Where's the new?

Can there REALLY be no new ideas? Has EVERYTHING been done already? There has got to be a way of expressing oneself that doesn't rely completely on something that someone has done before. There HAS to be!!!

I love CSNY & when I want to hear them I'll listen to them. I enjoy My Morning Jacket but I'm often acutely aware that I could really be listening to CSNY. Fleet Foxes are very nice, it must be fun to get in a practice room and practice those harmonies but they're not advancing the musical landscape one bit. Mumford & Sons and Noah & The Whale can join the queue thanks.

If I want to hear that kind of sound but with an added spark I'll listen to Midlake. The Trials of Van Occupanther (2006) takes that 70s sunshine sound and inverts it making it sound like the found musical recordings of the very first settlers to reach America. Banman & Silvercork (2004) is full of tales of balloon making and kingfisher pies which has the aura of a steam-punk musical adventure rather than a trawl through music history's dressing up box.

I like Joy Division but I'm not going to be fooled by White Lies. They don't seem like they've ever heard of Joy Division. In fact I'd wager that they wrote their first album having only ever heard Editors' 2005 offering The Back Room (Munich being a tune, the rest being nothing much to write home about). I have heard the singer from Editors say that he'd never had Joy Division on his radar before someone told him he sung like Ian Curtis. I imagine he just wanted to sound like Paul Banks from Interpol. All of this is fine enough but it's so inauthentic it makes me want to cry authentic tears.

If I get to jonesing for a bit of Joy Division but can't quite muster the energy for it I'll put on Post War Years' stunning debut album The Greats & the Happenings. It's a far more glitch riddled affair than Hooky and the boys and they don't wear their references so readily on their sleeves but the energy and the poetry flowing between every crafty bassline is worth a thousand fairgrounds.

Why are so many bands plundering music's past to create a drab musical present. Where's this generation's David Bowie? Where's our Madonna? Lady Gaga was ALMOST both of them but then she had half a good album & now she's recycling either her own songs or someone else's.

I also expect a little bit more from people who write about music too. It has to be the oldest and easiest trick in the book to say that this band sound like that band mixed with another band. That's just fucking bland. Where is the artistry? Where's the writing that attempts to provoke as much of a reaction as the music itself? It's on the internet somewhere & you can bet your balls they don't work for the NME. There are hundreds of quality music blogs online that speak authentically about music that they care about and they need to be supported and the 'this band + that band = th'other band' have to be shunned.

With this in mind here are two songs by two bands that I will not liken to any other bands:

Lights Of Paris - Airs & Dialogues.
Beautiful layers, summery shimmers and a melody that you could skim stones off.

Ornament Tournaments - Alas.
A summery delight of taught guitar and bass interplay with the most pleasingly soaring chorus melody I've heard in a long while & a guitar line that sounds like it's tumbling down flight after flight of harmonic stairs.