we are now fish and chips
I freely confess, I rarely give the time of day to bands that are popular for whatever reason - what, I don't mean that in an elitist way. I phrased it badly. I mean that, unless there is some very specific reason, I'm just not going to listen to a band that loads of blogs talk about it. Why should I? In the nicest possible way, what do their recommendations mean to me? What is it about any blogger that means I should pay any heed to what they're recommending to me? My logic goes that given to the huge amount of new music most mp3 bloggers have to wade through to be able to post every day, they just can't immerse themselves as deeply into music as the music warrants. I'm certainly judging no-one; goodness, I had the exact same problem when I was updating this blog daily. One has to pile through a million boring emails about bands you don't care about each day, and get sent a huge number of future drinks coasters from internet-canny little labels.
Judging by my Sitemeter stats, most people had the same idea about reading blogs as I did. But anyway, I'm digressing fairly copiously. I was going to post about the Cold War Kids, you see, maybe the epitome of blog-buzz. There's been waves and backlashes for a good while regarding this band, but it's only finally they're coming to my ears. Radio is, apparently, not dead at all. In fact it's healthier than in a long way with the advent of DAB, which means that you can now listen to what you want, not worrying about tuning and crackle and that. So I can now listen to 6Music, the BBC's exceedingly worthy effort at giving DJ's the control. And we thusly have nice music to listen to. Super!
Cold War Kids' new single, Hospital Beds, has been getting a lot of air time. They're not a great band, it's true. I certainly wouldn't buy the album off the back of this single. But there's something that nags about Hospital Beds. a melody or something that sticks to your mind. Weird. They've a number of features which actively annoy me, predominantly the whiny, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah-styled yelpings of the singer, Nathan Willett. It's very American-Indie at the moment, which immediately writes off whole swathes of similar sounding bands, in the same way that anyone attempting the now-boring, twitchy angular rock that Franz Ferdinand did, and Maximo Park ripped off, has immediately stoked my already heightened disinterest.
I listen to other songs via the Hype Machine. They're not good. But Hospital Beds is ok, and I wouldn't turn off the radio when it came on. s'ok, I guess. Meh.
Cold War Kids - Hospital Beds (Robbers And Cowards, 2007)
