These are the last days
The Script. Have you heard them? Out of nowhere, this characterless, odourless, colourless rock trio* from Dublin via America seem to have been ordained as the next big thing (huge initial support on Radio 2; open-and-shut-case). This week, they are number one in the album chart, and numbers three and 33 in the singles chart.
Fuck.
Me.
*Correction: I've just checked their website and in fact they play a whole new brand of Celtic Soul, blending hip hop lyrical flow with pop melodiousness, state-of-the-art R&B production with anthemic rock dynamics, classic song construction with gritty contemporary narratives.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 8:53 PM
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43 Comments:
i really don't want to hear that *shudder
They are a particularly putrid example of whiny 'emotional' pop rock. I knew I wouldn't like them when my Dad told me about this great new band he'd heard on Radio 2. Awful, and as for the chart position, this is the same record buying public that seem to think Usher is a good idea.
I've just watched a clip of them on youtube, Andrew. Surely there will be some sort of appaling cross-contamination putting this bilge next to The Wire?
Thank God I'm too old for this shite and don't have to try and like it. It's very telling of how far we've come down this shit road that If Vanilla Ice were to arrive on the scene today, no one would bat an eyelid.
It's not made for grown-ups though, so don't lose any sleep over it. Night night.
I knew I wouldn't like them when I read an interview with the singer and he explained that their new single was about a man who splits with his girlfriend, and decides to go back to the corner of the street where they first met and lie in wait for her.
Creepy.
I was proved right when I heard it. I guess they're part of the new 'scene' of indie easy listening. See also Maroon 5, Keane and *ahem* Kate Nash ;-p
Meanwhile, I've just finished reading TMITC Andrew, and a bloody good read it was too. Richard Herring certainly recommends good literature!
Chris B
Saw them murder 'Losing my Religion' with Charlotte Church. She and the singer were both doing a 'Stipe' with one arm aloft. It was truly awe insiring.
And clearly they are as hilariously irony free as their hideous counrty mates U2 with a name like that. By The Book... The formula... Pop Music By Numbers... Radio 2 Will Love Us... Old Hat.. We're Shit... all would have been equally apt names.
Love 'em.
Bring 'em on. Unlikely they could be any worse than U fucking 2.
I heard them just this morning on R2. They sounded like Maroon 5 doing a particularly bad version of Keane. Terry seemed to like it though...
Musters, That would be a great name for anti-tribute band - "U-fucking-2". Bastards that they are.
Oh Andrew! And you a Smooth FM man, the station which has to play In The Ghetto by Elvis every hour by law. One of the most hokum filled shit-fests ever, regardless of whether it's sung by Elvis, Joe Strummer, Maroon 5 or Pam Ayres.
The street corner stalker man song they do I thought was Paulo Nutini when I first heard it. It reminded me of Last Request, where Paulo's begging his ex for a 'last request' shag when she's shrugging her shoulders, suggesting she really doesn't want to. So - they're all pretty boy stalker psychopaths marketed at people who shop in Next for their clothes and homewares lifestyle and don't pay much attention to lyrics. So what?
It's a pretty song. If it wasn't so produced and was done by a folkie, people would think it was interesting. FFS, it's not as bad as Boyzone, Katie Melua or even Take That (Shieeeeey-yeeeeine, anyone?).
Have you HEARD The Wombats? The Enemy? All those crappy, droney, four hard strums to the bar, shouty BORING guitar bands who don't even approach early 90s indie or guitar music for creativity?
It ain't just Easy Listening which is guilty of being bland. So we don't like it. Do we have to be so fascist to disallow other people their aural pleasures? It's no different from people who like Mantovani slagging off rap music.
Each to their own. They are pretty, they are successful and they have a great marketing department. Let them have their three years of fame. Real music will still survive out there. It's a big world with a lot of music in it. If you listen to Radio 2, you really can't complain. It's always played that kind of schmorg.
Anna
Oh God, why did I search them out after reading the post?!! Surely Louis Walsh has something to do with them?!
I had not heard of the script until I read the blog. I have just checked out there Myspace page and listened to 4 of their songs on there. Its like traditional conventional guitar music but to get down with the kids they have mixed it with 'R n B' with the production of westlife. Nice.
I also love the album cover which is a collage of chimneys both industrial and residential which to me suggests they are trying to tell us that they working class and brought on up on the hard mean streets. I think not. In fact please give up the music and go and work in a factory. Though they are a million times better than U2.
Majorjuggs
So is Maestro "appointment tv"? You gonna blog enthusiastically about it, Andrew?
I'm not sure. I'm no fan of reality tv [1] and this seems like a crude attempt to mesh the Big Brother and X Factor formulas into into something more palatable for the middle-classes. Snobs like me who do like classical music and don't like reality tv [1].
It's also ... how to put it ... not very good really. Is it the formula, the contestants, Clive Anderson. All of the above I suspect. It's just not quite working. Certainly the contestants are a strange bunch. I've no idea who Bradley Walsh is but I'd be surprised if he's ever visited the planet earth. He seems barely human. No surprise to see the self-styled "Gentleman Cheesemaker" popping up again. How did that gobshite get on the television? And Jane Asher, bizarrely, seemed to mistake dancing for conducting. Quite like Sue Perkins tho, she seems nice. No doubt I'll keep an eye on the remaining 6 episodes but a jaundiced one at that.
[1] notwithstanding Masterchef, Dragons Den and The Apprentice, ok I am somewhat a fan
Full marks for passion, Anna! There's something prepackaged and preordained about The Script's success that rubs me up the wrong way. It's like some Faustian pact has been made. I heard them being interviewed by Steve Wright the week before last, and most of the interview revolved around the fact that Radio 2 "discovered" them and "supported" them (they're signed to Song BMG, for heaven's sake - it's not like Ken Bruce saw them in a club). It was all rather offputting. And then I heard their record. And I longed for U2. Read their biog on their website: it's just too perfect. They grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in Dublin etc. And yet somehow, despite this upbringing "in the ghetto", two of them were working as producers in LA before forming the band, working with the Neptunes and Rodney Jerkins. How? Why? Was this some kind of YTS scheme?
God bless them, and all who have bought their records. I'm bored of having a go at The Wombats and Scouting For Girls, so I thought I'd have a go at The Script instead. Allow me my fun.
I've never heard In The Ghetto on Smooth. You must listen to it more than I do. (The best thing about Smooth is that they don't "discover" bands, they just play lots of smooth old records, mostly. That will all change, of course, as no radio station stays how you like it for long.)
Musters, I enjoyed the second round of Maestro, even though it was more X Factor than the first show. (If I find the time later, I'll blog about it.)
As we say in Ireland "shite on a stick"
I thought The Script were a Fray tribute band. Don't get me wrong, I rather like a rather wet band that everybody else has a go at (see Keane, The Feeling), but only the ones who have the self-knowlege - and marketing departments - to know that they'll never be achingly hip. What I dislike about The Script is they're all so archly manufactured and utterly without character. By the way, I'd also quite like to shoot Scouting For Girls, purely for this lyric:
'She's pretty, a fitty'.
Why can't she be pretty and witty? That rhymes, and is even more attractive.
The best Irish band has got to be Sultans Of Ping FC!
"Clitus Clarke has got no arms cheer him on, cheer him on.
Clitus Clarke has no legs cheer him, cheer him on.
Clitus Clarke has no head cheer him on, cheer him on.
Polevolting taliped cheer him on, cheer him on."
Ste
Clair, Scouting for Girls should have bought a copy of the Kiss Lyrics Book. One of their songs starts:
She's a dancer / a romancer / I'm a Capricorn and she's a Cancer
Nearly as bad as The Feeling...
Re : U-Fucking-2.
I live here in Ireland and once made the mistake of professing my distaste for them. People looked at me strangely and one guy said "you'd better keep that quiet around here...". What was gonna happen? Perhaps I was to be punched for not liking them.
I was therefore more cautious when I professed my distaste for Michael Flatley. To be honest my distaste for Flatley is entirely based on the Ardal O'Hanlan routine. I've not really got any idea who Flatley is beyond the obvious. I mean who has actually seen Riverdance!
Anyway, amazingly, it got the same reaction. Another veiled threat of a punch in the puss. For not liking Flatley! Fiercely protective of their own over in this free state.
Fun allowed, Mr C, that's why we all love and read you.
I love the idea of Ken Bruce in a club. Mainly because I have an old Ken Bruce Radio 2 terracotta biscuit tub which has Club biscuits in it. Your idea is the reverse, see?
I used to listen to Smooth in London. Can't get it in the Kent sticks. I used to like the sub-whispering-Bob Harris DJs they had on Smooth in the evenings. They used to come out with crazed non-sequiturs, semi-husked like a dirty old man, but normally about biscuits or the weather which left you feeling befuddled and slightly wrong. In The Ghetto is played in the evenings. Religiously. Try it between 8-10pm.
I'm not a fan of The Script, but the history they have in production - well, good on them. Like OneRepublic and even The Darkness - it's good that the producers actually get a crack of the performing whip. All these X Factor Sugababes-type bands who have 'talent' behind them putting the tunes together and the gloss on top, but have to hide because they aren't pretty or female enough to sell in bulk - that's what I rail against. And you know who my biggest grrr on that front is currently directed at: Bernard Indie-God Butler. He is the real talent behind Duffy. The writer and producer. She's a gorgeous looking girl with a reedy, sub-Lulu voice. He does the actual music and hides behind her face. Rough Trade I am sure are only backing her because she's a cash shot in the arm so they can fund their tiny indie artists. The girl is no Dusty Springfield. The only 60s blood she's got in her is the Sandy Shaw song - Puppet on a String. That sticks in my craw more than this Script gubbins because they are transparently shallow. The Duffy X-Factor sort of players are far murkier in how they package up the goods. I admire the transparency to a degree.
Anna
Sultans of Ping FC!!!!1!!!!eleven!!111
Brilliant band.
"You've got a friend called Clare,
She's depressed about her hair,
She's stupid,
S-T-U-P-I-D!"
Also, why not make your own Scouting For Girls chorus by repeating one line three times and then changing the fourth.
"Elvis isn't dead,
Elvis isn't dead,
Elvis isn't dead,
Cos I heard him on the radio"
"I guess we got,
I guess we got,
I guess we got,
Nothing to say"
"I'm not over you,
I'm not over you,
I'm not over you,
And I know that I should be"
"I don't know,
I don't know,
I don't know,
How we'll make it through this"
Alternatively, if you can't think of a fourth line, just use the same line again!
"She's so lov-er-lee,
She's so lov-er-lee,
She's so lov-er-lee,
She's so lov-er-lee!"
Garbage.
Musical snobbery - my least favourite thing.
Isn't there something wrong about Radio 2 'championing' a band (let alone one as pissingly awful as The Script)? I'm not entirely sure why but I don't really feel it's for the BBC to put their might behind any particular band just because (presumably, allegedly) their plugger has knobbed someone at the station or something.
There's something prepackaged and preordained about the... success that rubs me up the wrong way.
Hang on, are we talking about Adele, Duffy or the script here?
Double standards... tsk, tsk.
Not double standards because I like Adele's music and I don't like The Script's music. I never had a problem with Adele's "training", you'll recall, because I thought she was really good. I think The Script are really bad, thus I am suspicious of their "preordained" success. I'm not sure we've got to the bottom of The Script and their "journey" to the top in five minutes yet.
I don't like Duffy, simply because I don't like her voice much. Or her songs.
How's that for a fig leaf?
I believe you had a pop at me when I denounced Adele for being 'cod-soul'... and you said you suspected it's cod-soul to me only if I don't happen to like it...
Double standards!
But, let's face it - we all have double, triple, quadruple standards when it comes to music. It's impossible not to as it's a matter of the heart, not the brain.
Anyway, I'm not here to argue - The Script are appalling shite, so I'm in your camp on this one.
I don't have the minutes for that meeting, Swines, but I do believe my infuriating line was: "I like her because I like her." I accused others of dissing her because of her background, rather than what she sounded like. And now I am dissing a band because of their background as well as what they sound like. If you can't have double standards in the furnace of music appreciation, where can you have them?
The quotes above from Andrew and swineshead are prime examples of why I absolutely love music snobbery!
I've said it on here before, but I love the fact that you can have a massive pop at a band for no real reason than you don't like their music, and excuse all bad points if the music is fantastic.
Music snobbery is what makes the world go round.
Musical snobbery exists whether people like it or not. You can't like everything, and why should you?
I agree Chris. Musical snobbery clearly a good thing but has very little to do with whether you actually like the music or not.
In my view it's perfectly reasonable to take a position on a piece of music/band without even hearing them. It's probably better that way as your view isn't clouded by reality. Once you end up actually listening to the music you might wnd up liking stuff you shouldn't be liking at all and then where would our precious snobbery be?
I think they're possibly the best thing i've ever heard
The Script confirm my rule that if Jo Whiley does the voice over on a band's TV advert, their music will be banale MOR tosh. For further proof see Newton Faulkner :)
I don't get it. 34 responses on this bag o'shite and only 17 on the last two episodes of The Wire combined.
What are you people doing with you lives?
But we know only a tiny percentage of the population watches The Wire!
Argh!! Stop it now!!!
(this potential tipping over into 'The Wire' talk I mean, not slagging off crap bands - as you were with that one)
Only a tiny percentage of the population watches The Wire and of that tiny percentage some of us don't have FX and are having to wait for the dvd.
Sheesh, it's bad enough having to close my eyes around the actual 'Wire' posts, without living in fear of the comments box too!!
Oh, and Cranes & Crows, Andrew.
If you want a "real thing", band-wise, Cranes & Crows.
Thought you might be attracting a slightly more esoteric audience than the public at large. How's that for snobbery (on my part)?
We're not tuning in to something we've only just caught the hype about. If The Wire's that good and that involved, us latecomers will have to hold off until we have the boxed set and watch it in 2010 from scratch. THAT'S why, oldnathan.
But if you want me to say something about The Wire, here you go: I like the fact there's a character called 'Cheese' and that it's called 'The Wire'. Nobody has cheesewires anymore. The very idea of it makes me nostalgic, even if it's way off the mark of what it's all about.
Happy?
Anna
Problem with discussing The Wire is that it's genius is absolutely beyond discussion. Doesn't quite work in reverse for some reason.
The Scripts absolute awfulness is also beyond discussion and that's why there is so much to discuss. I hate them, their soi-disant music and all they stand for. Not that I've heard them.
Couldn't we at least discuss The Script's awfulness on The Wire thread to get the numbers up, rather than this way around?
The Nonde-Script, surely?
Better late than never, anyway.
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