listen without prejudice

TWO QUESTIONS

(i) WHAT the hell are MTV Europe going on about with their new, post-grunge friendly soundbite "Recycle: once is not enough"? Rock has been recycling the same tired old chords, the same tired old postures for so long now, the slogan would make much more sense as "Recycle: 40 years is not enough". MTV Europe. Jesus. Europe used to be a kind of cool place until the bastard Americans got in with their bastard homogenous MTV.

"I went to school/In Olympia/And everyone looked the same/They walked the same/They talked the same . . . What do you do/When the revolution's gone?" - Hole

If I had a gun and a chartered plane I'd have no qualms whatsoever about shooting the bastard who controls the vertical, the bastard who controls the horizontal.

(ii) Why do American rock critics have no sense of humour? No disrespect to anyone (here) who might be harder than me. Why are they all so obsessed with lyrics, when it's the inflexions in the voice and guitars, the dynamics, the primordial rhythms, that count? If I wanted to discuss words, I'd be a fucking book critic. Also, why does Spin only write about American underground bands a year after the UK music press? (Cheap shot, I know.) What the fuck is up with that Raygun shit? And why does Rolling Stone exist? To inform people?! Ugh! Is rock music really so dull, so commonplace, so boring that everyone over there has to write like 60-year-old sociology professors? No disrespect to 60-year-old sociology professors, about whom I know nothing.

Rock is part of the entertainment industry, right?

So fucking entertain me.

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