Here we go, after much prodding by my (yes Maths Geek) daughter I have decided to start blogging. Not just one blog mind you, a whole 3 of them. Yes you lucky people you can listen to my thoughts (who said rants?) on music, cars and yes keep up to date on my efforts to lose weight.Well enough of that, this is an intro to my music blog. I want to start off that I am not the music equivalent to a Luddite (is there a word?). I appreciate all sorts of music from all eras and styles but I have some ideas that I will share with you over the coming weeks. To tease you I will share with you why downloading is not the killer of the music business that a lot of people think it is but what is wrong with downloading (2 different issues btw), why an economic recession is good for music and also the odd review thrown in.
So to start you off I’m going to review a new album out just in the last week or 2. Now I will confess to being quite excited by the release of Different Gear, Still Speeding by Beady Eye. As an Oasis fan anything that Oasis minus Noel might put out deserves more than my passing interest. So, what is it like you ask?
First of all I will say that as an overall piece, it hits certain spots and I can listen to the whole thing without it offending my ears. The melodies/tunes/whatever you want to call that bit are good enough, although that could be damning with faint praise to be honest. But I will come to the difficult bit for me. I haven’t been quite so disappointed since I found out Father Christmas wasn’t real. If instead of letting the whole sound wash over you, let’s say you listen to the lyrics. I’ve been encouraging my daughter to do that for years so I can’t possibly review this thing without doing so. When you do that, what you will hear is what sounds like would be produced if a secondary school lad was told to write an Oasis song. Naive is not quite the word. Maybe childish. Or childlike. If they tried harder they could probably sound a little more like The Beatles/John Lennon, but not much, they are pretty much there already. Get ready Paul and Ringo, I think a bunch of cheques will be coming your way by accident.
Now remember I came at this wanting to like this album. And overall I think I still do. To continue the school comparison I would say good effort, could do better. I just think that someone somewhere should have told the guys – well – just no. They are talented musicians with some pretty impressive writing talent there somewhere too. It’s just not on this record. Maybe the clue to the problem is the record label. Maybe they could have stood up and said – ‘boys we don’t need another Beatles record’ – but I notice that it’s out on Beady Eye records. So a self penned album from the record company owned by the band. A recipe for certain car crash if you throw in a massive ego (Liam).
So, listen to this, just not too carefully, and you will enjoy. And maybe that’s how people take in their music today. Maybe the 15 second attention span that most people seem to have these days will work in their favour. But that’s a blog for another day.
Take it easy,
Ian
