Well, we’ve been galavanting everywhere this past few weeks and i’ve been doing some serious travelling, mainly from my computer to the kitchen while Jules has been living LavidaLoca at Glastonbury…hopefully, and i’m not promising anything, he will put up a little post talking about his adventure with The Latin Dub Sound System and ZieglerCo. down at Glastonbury…so that to come.
Meanwhile, I’m pretty confident that you’ll get more in depth reviews somewhere else and that the Chief’s new album will be everywhere right now but this isn’t a review apparently and we are trying to encompass a more reasonable attitude with regards to some of the more bigger acts out there that we don’t actually hate. But be assured you will never see U2 being discussed here…shit…did i just mention U2…fuck it. So…
I’m not sure about the Kaiser Chiefs…i’ve had a like/hate relationship with them…i could never say i loved them but there is no denying that they have written some great anthemic pop tunes, the thing is i always got the feeling that they belonged back in the 90′s britpop era. Their songs and songwriting fit into that category along with Blur and Pulp touching on the satirical edge with stories about the downfall of the social etc and they probably would have had legendary status by now had that been the case.
With the new album we still have that social commentary as satire element, which i think is a good thing…intelligent lyrics that have something to say is always a good thing in my book but i find myself again feeling unsure about the Chief’s. Its not that i don’t like his voice, its not that i don’t like the tunes, its not that i don’t like the sound…i guess its an english thing…the music ‘gene pool’ in england is so shallow…on this album for instance we have songs that are obvious in there influences, and that perhaps wouldn’t be a bad thing if it wasn’t for the fact that those influences happen to be from the 80′s…once again. On a couple of tracks here, at times, i swear the chiefs are doing their best impressions of Heaven 17 and The Specials and then there is the blatant move to add 80′s electronica elements to please the trendy kids. Is this a bad thing? I dunno…these aren’t horrible tunes by any means and the electronic elements don’t hurt the songs and i think they may even enhance them…but it just annoys me a little.
I only got this album this morning so it may be that my comments on here are a little premature and this album may grow on me in time and there are some really interesting tracks on here…though i do think on this first listen the Chiefs are a little confused, they have tried to reinvent themselves while keeping their integrity as pop indie songwriters but i think they may be trying to cover too many bases here. I would never go through an album track by track analyzing it to death and i’m not going to start now, i have never been an ‘Album’ person anyway, in the sense that i have never liked a whole Album by an artist and the reality is that it is vary rare for a truly great album to appear with standout tracks all the way through…it happens but not often. At least the album is a bit of a whopper as far as the number of songs goes…more for your money right!!!! Its Quality not Quantity apparently. So this is a pretty shit album right? Wrong!!!
The Chiefs have succeeded in growing in maturity both within their playing and their songwriting and i get the feeling that they are pushing their music in a slightly different, less anthemic teenage revolution direction which is good, attempting to evolve on all fronts which is what all artists should aspire to do and they almost succeed but for a few more dull moments than there should be, but an interesting journey none the less.
For fuck sake is the album any good?
Its better than Girls Aloud thats for sure but fuck…what do i know!!!!
New Single ‘Little Shocks’ – it doesn’t suck.
Kaiser Chiefs – Little Shocks by AceVideos
[Jules] Can I pipe up here? KC lost me with the Kids song which was a nursery rhyme pastiche of everything they started out being. Personally I think they had something when they advanced early Blur on their first album then they ran out of ideas (or never really had any in the first place) and started sounding like bad copies of themselves… much like Hard-Fi did).
I haven’t heard the album yet (which by the way is available in a pick n mix fashion… they have 20 songs and you can buy 10 and they’ll be burnt to a CD for you in the order you choose, I believe) but I’ve just listened to the video above and as harmless as it was it didn’t do anything for me other than make me realise the band have realised they sounded like poor copies of themselves and decided to sound different. Still don’t really think they have any real original ideas, though Si’s intellectualisation of them above all sounds far and sensible to me.
I have no problem with bands sounding out of their time as long as the songs are cracking. Everyday I love You less And Less still crackles with bitterness and spiky exhilaration for me. I’ve forgotten this one already.
Being a music lover, a consumer of music on CD and vinyl, an abstainer of paying for music in digital form (it doesn’t exist to me, it’s just 1s and 0s) and a part of a fledgling DIY record label I spend a fair bit of time thinking about and musing upon the current state of the commercial side of the music industry… the bit where you/we/me part with hard cash for musical product.
Aside from the fact that most the figures They bandy about with regards to how much P2P piracy has cost Them are embellished/sexed-up to make Their woe that much more oooh! They fail to acknowledge that a very high percentage of the music downloaded for free would never have been bought in the first place, and if it hadn’t been downloaded then it would have been borrowed, heard in a record store, rented at a library, ripped from a mates CD or just plain ignored.