#Razorlight

[aeolianblues]

‘Indie sleaze’ is not 2014, ‘Indie sleaze’ is not 2014, ‘Indie sleaze’ is not 2014, ‘Indie sleaze’ is not 2014!

It’s not tumblr-core and it’s not Lana Del Ray or 2013 AM, it’s not #girl interrupted, it’s not Ethel Cain (she literally is an artist of our time, what are you on about.)

It was 2001 with the Strokes on the cover of the NME every 2 weeks, it was cabaret night and English poetry with the Libertines in 2002, it’s those red and blue military jackets, it was the fucking grease in Julian Casablancas’ hair, it’s ’cocaine was the banker’s drug’ quoth Alex Kapranos, it was Don't Go Back To Dalston and the heroin, it was red and black horizontal striped tops and tight black shirts as evening wear, it was Russell Lissak’s mop top and a full page interview with London hairdressers in the NME in 2005, it was Jack and Meg’s saturated red and white dresses, it was glued glitter on the cover of Santigold’s first album, it was the sleaze and the sex of CSS’s music, it was ‘cold light, hot night’, it was the anti-Bush and anti-war stances of the bands at the time, it was America by Razorlight, it was Popworld on telly and Simon Amstel being a little shit to musicians, it was Karen O defying death on stage nightly, it was throwing up in shitty nightclubs on god knows what drugs, it was the fucking danger knowing this could all collapse any second—and rightly, it should. It was the godawful egos at DFA, it was knowing that while you were lucky to be seeing these bands live, you’d fucking hate them if you had to spend even a minute in their individual company. It was Amy Winehouse telling the world to get the fuck out of her business, it was Leslie Feist and Peaches sharing a dilapidated flat above a sex shop in Toronto.

It was horrible camera flash and red-eye editing softwares and putting your feet by the warm, spinning fans of your computer while it whirred away and downloaded your albums in *checks* 46 more minutes. It was horrible, it was dirty, it was gritty, we all hated it and thought the 90s were the last time music was good and that nothing good had happened since 1997. It was garishly bright clothes we were all embarrassed of by 2011, it was multiple layers and leggings and asking your mum to cut the itchy tag on the back of your low rise jeans only for her to snip your back. It was bell bottoms at the start of the decade. It being thankful that by 2017, no one would dream of wearing low rises anymore, please please, please let them never come back.

It was faux nostalgic of the past itself. It was ‘please make sure baby you’ve got some colours in there’ in your clothes. It was moral panic over emos. It was wanting to escape into a better past that you could see was visibly impoverished in the present. It was watching your favourite programmes become less and less relevant on air. It was watching MTV decisively die a horrible death. It was watching important venues and nightclubs get bulldozed. It was watching the last regular broadcast of Top Of The Pops in 2006. It was seeing how the 2009 financial crisis most definitely put a stop to independent music in the western world for a decade, it was watching the rise of bedroom DIY and electronic music. It was seeing the phrase ‘SoundCloud rapper’ being coined. It was the rise of Disney pop. It was counter-culture Justin Bieber hatred. It was the MS paint meme of those tumblr girls thoroughly unimpressed by the guy.

It was not using the words ‘indie sleaze’ at all, in fact. That’s a retconned word. It was garage rock revival. It was ‘post-grunge’. We didn’t care what it was called, we hated it all the same. It was a lead into a decade of despair and nihilism, it was the last hurrah for the music industry before it splintered into a thousand little online ecosystems, it was the last time we had physical community and any shared pop cultural moments. It was Live8 2005. It was the same as it is now, and it was a time that’ll never happen again, for better and for worse.

But one thing is for sure: it was decisively dead by 2014. Santi and Karen O’s 2012 collab was its last hurrah and it was dead by Comedown Machine by the Strokes (2013). It has nothing to do with 2014.

[marta-diablo]

[vinilett]

[daisies66]

Advert for NME merchandise, featuring The Libertines, The Smiths, and The Stone Roses.

NME, 8th January 2005. Scanned by me.

[have-faith-in-brighter-days]

Mood this week from a European.

[punk-jules]

ALL MY LIFEEE WATCHING AMERICAAAAA

TELL ME HOW DOES IT FEEEEEEELLLLL

[littlesomnus]

I'm getting to the age now where having no friends is getting tiresome. If anyone wants friends/likes any of these things, please interact with me!

Nothing But Thieves

Jeff Buckley

The Smiths

The Strokes

Depeche Mode

The Cranberries

80s/90s music in general

[lolli-says-stuff]

I would like to formally thank @suzie-shooter for introducing me to this marvellous song by writing a marvellous fan fiction about it. I could kiss your brain. Thank you.

[my-chaos-radio]

Release: October 2, 2006

Lyrics:

What a drag it is

The shape I'm in

Well, I go out somewhere

Then I come home again

I light a cigarette

'Cause I can't get no sleep

There's nothing on the TV, nothing on the radio

That means that much to me

All my life

Watching America

All my life

There's panic in America

Oh oh oh, oh

There's trouble in America

Oh oh oh, oh

Yesterday was easy

Happiness came and went

I got the movie script

But I don't know what it meant

I light a cigarette

'Cause I can't get no sleep

There's nothing on the TV, nothing on the radio

That means that much to me

There's nothing on the TV, nothing on the radio

That I can believe in

All my life

Watching America

All my life

There's panic in America

Oh oh oh, oh

There's trouble in America

Oh oh oh, oh

There's panic in America

Oh oh oh, oh

Yesterday was easy

Yes, I got the news

Oh, when you get it straight

You stand up, you just can't lose

Give you my confidence, all my faith in life

Don't stand me up

Don't let me down

No, I need you tonight

To hold me, say you'll be here

Hold me, say you'll be here

Hold me, say you'll be here

Hold

All my life

Watching America

All my life

There's panic in America

Oh oh oh, oh

She's just in America

Oh oh oh, oh

Songwriter:

Tell me how does it feel?

Tell me how does it feel?

Tell me how does it feel?

Tell me how does it feel?

Johnny Borrell / Andy Burrows

SongFacts:

👉📖

[monophonics]

Razorlight - My Favourite Game 

[allaboutherock2011]

Gary Numan 'The Numa Years' remastered album collection streams this Friday March 7th

Gary Numan today revisits his Numa Records era with the news that ‘The Numa Years’ will hit streaming platforms  on Friday, March 7th. ‘The Numa Years’ is a special remastered album collection which consists of four studio albums – ’Berserker’ (1984), ‘The Fury’ (1985), ‘Strange Charm’ (1986) and ‘Machine + Soul’ (1992) – plus three live sets in the shape of ‘White Noise’ (1985), ‘Ghost’ (1987)…

[bluecrowsfly]

song of the day today is:

Hostage Of Love - Razorlight

[renatofilomena]

Razorlight - Golden Touch