I need some time in the sunshine...

Wednesday and I’ve finally got around to watching Seven ages of Rock, the final programme, What the world is waiting for. I haven’t ever though of The Smiths as being an indie band, although I never found them very ineresting and so never took much notice of them (oh heresy!) I guess the first time I really twigged was with The Stone Roses, not that I ever liked them either, but at the time I was beginning to be aware of other bands whose tunes were starting to grow on me. One of the clips that the programme showed was The Happy Mondays doing He’s Gonna step on you again, a tune that irritated me on two fronts. Firstly, I didn’t like the Happy Mondays (didn’t like much did you?), and secondly, the track itself was a rubbish cover taken from the very fine 1971 album Kongos by John Kongos, a South African singer/songwriter, which I owned.

Of course Brett Anderson (Suede) hit the nail on the head when he said (and I paraphrase here) that as soon as a genre of music escapes from its underground roots and becomes widely enjoyed, the big labels move in and it becomes commercialised. I personally enjoyed the first two albums from The Stereophonics, but after that they were very popular and descended into the commericla mainstream. It’s the nature of the beast I guess.

The Blur v Oasis, sorry Noel; Oasis v Blur, chart battle was, for me, the beginning of the end of that period of “indie” music, and certainly Oasis at Knebworth was the final nail in the coffin. The blip on the Radar of Rock that was BritPop was a glorious time for music, 1994/5 saw the likes of Elastica, Sleeper, Manic Street Preachers, Suede, Gene, Supergrass, The Boo Radleys, The Charlatans, The Verve, Kula Shaker, Shed Seven, The Seahorses, Ocean Colour Scene and The Bluetones, to name but a few. And bubbling below the surface were some minor bands that were producing good tunes as well; Longpigs, Whipping Boy, The Spin Doctors etc. It was flipping brilliant! Of course “indie” continues because there are still independent record labels out there but the music then moved to a harder, edgier sound with bands such as 3 Colours Red, Muse, and Feeder.

Oops, back to the programme and the series ends with clips from The Libertines, Coldplay, The Artic Monkeys, and Franz Ferdinand. Although of course The Libertines were not the first band to have played “guerrilla gigs” or impromptu sessions in their own front rooms, Scary were doing that while Pete Doherty was still in nappies. What ever happened to Scary? Anyway, a brilliant series and I shall definitely (maybe) be looking out for the DVD.