Noel Gallagher Hits The Nail On The Head

Here's an interview recorded with Noel Gallagher backstage at this year's Coachella Festival (below). It's no special interview. Noel's on his usual good form and he speaks about the differences between being in a band and being a solo artist, about technology and the way music deliverance has changed in the last few years, but most importantly, for me anyway, he highlights the fact that everything in the music industry is 'focus grouped' nowadays and anything that 'the random customer' doesn't want they don't get. It's that simple!

(The interview is at the bottom of the page, this is still me rambling...)

There are two points here.

The first is; nobody ever asks ME if I want to listen to ONE fucking DIRECTION on the radio and TV all day. Nobody has ever asked ME if I thought that virtually all of the decent music programs on TV and Radio should be cancelled and their slots filled with commercial factories of utter shite that produce MORE sugar coated 'boy bands' to stand there grabbing either their nackers or the air while they deliver the latest generic pop ballad written by some behind the scenes professional song writer to coin it for some body or some corporation.

The problem is that they usually ask a collection of general punters who are so stupid and consumed by what their mates think is cool that they just go along with the status quo. People like me (and you I hope) never get asked. People who would rather see a bit of creative rock 'n roll in the charts and on TV and who would welcome a return to a world filled with guitar driven indie or rock songs, and a few of the bands that are currently bubbling under the surface who we know are capable of world domination. The big problem is that there are more dickheads in this world than people with brains, so the fact that it's mostly the dickheads that get polled and the dickheads that then spend the money on the shit they have asked for means that TV, Radio and the charts will remain filled with pants, commercial tripe until the revolution comes. (Man!)

The second and very depressing point is this; the music industry and indeed the entertainment industry in general 'focus group' everything nowadays before it costs them any money, to see if it will sell, and if it will then it gets made and promoted to death. If it is not what the majority want then it will either get a much lesser budget or not happen at all. Whether it be a movie, a band a TV show or whatever it is.

Noel points out that nobody asked the world if they wanted Jimmy Hendrix, or Sgt. Pepper’s or The Sex Pistols but they happened and they each made a huge difference to the world and a lot of people loved them. 

It all comes down to money these days, not creativity or talent anymore.  Where are the new Tony Wilsons? The new Alan McGees and John Peels?  People like these have gone and been replaced by Simon fucking Cowell.

The question is; How do we change it?


Mick