Abortion, a decision for the woman or a matter of politics.

Stuck in a Rut

Out of the murky depths of Lowestoft, East Anglia they came; at Glastonbury they exploded onto the rock music scene. With a twist on the typical Metallica style they roared onto the stage “Give me a ‘D!’ Give me an ‘-ARKNESS!’” And the rest is history.

‘The Darkness’ have taken the UK by storm since the fateful summer of this year. The album “Permission to Land” sat at the top of the album charts for significantly longer than any ‘Pop Idol’ graduate. Built around the guitar-playing brothers Justin and Dan Hawkins the band comprises four members, the other two being Frankie Poullein (bass guitar) and Ed Graham (drums). Resembling Thin Lizzy; Led Zeppelin; and AC/DC (musicaly) and Freddy Mercury after a kick in the crotch (vocally), this classic rock combination have simply overthrown any pop star from the throne of British music which, I add, is in a sorry state.

The plague of ‘reality’ TV shows has seized the country and unleashed a whine of lone vocalists far higher up the dizzy heights of the single and album charts than their exploited vertigos will allow them to stay for any great length of time and with everything that goes up, it’s got to come down at some point. I assure you that Britain has seen many 15 minutes of fame splat to the floor like eggs from a skyscraper. It seems that for the desperate money-grabbing record company bosses, the way to rake in millions of pounds from the tired public is to fill every television channel with glorified talent contests. Optimistic hopefuls from around the country are then forced into humiliation in front of the entire nation. If this doesn’t occur when the contestants absolutely murder the songs they copy, the panel of ‘experts’ will tell the participants how awful they are at the end of each performance anyway. Therefore, the motives behind the record producers (who at the end of each series are eager to sign up these emotionally battered youths to their labels) are mystifying. And if this isn’t contradicting enough, these new ‘stars’ are unceremoniously dropped from their record deals after about two singles. (Or when the next series of the show comes out, whichever is sooner).

I accept that The Darkness have not achieved deity status, obtained the Monarchy or found the route to world peace, but it just shows how close to the end of our tethers some of us are in Britain. However, lthough many people think that The Darkness will never have the ground-breaking originality of Radiohead, in terms of quality; if the nearest British band we can compare them to hit a similar height of fame before 1980, then this gets across the drought of quality which we have endured for so long. Only the Iron Maiden have rocked continuously since arriving on the music scene over 20 years ago, but have not attained the recognition musicians of their level deserve.

So are The Darkness the saviours of British rock? Who knows? How long will we have to endure further over-marketed series of ‘Pop Idol?’ How many more British bands are being repressed by the evil regime of pop singers in the charts? Are we to remain ‘Stuck in a Rut’ or should we wage a ‘War on Pop Idol?’

I would like to hear the thoughts of others on the state of the music industry in other countries. Has the Pop Idol format been shamelessly exported around the world? Do you know of any other bands trying to make the breakthrough in your country?