_Or decent album tracks?_
Their fans might kiss the band poster before going to bed. But not you. You don’t want to have their babies, you just like the singles. Those catchy-tuned, glorious-chorused things you heard on the radio. Songs that you subsequently found, to your horror, had zero in common with the album from whence they came.
That’s the “singles” band. And this mogger’s list includes Ash, Basement Jaxx, the Beautiful South, Destiny’s Child, Gorillaz, the Police, Supergrass, and the White Stripes.
This week I’ve added a new one—Hard-Fi, a indie-pop outfit from Staines in England.
They knock out melodic and melodramatic indie-pop about kids desperate to escape suburbia (for, I dunno, an inner-city project.) But not to fear, diversity fans, for Hard-Fi also sing about having no money, getting your girlfriend up the stick, and falling around shitfaced at the weekend. You know, _real_ Joanna Newsome territory.
In my younger days I would have totally identifed with Hard-Fi's working-class zeroes but now the lyrics seem a tad one-toned. There’s only so many songs you can listen to about “escaping” before you want to push eject yourself.
But the singles. Ah, they’re a different story.
Hard-Fi’s latest and possibly greatest single is (wait for it...) _Suburbian Knights_. It kicks off with the completely meaningless yet superbly sing-a-long “aaaaaaaaah, ooooooohh”. That's the chorus. Once you’ve mastered it, you can join in after a first verse of typically bolshy Hard-Fi lines, such as “Work till you die, that’s what they teach you at school”. Following some whinging about having nothing to do, we get the nicely-observed couplet, “But global terror they say, we are at war/ but ain’t got time for that, ’cause these bills keep dropping through my door”. And that’s about it. But it’s an undeniably good tune.
Hard-Fi’s other big singles are _Living For The Weekend_, _Hard To Beat_, and _Cash Machine_. They all came from catchily-titled album “Stars of CCTV”, which sold over a million copies.
_Suburban Knights_ is from their less catchily-titled second record “Once Upon A Time In The West”. It's been getting a lot of press, not for the musical content but because the boys released it without cover art. (If only "old Carlton Banks had done the same".:http://www.stereogum.com/archives/album-art/kanye-wests-graduation-cover-for-real.html) Not that it will work on me. I haven’t heard the LP, and most likely never will.
I’ll just look out for those sublime 45s.
....
In the Comments:
1. _Hard To Beat_ mp3 - my Nike+ “power song”!
2. _Cash Machine_ video - one of the best pop videos I've seen in years.
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Hard-Fi’s euphoric choruses are heavily informed by house music. And when I say heavily informed by, I mean steal from. Just listen to how they’ve cleverly worked Daft Punk’s wonderful One More Time into the chorus of _Hard To Beat_.
Still, Hard To Beat is a good tune. So good that it’s my Nike+ "power song". The one that sweeps me home when my leaden legs refuse to carry me any further. Well, what else am I going to choose? _Exit Song_? I’d die on the ground 500 meters from my front door.
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This sound of the suburbs is hugely popular in British indie at the mo’. Lily Allen, Kate Nash, and the Enemy are the chief purveyors (the Arctics having moved onwards and upwards.). But none of them have made a video anywhere near as good as _this_.
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Nice concept video. Thanks for the post. I agree about the "singles" dilema (Shout out to Barely Breathing by Duncan Shiek). I was curious about the Kate Nash / Lily Allen phenom. Retro dressed girls "singing" in their accents...like reading an Irvine Welsh novel. I think this is a larger topic, ready to explore. Singing in the vernacular.
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Thanks for dropping by, annielander - The 'ordinary life described in the vernacular for extra authenticity' movement was kick-started by the Streets and aided by the success of the Arctics. I've a lot of time for Kate Nash, have seen her live and might do a post on her soon. Lily Alllen's songs are a little too snarky for my taste, but I love her contribution to Common's new album, on the track _Drivin' Me Wild_.
Ultimately I'm less worried about the vernacular than the small frame of reference. The Streets' Mike Skinner disappeared up his own backside on his last album, talking about himself and his life in mind-numbingly boring detail.
As a sidenote, I've just finished reading Welsh's The Acid House collection of short stories, which boasted such titles as A Smart Cnt and Shopping and Ccksucking. Talk about feeling self-conscious on the train.
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I have lent out many a copy of Welsh's books. My favorite being the Marabou Stork Nightmares. I love the aspect of an unreliable narrator. It also gets deep into an aspect of British culture we don't hear to much about...Teddy Boys. Who knew. I count myself lucky to be married to a Scot who has helped tune my ear to the west coast accent, which is much harder to understand then the Edinburgh accent. It helps to hear the accent while reading Welsh. Many American's can't cut thru it. Very interesting topic.
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The "singles band" phenomenon is only heightened with the download culture. It's pick and piss, if you'll excuse my French.
I can't say I'm bothered about Hard-Fi. Not really my cup of tea.
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Love Surburban Knights - and I haven't heard any of their albums, but I've always thought their singles were great lol!
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real Joanna Newsom territory...ha ha ha!!
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AnnieA: My favorite short story of his (from Acid House) is "Disnae Matter", a 2-pager about a Scottish factory worker who uses his redundancy payment to take his family on a once in a lifetime trip Disneyworld. The whole excursion is almost ruined by a bloke dressed as Goofy jumping out in front of his son and scaring him half to death. He floors Goofy with a punch to the gut, but when Goofy's officious boss tries to give him the sack, the factory worker intervenes and says it "disnae matter" because he understand what it's like to be sacked. Then he almost floors Goofy again when he tells him, "Have a nice day!" It's absolutely hilarious stuff, all the funnier from being written in the vernacular.
Bartleby: You sound like an Irvine Welsh character using that type of language! Yeah, I'm a pick and piss downloarder when it comes to Hard-Fi. Although all my hip-hop and r'n'b singles are 12" vinyl (cos in those genres I mostly like the singles but not the albums!)
Milkshake: Ha, thank you! There's somebody else out there who feels the same!
Darmuzz: She's like Irvine Welsh set to music, that one. Pure filth.
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LOL!!
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flux, i am with you on Hard-Fi (Stars of CCTV it is!) and Beautiful South. Kate Nash is interesting at the moment.
"Talk about feeling self-conscious on the train." - haha. should i pick the book up, ya think?
ps, Ash? really? (:
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Poe - I'd absolutely recommend Acid House. Most of the stories document a fairly wild lifestyle! There's a lot of comedy pieces in there, but also a really humane story called Eurotrash and a fine novella called A Smart C&%t. I'd imagine it's easier for Celts such as myself to pick up on the dialect, but his books sell the world over, so I don't think it's a huge problem.
PS. 'Fraid so re. Ash! Mine is quite a common perception, too. In fact Ash have just announced that their current album will be their last, and they are just going to release singles via the internet.
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hm. all our "CD's Dead" fearless forecasts here at Mog must've tipped off Ash on that online-singles-only move. ;p
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I wonder if they'll follow through with it, though...If they were pure pop I'd think, yeah, okay...but rock music's still all about the album, surely?