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Mercury On The Ear

La Roux may win this year's Mercury. For those not based in Britain, the Mercury prize is a bit like a Grammy for indie musical artists. While a recent Eyewear post teased La Roux, it is true that her album has a number of catchy pop tunes, and, among all the recent acts paying pastiche-based homage to their more famous peers and earlier styles, she's actually very good. It seems a shame the White Lies album isn't included; as for the news that Florence and the Machine is a tipped favourite - well, it hasn't grown on me, yet, has Lungs. Both Lungs, and the new Bats for Lashes sound very much like Sarah McLachlan, who was one of the most influential indie acts of the 90s - and whose emotive portentous style has become deeply embedded in the DNA of so many acts since. McLachlan was great, but it's becoming a tired style. Or am I just really getting too old to maintain enthusiasm for pop? Today on the BBC, I listened to a very good programme on Eliot. At the end, when he read from The Four Quartets, the austere serious beauty of the words seemed more lasting, and more potent, and more genuinely good, than much music.
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Ben Wilkinson said…
I often feel the same, Todd, and as such I don't think it's necessarily an age thing. This year's Mercury Prize shortlist doesn't much excite me. Sometime I think I'm not looking hard enough: that great new music is still being made, I'm just not finding very much of it. But then I hear similar sentiments from friends who're much more serious about contemporary music than I am. The last band I was really enthusiastic about was Arcade Fire, and that more for their incredible live performance than anything especially spectacular about their music. That said, Bat For Lashes's latest album is highly listenable. If I had to pick a winner, it'd be her. White Lies I quite like, but mainly as a contemporary rendering of an 80s nostalgia trip.
Wed Jul 29, 04:50:00 pm 2009
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