There are few things more poignant or tragic than the plight of a former rock star. When the lights have gone down for the final time and the last ligger has departed for more lucrative shores, what do ex-musicians do to pay the bills? It’s a thought that’s been preying on my mind lately, because I’ve been listening to a series of CDs from obscure British rock bands who never managed to swim into the profitable waters of commercial success.
It frustrates me that there is more talent, intelligence and creativity in one song by certain rock bands than in most of this (or any other) week’s top 40 combined. Listening to the brainless bleeps and squawks of modern urban/R&B music could not be further removed from the sculpted melodies, intricate time signatures and considered lyrics of bands like AP&S, Pitchshifter or Reuben. These bands didn’t make vapid and disposable music that appeals to stupid drunk people in nightclubs, and as a result, their fanbases were a fraction the size of their dance and R&B contemporaries, whose songs often were (and still are) written by a committee.
Synthesized beats and Autotuned vocals can cover a multitude of tonal sins, but they fail to disguise the paucity of talent or emotion in a song’s lyrics. However, in popular music, the lowest common denominator usually wins – nothing else can explain why talentless people with nothing to say for themselves (you know who I mean) continue to dominate the singles charts. Glorious exceptions like Plan B or Lucy Spraggan remain exactly that – occasional opportunities for Radio One to punctuate their A playlist’s stream of urban waste.
The greatest tragedy about Reuben’s commercial failure and eventual break-up is that they saw it coming. Consider the following lines, from 2005’s ‘Return of the Jedi’ as a foretelling of the future:
“Guitarist and songwriter – that’s what I thought I was
I never had no dreams of being a waiter,
But these here Helmet rip-offs, they don’t buy my lunch,
So I will get a real job in the office.
And I won’t bother to make my music
And I won’t bother to sing my songs.”
In fact, the guitarist and songwriter in question is now an illustrator, which I suppose is at least a creative industry, where imagination can be unleashed and spleens can be vented. Far worse to end up in the accounts department of some faceless mid-sized company, armed with three cheap suits and a company laptop, sitting through interminable meetings while remembering the show when 600 people bounced in perfect synchronicity to what was then your latest (doomed) assault on the singles chart. Far worse when you once described yourself as a musician, and now you introduce yourself to neighbours as working in logistics, with a deckle-edged business card on permanent standby in your shirt pocket. Far worse to think that nobody listens to your music nowadays because it’s not on Grooveshark or iTunes. But rest assured, alumni of Pulkas, Capdown and Midget. As long as I live on, at least one person will continue to party like it’s £19.99 from Tower Records.
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