The British Disease

Chad Orzel is not impressed with The Streets.

I mean, why is this clown getting radio airplay, from "alternative" stations, no less? His "songs" marry plodding, uninteresting beats ("Fit But You Know It" would have the most crashingly dull hook of the year, were it not for the existence of Lenny Kravitz's "Lady") to obscure and unintersting British slang, and wraps the whole thing in a "Wot you fink about dat?" accent that's just this side of Dick Van Dyke in "Mary Poppins".

I have managed to avoid hearing anything by this possibly overrated act, but it does seem symptomatic of the malaise that seems to affect British music at the moment; everything is hopelessly inward- and backward-looking. 'Indie' has effectively become what passes for mainstream rock, and it's become so conservative and unadventurous that almost all bands sound exactly the same. The cloth-eared music-press scribblers are obsessed with lyrics and don't appear to have any interest in actual music, which is why we get a diet of three-chord slop or the 'plodding, uninteresting beats' of The Streets. And the lyrics are always so parochial that there's no chance of anyone outside of Britain being able to identify with any of it. Radio just plays whatever rubbish the music press drools over. There is better music around, but it's completely underground, and has trouble finding an audience. The best bands aren't even on the media's radar screen.

There will not be a decent music scene in Britain until the last commercial radio DJ is strangled by the last copy of the New Musical Express.