We Will All Sow As We Reap Someday

The review of Out of Nothing in the NME could have gone one of two ways. They could have given it to Mark Beaumont and it would probably have scored a 7 and been damned with faint praise. Conversely, they could have checked the "cool list" in the office, saw that Embrace's name wasn't on it and therefore passed it onto somebody who hated them. It would then probably get a 3 or a 4.
They gave it 1 out of 10.
So the latter happened.
Upon reading the review I felt really angry. Why give a CD to somebody for review that they are so determined to hate? If you gave me a CD for Funeral For A Friend to review, it'd be a disaster and I'd end up offending thousands of whiny teenagers who haven't grown up enough yet to have a decent music taste. It wouldn't be right; it'd be much better to give a FFAF (right kids!) CD to a 35 year old music journo at Metal Hammer, who could pretend he really liked them when he really preferred Iron Maiden and all those bands of the 1980s, when he didn't feel as fucking alone as he did right now, a man dressed in black with long thinning hair amongst teenagers who he actually despised.
Where am I going with this?
Anyway, the review mentioned virtually nothing about the album. It attacked Danny's voice and that the band were dreary. Oh, nobody has attacked Danny's voice before - nice one!
You see the NME only loves those bands who record their album in a week, preferably using the sloppiest production techniques possible. Whereas The White Stripes can get away with this because they're actually really really good, the latest Libertines album sounds like it was recorded on a Fisher Price home studio. Maybe Pete Doherty sold all the other equipment for smack, but the result sounds like a wasted opportunity. The songs don't soar, they crawl and are lost in mumbles and the feeling that their hearts aren't actually in it.
I don't want to harp on about The Libertines as Carl Barat seems like a decent man, and some of their songs actually do hit the right buttons, but the romanticism of Pete Doherty's addiction in the NME is faintly nauseating. Every second or third week there is an interview with the man in which he comes across as a whiny self-indulgent tosser.
"Carl doesn't want me in the band"
"Why is Carl being mean to me?"
"Oh woe is me"
Barat comes across as somebody who has tried his hardest to stand by his friend, and has shown endless patience as Doherty not only pisses away his own chances in life, but also selfishly those of his friend. But no he doesn't see that. He just sees his next hit and next opportunity to play the romantic fucked-up victim. Selfish twat!
The Cooper Temple Clause are another example of the way NME deals with a band. When TCTC (hey kids! *wink*) first appeared they received disinterest from the magazine. But their first album See This Through And Leave was fantastic and quickly got the band a dedicated following; the sort of people who'd write into NME every week expressing their love for the band in bright green glitter pens. Then Didz from the band almost died from an infection. Suddenly the NME became interested. They saw a market here and potential readers to pander to. So they obsessed about the band and pretended they'd liked them all along.
Now, for some reason TCTC released their second album way too early. It wasn't strong enough and showed that the band really hadn't been given long enough to write and strengthen their ideas. Still, the NME loved it. The Cooper Temple Clause were now a band to support, a band that could attract readers. The fans didn't seem as keen on the album though, and the whole relation between the NME and TCTC showed how utterly wrong the people behind that shitrag could get things; how out of touch they were with the actual fucking things they were meant to be about.
Music.
(Jesus, I'm becoming such a righteous and pompous cunt. Fuck it though, I speak the truth)
You just have to flick through an issue of the NME to see that it looks like Heat for young people who want to appear cool. It long ago stopped being about music, the experience of hearing it live and on record. It became about the celebrity of music. Who is the drummer of The Strokes dating? How has Pete got himself in trouble this week? Look! A band called Selfish Cunt! Wow! How mad is that?
Maybe it has to be like that to survive. Melody Maker was informative, irreverent, funny and didn't want to be 'cool'. And it went to the wall.
Maybe the only market for the NME is to appeal to young people who want to dress like the in-bands of the moment, and don't really give a shit about what they sound like. Is it worth compromising yourself for survival though? Is it actually worth saving? No.
So the Embrace album goes against what the NME is saying is good at the moment. Out Of Nothing does show the fact that some sort of production has taken place, not in the sense that it loses the feeling of the thing, but that the songs are built on such a powerful wall of sound. There are many layers of instrumentation there, and whereas Embrace could be accused of bombast, the sheer size of the record doesn't swamp the emotion, passion, sentiment and experience poured into the songs. It highlights them; a quite difficult practice.
So, Embrace don't indulge in Grade A drugs until their core moral values are eroded away and they end up in prison. They don't paint swastikas on their hands and have a rude word in their band name. They don't boast in magazine interviews about groupies, being a lad or the gigantic amount of booze they have on their rider. So for the NME this makes them 'dreary' whereas I like to take from this that their not 'utter cunts'. The NME can continue producing it's tributes to Sid Vicious and anyone else who it feels have the spirit or "rawk n' roll"; I'll keep with my opinion that Sid Vicious is a dead, murdering fucking junkie who offered nothing.
I'll also keep my belief that the NME is now nothing more than a style-guide for pretentious teenage/twenty-something arsewits.
I was also angry at how it had probably made the band feel. They are understandably proud of the record; I know how much they've poured into the record over the last 3 years and how it made them ill, depressed, and despair if they'd ever make a record again. How upsetting must it have been to see that review? I'd have been distraught after what I'd done to see what was written. It wasn't constructive criticism; it was just personal abuse from somebody who really didn't like the band.
I want to give them all a big hug on Friday and tell them not to listen to those nasty boys. Maybe if I have enough to drink then that is actually what might happen.

It actually is a stunning record. I keep meaning to write a review of it for indietron but I don't know how to do it justice. I'll give it a go tomorrow I think.

The weekend round up will now commence.
On Friday we went to see Morrissey at the Guild Hall. We met up with Nige, Rich, Andy, his missus and her friend beforehand and had a few drinks. I like my workmates, they're good-natured and funny men. All share a love for Morrissey and any eighties indie.
The gig itself was quite good, and I feel it would have been even better had I extensive knowledge of their latest album. Maybe it would have been better if they hadn't have played the greatest Smiths song in 'How Soon Is Now' straight off. How do you actually follow that?
It was the first music gig I've ever seen in the Guild Hall and as with many large venues the sound suffers. With the stage positioned where it was, a lot of seats had to be left empty. This made it sound a bit like a barn, a lot of the actual noise made by Morrissey and his group was lost to the empty space. It also felt unusual when the whole thing finished at 10:30 with a single song encore. Still, allowed more time for booze.
Ah well, I felt it was important that I saw Morrissey before he vanished again back to America.
I didn't do much at the rest of the weekend. That was quite nice actually, to spend some time pottering and reading. I did manage to get drunk on Saturday night though, so some things haven't changed.