Whither The Vines?
So does anyone else other than music journalists afraid for their jobs really believe that we're currently slap bang in the middle of the goldenest of all golden ages for rock music? I'm only asking because Highly Evolved by The Vines the apparent centrepiece of this halcyon era, has just dropped off the horizon of The Top 40 faster than you can say Andrew WK.
Pitchfork have weighed in with a sour 4.1/10 rating for the record that had NME salivating over the prospect they'd discovered the greatest debut album of all-time. Now I think that rating is a little harsh (there are good enough tunes in evidence to justify at the very least a 6/10) but I found myself agreeing with many of the points proffered.
It's not that Highly Evolved isn't a good album, it's just that it's so painfully obvious it isn't a great one that's my problem with the hype. To me, the great debut albums of all time had a clearly defined sound and attitude, delivering a fresh new approach (or a new set of reference points) that marked a sea-change in the musical climate of their time. I'm thinking of Television's 'Marquee Moon'; the first albums by Blondie and The Clash; 'Searching For The Young Soul Rebels' by Dexy's Midnight Runners; 'The Stone Roses' and to bring things bang up to date 'Is This It?' by The Strokes or 'Original Pirate Material' by The Streets.
Against these benchmarks Highly Evolved just doesn't measure up. It contains some good nu-grunge punk thrashes and some pleasingly melodic pop tracks but they just don't seem to belong to the same album. Worse still, the lyrics just aren't distinctive enough to provide a thematic cohesion to thread the disparate musical strands together.
For the life of me, I just don't get what it's supposed to be about this record that's so great. Plough through all the music-press hyperbole and their own reasoning seems suspect too. So they're a great live band and their singer is a borderline-insane performer? Well, that could have been argued about Ian Curtis but you didn't need to have seen Joy Division live to grasp their greatness on record.
So Craig Nicholls is a massive sex-symbol who 'looks like a young Liz Hurley'? Now I'm no expert on the sex appeal of men, but I think I'd rather look like one of the scallies out of The Coral than have that puppy-fat goth look. And however many times they use that 'young Liz Hurley' line doesn't make it any less laughably untrue.
So does anyone else other than music journalists afraid for their jobs really believe that we're currently slap bang in the middle of the goldenest of all golden ages for rock music? I'm only asking because Highly Evolved by The Vines the apparent centrepiece of this halcyon era, has just dropped off the horizon of The Top 40 faster than you can say Andrew WK.
Pitchfork have weighed in with a sour 4.1/10 rating for the record that had NME salivating over the prospect they'd discovered the greatest debut album of all-time. Now I think that rating is a little harsh (there are good enough tunes in evidence to justify at the very least a 6/10) but I found myself agreeing with many of the points proffered.
It's not that Highly Evolved isn't a good album, it's just that it's so painfully obvious it isn't a great one that's my problem with the hype. To me, the great debut albums of all time had a clearly defined sound and attitude, delivering a fresh new approach (or a new set of reference points) that marked a sea-change in the musical climate of their time. I'm thinking of Television's 'Marquee Moon'; the first albums by Blondie and The Clash; 'Searching For The Young Soul Rebels' by Dexy's Midnight Runners; 'The Stone Roses' and to bring things bang up to date 'Is This It?' by The Strokes or 'Original Pirate Material' by The Streets.
Against these benchmarks Highly Evolved just doesn't measure up. It contains some good nu-grunge punk thrashes and some pleasingly melodic pop tracks but they just don't seem to belong to the same album. Worse still, the lyrics just aren't distinctive enough to provide a thematic cohesion to thread the disparate musical strands together.
For the life of me, I just don't get what it's supposed to be about this record that's so great. Plough through all the music-press hyperbole and their own reasoning seems suspect too. So they're a great live band and their singer is a borderline-insane performer? Well, that could have been argued about Ian Curtis but you didn't need to have seen Joy Division live to grasp their greatness on record.
So Craig Nicholls is a massive sex-symbol who 'looks like a young Liz Hurley'? Now I'm no expert on the sex appeal of men, but I think I'd rather look like one of the scallies out of The Coral than have that puppy-fat goth look. And however many times they use that 'young Liz Hurley' line doesn't make it any less laughably untrue.
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