Un Cuento

After managing to delete this blog I decided to try and re-type it... then I got bored and ate a sandwich instead. So after a couple of days of blog-hatred, here goes attempt number 2 (with added zesty goodness - although as I haven't been in a fist fight in last 48 hours I fear this will pale in comparison to the recent blogs of my colleagues).

I watched the NME Awards earlier tonight (ahhh, see it's already different, that wouldn't have been there 2 days ago), and was left with a slightly empty sickly feeling in my tum-tum. It is almost the complete opposite of The BRITS, which I realise it's probably aiming for, but it does it in completely the wrong way. Whilst the Britties is a self-congratulatory affair of bored pop stars, bad jokes, half-arsed performances and wrong wrong just plain wrong decisions, it tries to be edgy and cool and of course this never works, making for hideous telly.

Now, the NME Awards was a self-congratulatory affair of bored indie stars, bad jokes, phoned-in performances and decisions no one cares about, but it tries to be important and classy which of course makes it nigh-on unwatchable. At least when people accept awards at the Brits they manage something slightly more articulate than "Yeah, cheers, whatever, fuck off!". At least the performances at the Brits, although usually dross of the highest order, can sometimes include an elaborate stage production, or at the very least promise artists the chance of shifting some bloody albums (and nearly always does).

Instead NME gave us Kaiser Chiefs performing a song that's already been number 1 to a small room full of their bored mates. Really, what IS the point? If it hadn't been for Jarvis Cocker and Beth Ditto belting out a very karaoke-esque 'Temptation' I'd have headed out into the night to find a Rat-Faced-Boy to beat my living brain out.

Which brings me to the point of this original blog; I recently got hold of Hope of the States' second album 'Left', a stunning album from a band that really had the potential to go on and be one of this country's most important musical creations, and ironically a stunning album that bombed so heavily it caused the band to split. Hope of the States fused incredible, multi-instrumentalist rock with songs that were actually about something. And more so, and I know this as I saw them live, they actually cared about what they were doing and the connection they made with people.

And yet we seem destined to exist in a world where the only rock stars with staying power just so happen to be in the dullest, most-disinterested bands out there. Cream, it appears, does not always rise. Where the arse is today's Bowie, today's Neil Young? Hell, at this point I'll settle for a Phil Collins (he's a c**t but he always reminded me of Danny DeVito which I found amusing)...