“The Pain From An Old Wound” - AGCS Vs Nostalgia

The first of a series of essays on the state of music in 2011.

“May You Live In Interesting Times” goes the old Chinese curse, and it’s fair to say this year has been an interesting one. The front pages of newspapers have been adorned with scandal, disaster, and revolution at a seemingly unprecedented scale. But what if, in a hundred years time, an historian was looking not at the newspapers but at the music press of 2011, trying to ascertain the culture of these times, the soundtrack to those great events? Was our greatest cultural achievement really the 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of “Nevermind”? Was there nothing new of any value? Was 2011 really so void of artistic merit that music journalists genuinely started to believe “Screamadelica” was a good album? And proceeded to write article after ARTICLE after INTERMINABLE HYPERBOLIC ARTICLE about Bobby Gillespie’s towering genius? Or will this endless celebration of mankind’s two greatest achievements (Nevermind. Screamadelia.) just serve to further validate the historian’s 120th Anniversary Reissues of both those albums? Remixed in hyperphonic-hoversound? (Because it is the future and THAT IS WHAT THEY HAVE!) 

So, the fact that I’ve titled this piece with a Mad Men quote and then immediately moved on to Confucius should tell you it’s going to be one of those articles, where I think I’m better than you just because I watch critically acclaimed dramas and managed to spell “Confucius” right first time without the help of spellcheck (NB: This is a lie). But Christ was all that nostalgia depressing. I made a hilarious “joke” when Beliebers got the one year anniversary of U Smile trending on twitter, claiming that this landmark meant 1000 times more to me than the 20th anniversary of Nirvana’s seminal (note the dual meaning) album. But in all honesty, U Smile is a perfectly competent pop song which I could quite happily listen to without becoming apoplectic with rage, and the same could not be said of the terminally awful Smells Like Teen Spirit.

This entire place stinks of nostalgia, it’s everywhere, it’s somehow invaded our consciousness until we reach the quite frankly absurd situation whereby The Stone Roses sell 150,000 tickets in 14 minutes. 150,000 people who have gone wrong, fed a pack of lies by 30-something music journos desperately trying to stake claim to being an important part of music history, claiming the album’s they brought and loved at twelve years old are the best albums of all time. Well they aren’t. When I was twelve I brought the Jamiroquai album “A Funk Odyssey”, but I haven’t written an article about it’s 10th anniversary, about what a hugely important record it is, because I’m not stuck in the past. And that’s coming from someone who works in a museum! But as an aside, I will just say that “A Funk Odyssey” truly is a masterpiece, a record which reinvented the funk-rock genre and has resonances across the ages. Jamiroquai were pioneers, ahead of their time, and this was their magnum opus.

Obviously I’m being facetious here: unlike “A Funk Odyssey”, the albums I’ve taken issue with are hugely successful and generally (if inexplicably) regarded as “classic” records. But so what? What’s the point in this blanket coverage at 5 year intervals? What does anyone gain from an interview with the guy who was the baby on the sleeve of “Nevermind” (“It’s kind of cool, knowing that I’ve been on an album cover”)? I know the NME has its fair share of detractors, and as I’ve already said, this nostalgia is EVERYWHERE, but this year the magazine featured on it’s cover The Sex Pistols, The Smiths, Syd Barrett, Creation Records, The Clash, Jim Morrison, The Stone Roses (FOR TWO CONSECUTIVE WEEKS!!!), Primal Scream and, of course, Nirvana. Younger bands who featured on the cover included Viva Brother. I don’t want to be an NME-bashing cliche but they make it far, far too easy for me.

If “band of 2011” The Vaccines are really our best new musical hope, If the Gallagher’s various Oasis spinoffs (and oh how I love to use Kele Okereke’s quote at any opportunity - “They claim to be inspired by The Beatles but, and this saddens me, they have failed to grasp that The Beatles were about constant change and evolution. Oasis are repetitive Luddites”) were seen fit to appear on one tenth of the “new” musical express’ covers this year, then perhaps it really is time to surrender all hope of a better future and welcome the cold dead embrace of nostalgia. But let us at least direct our anniversarial hyperbole at worthy targets, because anyone who thinks that Primal Scream are any cause for celebration is a fucking idiot.

And with that in mind, I’m going to give “A Funk Odyssey” a spin. Here’s to ten years!

Jed. x