BBC Radio 1 music boss George Ergatoudis has suggested that the British public's taste for guitar music is returning.

 

do you agree with this statement? does a return to the golden mid-00s age beckon or is this all just myth? would you like to see guitar music making a return to the charts and mainstream radio?

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure if the mid-00s era will ever be looked on as a 'golden age' in terms of indie rock and I can only see guitar music becoming more and more niche in the medium term...

tbqh i don't see where this man is coming from. indie music has evolved on so far and if anything it's going to be new takes on r&b and future style pop that are going to make it big over the next few years. i'm unsure as to what basis he's making these assumptions on because it goes against the total underground musical climate of this age, which as we know leads onto the mainstream in time.

 

sort of saddening that this old, undoubtedly very rich man has such influence to bring good music to the forefront yet is evidently so out of touch.

I'm not sure if the mid-00s era will ever be looked on as a 'golden age' in terms of indie rock and I can only see guitar music becoming more and more niche in the medium term...

i mean in terms of chart success as opposed to genuine quality. this is a more chart-inclined indie topic.

 

i am no fan of the enemy, hard-fi, kaiser chiefs et al as you should well know harvey :angry:

I see where he's coming from with that statement, I mean recently we've had Bastille, Imagine Dragons and Vance Joy in the charts recently whereas a few years ago the charts were full of dance-pop with not a single guitar to be heard. I don't think guitar music will ever be as dominant as it was in the mid 00s though, times have changed and so has music.

I think this is a reflection of the fact that rock albums outsold pop albums for the first time in 4 years.

 

I just see a split in terms of the singles and albums markets.

It's not exactly looking bright for long term prospects of what he defines as rock if you look at the underground scene, as Jake (I think?) said. This fixation with the middle of the last decade isn't doing anyone any favours as it wasn't actually a particularly high watermark in the context of the last twenty years or so, when there's been a succession of scenes getting mainstream success whether it's Britpop, pop-punk, nu metal, post-Radiohead or whatever.

Yeah but taking his statement in the broadest sense guitar based music does not equal "landfill" indie alone.

Is this bloke at radio one really fixated on the scene from 10 years ago?

 

I don't know if he does want a return to that scene anyway. His background is Kiss Fm and 1Xtra so I think he's justcalling what he sees.

 

i mean in terms of chart success as opposed to genuine quality. this is a more chart-inclined indie topic.

 

i am no fan of the enemy, hard-fi, kaiser chiefs et al as you should well know harvey :angry:

 

The Enemy's first album was incredible.

A very clear line needs to be drawn between the varying degrees of "guitar music". Perhaps what he means is there is a movement towards acts writing their own material again instead of the conveyor belt of pop that immediately followed the last "golden age" of guitar music where you could barely differentiate one dolled up singer / phoned in rap "collaboration" from another.

 

We should remember that the Arctic Monkeys hitting number one in the singles chart with their debut was a huge surprise, similarly Franz Ferdinand reaching the top 3 before them. But that said as much about Domino's rise from genuine indie to mainstream chart player. And it really did not help things when major label A&R men suddenly woke up, panicked and signed every band from the Yorkshire area who could hold a guitar (and not necessarily a tune).

 

Just because Ricky 'honest as the day' Wilson has come out and said he is doing The Voice in order to get his band back in the charts, it doesn't spark a revival. The Kaiser Chiefs had a few fun singles at their onset but simply don't deserve to sell any records with what they are currently releasing. They will though, as the public eye seems to be far more important than the personal ear when it comes to sales.

 

Kids today are amazed to read how few Top 10 hits The Smiths (2) and Stone Roses (3) had while they were together - and that's because it was a HUGE achievement for "guitar music" (and I think he means what NME traditionally write about by that term not metal etc) to even get into the Top 40 in the 80s and early 90s. Blur and Oasis changed that overnight in a week...or rather the media did...and you can pretty much trace the demise of "guitar music" to August 1995. That's when the indie ethic was chucked firmly out the window and "guitar music" was expected in the Top 40 every week instead of scraping in for one week. Creation, XL et al - they all sold out...

 

Bastille, Imagine Dragons, Jake Bugg, The Lumineers...this isn't music to enjoy, it's as soulless as the major labels they're signed to.

I can't help but feel that guitar music shoots itself in the foot with snobbery sometimes. Obviously greater mainstream success and seeking it can lead to some fairly grim records and some even worse bands being signed in your wake, but ultimately the wider your audience base is then the more likely you are to have someone in there who can write great songs.

ultimately the wider your audience base is then the more likely you are to have someone in there who can write great songs.

 

Not really, when a certain band become fashionable off the back of one record then all the majors are interested in at that time are bands who fit that bill. The majors have more chance of getting a band into a promo slot deemed for "indie" so the identikit bands get the promo slots and those who are writing good, new, original material are overlooked.

 

Not really, when a certain band become fashionable off the back of one record then all the majors are interested in at that time are bands who fit that bill. The majors have more chance of getting a band into a promo slot deemed for "indie" so the identikit bands get the promo slots and those who are writing good, new, original material are overlooked.

You're missing my point. Radiohead are good example of what I mean. Particularly in the US it was "Creep" that broke them - a good song, but far from their best and more mainstream-friendly than pretty much all of the singles that followed it. Because of that song more people were listening to them, and were maturing musically as they released The Bends, OK Computer and Kid A. Without "Creep" they wouldn't have reached the same audience, so if even one person ends up creating great music because they were inspired by what came later then it's been worthwhile.

Yes, but Creep scored a bit of luck in getting them heard in the US - remember it had been a flop in the UK a year earlier but Radiohead were already gaining fans through Anyone Can Play Guitar and Pablo Honey (and losing them through Pop is Dead) - and it was the "British band breaks U.S.!" angle (as usual) that the label used when re-issuing Creep.

 

I'm not sure what that has to do with a wider audience leading to better songs though. Do you mean, if Radiohead hadn't had that break then they'd have been dropped and not gone on to inspire the next generation? As it goes, I don't recall anyone being signed because they sounded like Radiohead (apart from Muse a few years later during the post-Britpop boom / slump perhaps) - and that's my point. Look at how many awful bands got signed in the wake of Arctic Monkeys - The Fratellis for instance...they were so desperate the Glaswegian lead singer put on a Yorkshire accent...if that's the kind of "guitar band" dominance we can look forward to then no thanks.

Coldplay/Travis/Aqualung and others that I've probably forgotten certainly used Radiohead's template to varying degrees.

Coldplay/Travis/Aqualung and others that I've probably forgotten certainly used Radiohead's template to varying degrees.

 

Very small degrees I would say - particularly Travis. I can't really see any similarity there at all apart from Nigel Godrich being the producer of both at one time or another.

Really? Fran Healy's vocals + Nigel's production made The Man Who somewhat of a mum-friendly OK Computer.

Hmm, mum-friendly...you could be on to something there!

I think there's a joke somewhere that Coldplay were going to call their debut "47 tributes to Radiohead's "High and Dry"" until someone suggested that it'd do them for more than one album.

 

But seriously yeah, I don't see how it's a jump to suggest that Muse and Coldplay got big because of Radiohead. The problem arises when the next generation produces a pale imitation of Coldplay (hi Kodaline) because there hasn't been a new, decent scene breakout in ages. Just look at the decline in quality between each new wave of pop-punk for that.

Coldplay moved quickly on to be U2 with a headcold.