A new year is a time for discovery, for renovation and revolution. Mother nature is stirring, ideas are sparkling in the ketamine-soaked brainsacks of a thousand minimal tech/twatstep electronica innovators and Simon Cowell is selecting which non-stick kevlar handsheath to use for his first tantric wank of 2011. The very air is abuzz with the thrilling hum of the new, the fresh and the so totally indie.
Cherwell music is never one to be left behind by more than a few years, so within this wild whirligig of invention please find enclosed one brand-new music blog. Remember last term’s smash-hit column ‘The Lowe Down’? No? Well now you can not read it online, probably in hyper mega sharp HD on a fucking tablet pc, you smarmy bastard.
This week, we’re departing from the usual format and going all ‘relevant’ on you by unleashing our predictions for the year ahead. Open your hearts, close the tab of redtube you’ve got loading and prepare to feast on the sweet milk of malformed, internet-based opinion:
MAC MINE TO GO: After terrifying sentient weeble Steve Jobs consolidated his monopoly over the concept of novelty with the release of the ipad last year, 2011 will see tablet devices used increasingly in the creation of music. Damon Albarn is already sneering his distorted sense of self-worth all over the internet after releasing the world’s first ipad-produced record, and with the ipad 2 rumoured to include a significant processor power and soundcard overhaul it’s likely that countless others will soon be just as deep in their own rectums. This being the 2010’s, of course, we can’t just leave these things to people who are good at them: everyone has to have a turn! With app adaptations of Andre Michelle lab toys (lab.andre-michelle.com) and an update of sub-DJ circlewank facilitator Groovemaker expected in the coming year, your 2011 is liable to be soundtracked by hordes of talentless twentysomething it-guys blasting their synthesised mating calls across every joyless media party in the land like so many baying cyborg howler monkeys.
BAG IT UP: Remember when your ankles still had blood in them? When a boy in leggings would have inspired only violent outrage and secret arousal in equal measure? When someone, somewhere, still looked at Pearl Jam and thought ‘hey, fresh threads, dudelinger’? Chances are you were about eleven at the time and therefore too busy finding the triforce or dealing with a distressing oedipal awakening to appreciate it, but by the end of this year baggy jeans will once again be back on legs outside of games workshop. Far fetched, I know, but with the likes of Yuck! And Exlovers poised to release meatier offerings in 2011 the alt-rock revival established in the US by Surfer Blood, Girls et al is set to hit our shores. Mindless 80’s nostalgia will become mindless 90’s nostalgia. Some will even feel comfortable wearing combat trousers. Then Creed will release a comeback album and all the fun will stop. C’est la vie.
FREEWHEELIN’: Unstoppable kooky hairdryer Wayne Coyne has just announced that The Flaming Lips will be releasing a free single online for every month of 2011 in a series of typically off-key promotions, and you can bet your whole stash of special edition coloured vinyl they won’t be the last. With commentators including “big” Steven Wozinak crying ever louder for net neutrality in late 2010, it seems likely that bands will be looking for freer ways to distribute internet content, if only to remain within the hallowed walls of credibilityville (population: nil, mayor: Thom Yorke). Meanwhile, as the Anonymous attack group launch a series of overpublicised attacks on anyone who looks at them funny, it’s a coin toss as to whether 2011 will see the digital economy bill start doing some serious damage to illegal downloads, or something of a ceasefire in the hyperbolic ‘war’ on same declared by ratpack automaton Nicholas Sarkozy last autumn. Either way, literally some people are bound to care quite a lot, probably.
VARIETY SHOW: Towards the end of 2010 music journalists were able to talk about music with a degree of specificity unseen since the beginning of the last decade. Suddenly, not everything was ‘guitar pop’ or ‘fresh electro sound’ or, worst of all, ‘indie’. Instead, Zola Jesus and IO Echo were not ‘dance-rock’ but ‘goth’. James Blake and Pariah were not ‘techno’ or ‘dubstep’ but ‘future garage’. Lady Gaga wore a dress made not of lycra-mix metallica but of meat, to the disgust of many and the arousal of several. It seems as though the winds are turning away from the inclusive mid-late 2010’s and toward the return of proper genre boundaries to alternative music. This is a mixed blessing- think of it like the Weimar Republic. Proportional representation ensured that all political concerns were addressed and democracy was more evenly distributed, but at the same time facilitated the rise of the Nazi party. Similarly, the 90’s gave us Pavement and Blur within a year of one another, but they also gave us Oasis. But you know me, I’m all for thinking positively, and if it means we see the return of rap-rock as a plausible genre I’ll be completely sold.
AND LASTLY: The following people will die: Pete Doherty, Elton John, Ronnie Wood and whichever of the Monkees is still going. Yeah, him.
That’s it for now, but check back here every week for a tuesday news update and a special treat at the end of the week. Comments, requests, vitriolic hate mail to [email protected].
