Oh dear...

[venta]

Today I bought another two CDs by bands whose names begin with 'The'.

"But Elizabeth," you cry. "Lots of bands have names beginning with 'The'. Where's the harm?"

However, I mean two of those bands. The ones that all sound like that.

It's the beginning of a slippery slope...

Comments

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Haven't got a clue what you're on about! :-)

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

There's a bunch of trendy bands bouncing around, called The (Strokes|Hives|White Stripes|Vines|Libertines|Music|Coral|Sums|Streets).

Although to be fair, the Streets don't sound the same as all the rest of them. In fact, I'm not sure what they do sound like. And The Sums are actually Sum 41, but the "The" phenomenon was so pronounced that they did a video in which their manager calls them into his office and tells them they've been rebranded.

Venta, what was the other album?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Speaking from the vast experience of having heard one song (Don't Mug Yourself) by The Streets, I'd say they were awful. Not just bad, but almost unlistenable.

The other was The Datsuns' album (rather unimaginatively title The Datsuns). They appear to be New Zealand's contribution to the 'The' scene. I have some vague memory of having heard something by them and being really impressed, but now I can't remember what it was. I haven't listened to the CD yet, though.

I wouldn't have lumped Sum 41 in with the rest of them, they sound a bit different... I also encountered The White Stripes slightly before all the others, and regard them as slightly separate, but I realise I'm on dodgier ground there. I might try and put a case for them being the most talented of the bunch.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

No, I wouldn't lump Sum 41 in either, I just thought that the "The Sums" joke was relevant to the subject. Sum 41 are officially lumped with Green Day, The Offspring and Blink 182.

I heard a Datsuns song that was alright. Research suggests it's called "In Love". The riff is grand.

I'm reserving judgement on the Streets until I hear some more stuff. I thought "Don't Mug Yourself" was OK as a novelty song. The only other track of theirs I've heard was also OK as a novelty song, but somewhat less OK. This is not a good sign. However, they are terribly trendy.

I think that slightly more is made of all these bands sounding the same than is really justified. The similarity is that they're all lo-fi guitar bands, and they're all the right age to think that New York punk was dead cool, without actually having been around to hear it at the time. Other than that, they play varying styles of rock/indie/pop.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Thank you. You are getting very close to a commission as a phone-a-friend should I ever make it on to WWTBAM? - which, admittedly, would require me to start trying to get onto WWTBAM? in the first place.

From the news tonight, would The Cheeky Girls count as part of the "The" phenomenon?

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Erm... I hadn't heard of The Cheeky Girls until I saw their single in the shop on Saturday, but if it has "cheeky girls" lots of times in the lyrics, then I've heard part of it once (without knowing at the time who it was by) and I don't think they fit in.

What was the news?

[triskellian]

Urgh. Evidently you didn't hang out with Kauket enough while you had the chance ;-( She made me watch Pop Idol, or some similar TV show, which spawned The Cheeky Girls.

The news item might have been (although I don't know, cos I didn't see it) because someone is (was) trying to start an internet meme-thingie to get people to go out and buy their single, so they get to be Christmas number one, allegedly out of disgust at whoever was behind the current Pop Idol/Stars/whatevers programme declaring months ago that one of the two groups produced by their programme was going to be Christmas number one. Or something. But I'm drunk, so I don't necessarily know what I'm talking about, and you should be grateful that this post is (at least mostly) properly spelt and punctuated.

;-)

I got that particular 'meme'

[ieyasu.livejournal.com]

...and purchased the single. Don't laugh, I consider it an act of particular evil.

First of all, I've given it to my brother. Perhaps the Cheeky Girls will propagate to America as a result. If so, I will have single-handedly topped the worst thing I've ever done in my life, much less in 2002, at the end of the year.

Secondly, I really don't like the idea of the Rivals thing, so I sort of hope the Cheeky Girls win. Did they?

Re: I got that particular 'meme'

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

No.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/chart/top40/