2007 With A Bullet: Paul Fuzz Offers Some Thoughts About The Past Year In Pop Music, Characterised By A Slightly Dark Tone Which He Regrets But Not Enough To Do A Re-Write

So we're all menna write some sort of MY ALL-TIME TOP 100 BEST EVER STUFF THAT I SHO' NUFF DUG THE MOST IN 2007 piece detailing what musical vibes we've been feelin' over the last 365, dealing out awards for this achievement and that achievement, like The Award For "Artist Simultaneously Responsible For Producing Some Of The Year's Greatest Pop Songs And A Brace Of Singles Which Rank Amongst Some Of The Worst Music I've Ever Heard, Like His Work On The Amy Winehouse Album Was Incredible, But Then On The Other Hand That Cover Of 'Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before' Was Diabolical, I Mean, I Don't Even Care About The Smiths All That Much, But The Song Sounded Like A Moby B-Side For Chrissakes, And The Reason I'll Be Stopping You Is Not Because I Think I've Heard It Before, But Just Because It's Plain Horrible" going to Mark Ronson (it was between him and Helen Mirren) or The Award For "Band Who Most Look Like They'd Glass You In Wetherspoons On A Friday Night Before Heading Off For A Busy Evening Of Date Rape And Additional Glassings " going to Scouting For Girls (oh come on guys, I only said you look like date-rapists). Keep reading 'over the cut' to enjoy yet another arbitrary list compiled by somebody whose opinion you don't care about for good reason.

2007: THE YEAR INDIE MUSIC WENT WRONG, or INDIE MUST DIE

Here's the thing. Indie music isn't meant to sell in the numbers it has done this year. Traditionally, the reason most indie music doesn't sell much is because it's crap and nobody likes it. The reason good indie music shouldn't sell much is because it's nice for nerdy kids to have music that sports science students don't like. But now we have crap indie music selling in huge numbers to sports science students. Scouting For Girls, The Hoosiers, The Enemy, The Wombats...these are terrible, terrible bands, bands that in any previous climate would have been peaking at No. 43 in the charts and been thankful for it. The fact that that 'indie' is now resident in the Top 10 is no cause for celebration. These bands actually should just be getting to No. 43. Even a band like The View, who at least seem to have the right attitude and some pretty nifty tunes, are a 2nd division indie band, infact that's sorta why I liked 'em in the first place, I like 2nd division indie bands, always have, I sorta dig second rate generic crap, The High, Paris Angels, Chapterhouse, all that 2nd division 90s indie stuff I was well into back in the day. But I don't need The View getting Top 10 hits all over the place. Shit, even The Libertines singles weren't expected to be sell tens of thousands in their first week. Now people expect The Enemy to go Top Ten with every release. I guess this is The Arctic Monkeys effect. When a buncha grumpy kids from Sheffield can Sell More Copies Of Their Debut Album In The First Week Than Any Act In Chart History, no record company can afford to ignore the indie dollar anymore. So the industry money supporting indie sky rockets, and The Kooks are mega-stars. I just want all these bands to go back to selling diddly squat regardless of how good they are, not out of indie snobbery, because I woulda loved personal faves like The Regular Fries or Delakota to have sold gazillions of records back when indie wasn't mainstream and I love The White Stripes selling gazillions of records now, but just because most of it is crap, and for it to be sold as 'alternative' in some way just makes the whole exercise really dishonest. I don't like Cascada much either, but at least nobody is pretending its something it ain't. This is why I have come to a decision. Something must be done. I must kill indie. I must force it back into it's underachieving, under-funded, pre-Strokes ghetto. 2008, ladies and gentledudes, shall be the year that I DESTROY INDIE.

THE BEST SINGLE RELEASED THIS YEAR BY A COUNTRY MILE:

ICKY THUMP BY THE WHITE STRIPES - Blues Rock In The Post Hip-Hop Era

The White Stripes are a band to be treasured. They're a stadium rock band who sell millions of albums to all sorts of people and they (a) don't suck, (b) aren't pretentious, (c) look really cool, (d) are a bunch of fun, (e) are quirky and interesting but not weird, (f) have a cool drummer and (g) still put out insane psychedelic mondo-organ-distorto prog-blues monsters like this. The song blew me away the first time I heard it on the radio, had me headbanging in the mud when me and my kid sister saw The White Stripes live in the summer, and has destroyed the dancefloor of every club I've DJ'd at since it was released. I've already written alot about Icky Thump over at my blog, but to save you the hassle of swinging by there, here are the main points: Icky Thump is a 70s heavy / blues rock (Sabbath, Vanilla Fudge, Led Zep) jam constructed and delivered like a hip-hop track, but crucially avoids every cliche of the 'rap-rock' (urgh) genre by being a wonderfully organic, almost unconscious blending the genres. The useful reference points for Icky Thump are not Detroit garage rock or Wolfmother, but Jay Z's rock orientated output and Rick Rubin's hip-hop productions. A number of critics have pointed out a similarity between Icky Thump and The Door's very great 5 To 1, but the really interesting comparison is between Icky Thump and Jay-Z's The Takeover, which samples 5 To 1 to great, pumelling effect. Icky Thump is way closer to The Takeover than it is to 5 To 1, Jack White's vocal echoes not only the delivery style but the actual words of fellow Detroit native Eminem ("White America..." etc etc) and the relentless thud is more endlessly looping hip-hop than loose acid-rock. Thus the circle is complete: Icky Thump is a modern blues rock track which sounds like a hip-hop track which sampled an old blues rock track. I love this record. I love ill-advisedly throwing gang signs to this record. The White Stipes continue to set the standard.

THERE'S MORE TO LIFE THAN CAPTAIN BEEFHEART BOOTLEGS: THREE GREAT POP SONGS  HIPSTERS HATE FOR A WHOLE BUNCHA REASONS THEY REALLY JUST NEED TO GET OVER AND UNDERSTAND THAT ONE DOES NOT HAVE TO AGREE WITH THE HYPE SURROUNDING OR  PERCIEVED CULTURAL POSITION / VALUE OF A BAND TO CHEERFULLY SAY "YEAH, GOOD TUNE THAT" WHEN THEY PUT OUT A GOOD RECORD.

The Klaxons - Golden Skans: What, you think the whole 'New-Rave' thing was an obnoxious, over-hyped scenesterish shuck cooked up by Shoreditch Nathan Barleyites to sell badly-done postmodern early 90s stadium Rave to fashionista Peaches Geldof wannabes? No shit, Sherlock. What a devastatingly astute cultural observation. I bet those cats is quaking in their ironic retro Nike Jordans in the face of your withering, know-better cynicism. I just think this is a cracking pop record.

Kate Nash - Foundations: Yeah, yeah. I get it. Her 'mockney' accent is so annoying. Because of course no British artist has ever adopted a singing voice designed to disguise their actual accent. And that bit where she rhymes 'bittah' with 'fittah' is so annoying. Because, lets say, serious talent like Ian Dury or John Cooper Clarke would never stoop to such tongue in cheek colloquialisms. While hipsters were bitching about the LDN scene, I was just happy to have a quirky, British female singer-songwriter around who wears nice threads, writes shameless pop music (ie not lame-ass acoustic watered down folk rock), offers a respectable role model to young women and doesn't smoke crack or take her clothes off in her videos.

The Arctic Monkeys - Teddy Picker: I'm happy to hold my hands up and say I was extremely cynical about ver Monkeys in the beginning, and that during the whole "Who The Fuck Are The Arctic Monkeys" 'we're really grumpy about being successful and rich' period I was just plain annoyed by 'em, 'cos the shtick just came off ungrateful and churlish. But I like 'em a bunch now, 'cos they're an altogether better band now, and if the whole being-grumpy-about-success-period allowed 'em to cope with the ridiculous situation of being the suddenly being country's biggest band, then so be it. This is a great song, funny, well delivered, and I'm now dead glad to have Alex Turner (a genuine talent) and the boys around.

MY FAVE NEW BAND: WOLF PEOPLE

Just go to their myspace, whydoncha? Of all the excellent neu-retro bands I discovered via myface / youbook etc this year, Wolf People had something special. For one, they record on a battered old reel-to-reel tape machine, and there's a dusty anologue warmth to their sound which just magical. They're very Beefheart, very weirdo-folk, they've got a flautist, tons of odd-ball psyche effects and backwardsy bits, but what really attracted me in the first place was how damn funky they are. There are breaks here that would have Wolf People 45s exchanging hands amongst hip-hop producers for 4 figure sums if they'd been originally released in 1969. Their instrumental stuff is very impressive, and now they're starting to write ace songs too. They don't play out much, but if you get the chance to see 'em, they're sure to flip your wig.

REISSUE OF THE YEAR: WILD STYLE OST EXPANDED 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Not just a great hip-hop soundtrack, but one of the all time great soundtrack albums period, now with an extra disc of instrumental cuts and sound-on-paper-like-they-should-suck but are actually really great remixes. When did the joy, creativity and sense of cultural identity abundant on this LP disapeer from hip-hop? Where did the fun go, the colour? Endlessly sampled, constantly quoted and referenced, a key text of 20th centuary pop culture, the Wild Style OST deserves a place in any music lover's collection.

Anyway, I'm sorta bored now, and I imagine you are too. Whatever little musical niche you dug for yourself in 2007, good luck to you. Keep giving hipsters the bird. Wu Tang Forever. See you 'round the clubs.