the journalists to rabbit on about their passions. The main
problem was they never really recovered from the indie/alternative
post-punk scene coming out of the shadows and into the bright lights of
the mainstream charts or from the onset of the dance scene.
When alternative style music (always a misnomer) became more mainstream,
and the daily and weekend papers began to take it more seriously, the
inkies began to lose their exclusive access to the market and
readership. Then appeared a new breed of monthly glossies led by Vox and
Select, who were staffed by almost the same stable of journalists. This
coincided with the increasing development of dance music as another
major âalternativeâ to mainstream pop. The inkies were extremely late to
take dance music scene seriously, by which time there had been a whole
host of dance music magazine launched. We get to the situation where the
music press has expanded greatly in the number of titles, but collapsed
in the standard of journalism and range of coverage.
Dance music is covered by a number of usually monthly magazines with
titles such as M-8 (Loaded for the repetitive beat generation â not a
compliment), Jockey Slut, Muzik, and Wax â my personal favourite for its
attempts to not stick half-clad women on every page, its exhaustive but
not exhausting reviews, and its sensible approach to wider issues such
as Reclaim the Streets, drugs, drinks, star DJ greed and the like. The
alternative glossies seem to have stagnated, with Vox being missing
presume defunct at the moment. There has been a seeming blossoming in
teenie bopper mags, though this is assumed from looking at the shelves
in newsagents.
The two remaining inkies seem to be on a headlong slide to oblivion.
Melody Maker has abandoned whatever standards of journalism it had and
sought a younger readership, though quite why this should tie up with
such trite writing I am not sure. The Maker does, however, have one
advantage over its stable mate; it is a bit cheaper. I have always had a
bias against the smug NME, which seems to fancy itself as a bit
intellectual. Whilst it has had some outstanding journalists I always
got the feeling that there was an editorial line in which passion for
music was seen as a bit suspicious. It was okay to like music, but to
get all hot and sweaty about it was just not on. You just knew that half
of them had Alan Parsons Project records, and could actually listen to
them with out disembowelling themselves to end the terror of the tedium.
Despite all this, I still get at least one inkie every week â normally
the one with the free CD.
So what is the role of the music press in selling music? Well, frankly,
they do not compare to the influence of radio or TV. What the music
press would claim to do is allow established bands to communicate in
greater depth with their fans and provide a much wider source of
information than other media. They also would claim to have a role in
hunting out new and exciting talent.
Now, if bands what to communicate with their fans they could put
appropriate sleeve notes in their records. Established bands go through
the tedium of being interviewed by the music press purely to remind the
world that they exist and that their exciting new product is out there.
The press regularly claims it uses these big name features to attract
readers to attract advertisers to allow it to cover new and exciting
music â a claim which is most suspect. The suspicion lingers not because
the music press havenât championed new bands, they have done and still
occasionally do, but because a lot of these bands are already signed to
big labels, or big labels pretending to be little labels. These bands
are getting the backing already. It surely isnât a coincidence that
these new and exciting bands also seem to have an advertising budget?
When the music press does get excited about new bands who donât appear
to have label backing, what do we get? Romo!! Melody Makerâs (or rather
the admittedly usually quite reliable Simon Priceâs) attempt to
resurrect and update early eighties new romantic ideals with really
shite music. Where is Romo now? (Come to that, where was Romo then?) It
did briefly attract a few fanatical followers, but apart from that it
attracted almost universal derision. I just dug out the free tape,
Fiddling while Romo burns..., and wow, was it really that bad? With the
possible exception of Hollywoodâs Lights, camera, revolution, which is
too silly to be bad...
The sad thing is the music press donât even provide the Romo level of
service any more. The Maker is trying to tell us that the only bands
that matter are stuffed with teenagers. Otherwise, they are trying to
foist Alan âCloth Earsâ McGeeâs latest sub-Oasis dirge merchants on us.
Oasis are/were a good band, Noel stole well and put together fine and
memorable tunes, but the rest of them donât even know who to rob.
So, the music press hardly ever breaks new bands. It is almost always
the band, then, if they are lucky enough to get signed, the label, that
breaks new bands. At best, the press is just one sub-channel. So much is
dependent on labels. You wonât get on TV or daytime radio without one:
Bis on Top of the Pops was a one off. Labels, with the exception of some
of the smaller truly independent labels that still struggle to exist,
want to make as much money as possible and donât really give a monkeys
for the music. They want to sign bands that they can sell hard, and if
they donât sell they drop them straight off.
There are now two approaches for a label signing a ânewâ band. Firstly,
a label signs some obscure band with a mass of hype and big notes
advances and the music press dribbles along drinking the free drink and
giving the new little darlings big publicity. These bands are frequently
shallow reflections of whatever the latest thing was. Thus, Nirvana were
followed by a feeding frenzy in which labels sought to sign up any noisy
guitar bands who had ever found Seattle on the map. Oasis, as mentioned
above, spawned some of the worse sins against music lovers ever. This is
all reflected in the music press as they swim wildly with the current,
trying to be just one step ahead of those not quite in the know.
The other option, is where big labels wait for bands to work up a
following, get themselves established and, when they have proven they
can make money, wave the Wonga at them. Thus, bands struggle along for
years with barely a hint of press, gathering a lot of friends and
supporters by putting out good records and playing live well. Then, all
of a sudden, they get snatched up by some big paying label and they are
media darlings for a few months. Two examples that spring to mind are
Chumbawamba and the Blaggers ITA, both of whom signed to that arch
bogeyman of a label, EMI. (though the latter seemed to blow it when they
beat up the aforementioned Simon Price). Indeed, EMI seem to like
signing âpoliticalâ bands â Gang of Four upset a few people when they
went to EMI, and New Model Army didnât really upset that many people
when they did.
As to the question of whether it is possible to exist outside all the
commercial hooha, well, bands do. Chumbawamba existed for years almost
completely ignored by the music press, which, given some of the
embarrassing nonsense they are prone to spout in interviews, was
probably a good thing. Obviously, now they have gone big label so they
are in the swim with the rest and have become legitimate music press
material. Other bands remain outside through choice. The Dutch band The
Ex have been around for eons with barely a quarter column in the music
press, allowing them to get on with their lives not worrying about what
will be said, whether they sell more or less record. Of course, the down
side is it is bloody hard to find out owt about them.
There are alternatives to the music press. In your local Cyber Cafe, you
can now pick up information on all manner of obscure bands from all over
the world on the Internet. I had a great time recently chasing down
recordings by Bright, a chilled post-rock band from the States. I also
tracked down Usura from Spain and stuff coming out on dance labels such
as Dust2Dust and Fused and Bruised.
Small labels and bands can develop mailing lists with which to keep
those who want to know in touch. Arch-druid, ex-Teardrop Explodes front
man and prime candidate for barmpot of Britain Julian Cope regularly
sends me postcards of stone circles detailing his latest.. er..
exploits.
Itâs also common for small labels and specialist mail-order type places
to send out occasional bulletins. These lead nicely onto fanzines, and
fanzine culture is still going strong. There are clearly still plenty of
single-minded obsessives producing pages of densely typed waxings on
their favourite bands and why everyone else is crap. Fanzines brought us
lots of punk and post-punk in the late seventies, jangle pop in the
eighties, riot girl in the nineties. You still get them at some gigs,
where tired looking people wander up to you with a stack of folded paper
asking for a quid. These are peoples attempts to circumvent the power of
the labels and their dominance of the music press. This reflects what
happens on wider social issues. Information about environmental issues,
strikes, protests and the like are generally not spread through the
pages of the Guardian and the Mirror. Instead, information is spread
though word of mouth, mailing lists and ad hoc networks, alternative
papers and journals and, increasingly, through the Internet.
As with the spread of political and social ideas, the use of alternative
sources for the spreading of music information falls down in a number of
places. The biggest is the range and spread of people you can reach. Not
everyone has a computer and very few people go into bookshops and pick
up radical newspapers. Likewise, not many people go into obscure little
record shops and pick up fanzines. Selling at a gig/demo only reaches
the already active/interested.
If you want to reach a wider audience is it worth trying to play the
mainstream game, and seek to minimise the distortion and twisting that
that involves? This does rather bring us back to cosying up to the
stinking giant that is Music Inc.
Not exactly. The mainstream have the resources and access to information
and breadth that is not available to small low budget alternatives.
Music media is, after all, a microcosm of the wider media. It is nearly
all owned by the same corporations, who control access to bands and
advertising revenue, and so control what goes onto the pages. The
journalists are simply journalists â often lazy and ill informed, or at
best, know the score with their career, and swallow whatever press
releases come their way.
As a consequence, they tend to stifle imagination and variety rather
than encourage it. The music press, like the mainstream press, does
tolerate the odd spirit of hope, but this is the exception, and in any
case, is hope enough?
The reality is that fanzines and various non-commercial information
networks exist. Alternative media can, is and will develop. Until it
does, the corporate mass-media have a strangle hold on information. We
need the music press, but to rely on it for all our information on music
would be to voluntarily put on the blinkers they have prepared for us.