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How Am I Gonna Be An Optimist About This? (Or Why 'Boyband Indie' is NOT destroying Guitar Music)

This blog post is a response to Mark Beaumont's NME article entitled 'Mark, My Words : want to save guitar music? Kick out boyband indie.

Oh, Where Do We Begin?

Today I read an article published on the blog section of the NME website.  It was popping up all over my Twitter timeline because not only had it been tweeted by the main NME account but people I follow were sharing and responding the article, mostly speaking far more sense than Beaumont does in his post. 

Looking beyond the clickbait title (what even is 'boyband indie'?), I was both amazed and amused by Mark Beaumont's comment that 'Bastille are the endgame of a 30-year plot to tame, contain, castrate and commodify alternative guitar music.'

That statement alone is kind of hilarious, if you think about it.  Do Dan Smith, Kyle Simmons, Chris 'Woody' Wood and Will Farquarson really hold that much power over the music industry as a whole?  Does any band? 

Did The Beatles kill skiffle? 

Did 90s trance kill 80s pop? 

Did Britpop kill grunge? 

No, of course not because, despite what Beaumont wants us to think, the popularity of one band or genre does not immediately eradicate all other music from the face of the planet nor the memory of the listener.

Beaumont continues with, 'it’s not as though Bastille act as an entry drug to more challenging music' which, even if you ignore the tone which insults both Smith's song-writing ability and the listeners' taste, makes it sound as though there's a hierarchy of music and we should all be striving for a mythical pinnacle.

And here was I thinking music was to be enjoyed, not endured.  Silly me. 


If You Close Your Eyes Does It Almost Feel Like You've Been Here Before?

Erm...yes, actually. 

I've been around long enough to see many music writers lament the loss of a 'true indie scene', and although there's no denying the music industry is changing for a handful of musicians in this era of The X Factor and YouTube, the DIY scene hasn't gone anywhere.  If Mark Beaumont digs deeper than Radio One and the main stage at Reading and Leeds he'll find it alive and well all over the UK. 


How Am I Gonna Be An Optimist About This?

Well, quite easily actually. 

I'm living proof that not everyone who listens to Bastille is 'young' or 'impressionable' as Beaumont likes to make out (although if they were, why would that be a bad thing?  Is music only for people over a certain age?  I think not.) and if you go to a Bastille gig you'll find a diverse bunch of people enjoying music in an inclusive, safe environment.  The world needs more of that, if you ask me, rather than judgemental men with a platform making ridiculous claims.

I was left to my own devices and discovered a sound that spoke to me and lyrics I could relate to, which is, as far as I'm concerned, what music should be about.  If you don't like it Mark Beaumont, don't listen to it.  It's that simple.  It's not big or clever to belittle what others like just because it's not your cup of tea. 

And I'm also optimistic that guitar music is going nowhere.  It's survived the changing landscape of music for this long that I don't think it's going to 'choke to death on the ash of 'Pompeii''. 

The title of this blog post comes from Pompeii by Bastille, which as of 15/07/2018 has 473,694,591 views on YouTube and 548,983,156 listens on Spotify, which suggests there are quite a few people who like it more than Mark Beaumont does. 
 

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