David Spencer's Recent Postings

One evening in 1989 I was listening to Radio 1, and they played a remarkable song called Nothing Ever Happens, by up and coming Glasgow band Del Amitri. From that moment on I was musically in love with Justin Currie and his band. Waking Hours, their second album was a well received country rock outing, with every track a winner. The combination of great tunes, poetic lyrics and the soulful voice, made this one of my favourite ever records.

Then came Change Everything, another terrific collection of songs (Always The Last To Know as a hit single) and suddenly fourth album in, came the breakthrough. Twisted was listed in some magazine's top 5 albums of the year and big hits came in the shape of Roll To Me and Here and Now. It was a big hit in America too, and Justin Currie once said the PRS for Roll To Me paid for his house.

Some Others Suckers Parade was the next album, less successful and slightly more raw, but still better than your average release. But when Can You Do Me Good flopped a few years later, the band were dropped and they agreed to put Del Amitri on hold.

That was in 2003. Since then just one solo album! This is a man responsible for some of the most poetic lyrics in the last 20 years. His solo release What Is Love For in 2007 was great, although not without flaws. But Currie has a following that love his soulful voice, clever and touching lyrics and instant tunes. So does he have to carry on working?

The question here is: Is there an obligation on these artists to deliver? As consumers we might think so. We have bought every record, been to many gigs. Don't they owe us to get off their arses and get recording? But Currie has a right to do what he likes. Although his band became famous through the fans, many moved on without a blink when they didn't release a record for four years.

Fellow Glasgow singer songwriter James Grant has produced 5 solo albums since Love And Money went their ways, but none of the quality and grace of Justin Currie's. Perhaps it's therefore quality not quantity.

But when you have so many ordinary artists releasing album after album, Mr Currie can't you work just a little harder?! After all I am not the only one who considers you a slightly wasted genius. One evening in 1989 I was listening to Radio 1, and they played a remarkable song called Nothing Ever Happens, by up and coming Glasgow band Del Amitri. From that moment on I was musically in love with Justin Currie and his band. Waking Hours, their second album was a well received country rock outing, with every track a winner. The combination of great tunes, poetic lyrics and the soulful voice, made this one of my favourite ever records.

Then came Change Everything, another terrific collection of songs (Always The Last To Know as a hit single) and suddenly fourth album in, came the breakthrough. Twisted was listed in some magazine's top 5 albums of the year and big hits came in the shape of Roll To Me and Here and Now. It was a big hit in America too, and Justin Currie once said the PRS for Roll To Me paid for his house.

Some Others Suckers Parade was the next album, less successful and slightly more raw, but still better than your average release. But when Can You Do Me Good flopped a few years later, the band were dropped and they agreed to put Del Amitri on hold.

That was in THINK YOU HAVE MISSED SOME TEXT HERE...
While there is rightly great anger at MPs for the way they have claimed for TVs and other home furnishings on their expenses, I've been wondering at my own morals. Should I stand in judgement at these people?

The answer we have got from MPs about this so far has been they were doing nothing wrong, they didn't break the rules. To them, it seems that the fact that they look bad isn't enough. They didn't break the rules, they just used them to their advantage. These are public figures and we expect better. BUT, how many of us have pushed the truth a bit on an insurance claim or how many people lie about how they use their car to get cheaper insurance? There are even claims that people are often encouraged to bump up a claim by the assessor. If we all had our finances scrutinised, would we pass the test of 100% honesty?

That aside, the issue of expenses has highlighted a problem familiar to my industry, where radio presenters are sent or offered 'freebies' by pluggers all the time. Is going to see a band in concert a conflict of interests, if that means you're then more likely to play their music on your show. You could argue it is. However, people's repost to this from within the industry is often that they don't get paid very much and freebies are a fair enough bonus for working hard for little reward or thanks.

However, that's exactly what the MPs have been arguing. Because they are paid 'only' 65 thousand pounds, the use of the allowance system gives them a chance to increase earnings and makes them more effective as a representative of the people. While this week's revelations ARE shocking, they're not really surprising. And before we all get high and mighty about the situation, perhaps we should look closer to home.

What do the Beatles mean today in our consumer-driven society?

Well, in actual fact, they mean pretty much what they meant for the youth of 1963, the counter-culture a few years later. They still mark out a playful mentality, a sound of freedom and hope. From 'Love Me Do' to 'Penny Lane', the sound is one of an easily achievable omniscient and latitude. As Lennon put it in 'All You Need Is Love': "It's easy!"

This essentially sums up consumer society: anyone can be the next big thing, the next to live and die in the limelight; everyone is free to join in... "All together now!"

The Beatles, it seems, were less a musical landmark than a landmark in western civilization. A wander round a shopping centre will have you encounter them in various places – from the commercial record store to the niche shop that sells trinkets and odds and ends.

Journalism is sprawled with fleeting references to them in both music and cultural commentaries. Even university professors write books, teach courses and analyse them and their impact on our way of life.

As well as being sold in nearly every market setting, they can be used in the lives of their consumers in various settings and places. People can define childhood parties as playful events simply by playing 'Yellow Submarine' or 'Octopus's Garden'.

Or, they could define their youth through playing 'Penny Lane' or 'Strawberry Fields Forever'. Richard Curtis can sell both 'English weddings' as soundtracked by the Beatles and include them in a speech as an emblem of national pride given by Hugh Grant playing our cinema world prime minister in Love Actually.

It seems their limit for inclusion in our lives is endless. But with the digital re-mastering of the entire Beatles back catalogue, what we are defining is not just a lifestyle or mood but the Beatles themselves. The age in which they shot to fame is long gone yet still remains salient in our mentalities today: an indulgent attitude to consumer products; a love of beautiful idols and other fleeting avatars of sentiment.

With the Beatles, however, they're more solid a bedrock for our consumer sentiments. A glance at their influence on contemporary consumer culture is at first sight not too obvious. It's only when something dresses itself up as Beatles that it becomes readily identifiable (think of last year's release of Panic at the Disco's 'Pretty'. Odd.).
 
However, few of us would be able to identify the direct rip off of Beatles chord sequences in Oasis songs at first listen, because the Beatles' influence is so ingrained in the musical composition of contemporary pop. 

Outside music, the influence of the Beatles is still ever present: think of the phenomena of MySpace and image obsessed teenage culture, well, this is the Beatles, too. When we look at the camera indulgent teenagers on MySpace, their picture is an image representing an imaginary self they themselves have constructed, just as Sgt. Pepper was an imagined representation of alter ego rock stars.

Sold today is a classic consumer product, an idol of monarchical status for consumer society. The Beatles are being resold as a product of both past and present. A sound that is both classic and unique but sold as compatible with today's melting pot music scene.

Think of the LOVE album – a sample album that reconfigures all of the Beatles various career points in one single musical artefact. The Beatles' entire career summarised in 45 minutes. 

The Beatles are a myth of today's consumer society; a tale told to new consumers about the life and afterlife of musical idols. The Beatles have reached the status of legend. They are a product of a distant time, a volcanic eruption of sentiment whose very spirit has settled and still shines through in parts our of contemporary life.

The digital re-mastering of the Beatles recordings means nothing more than the solidification of their immorality. If, one day, we will be able to buy their songs on iTunes, then this only increases our ease of access to the world of Beatlemania, the Summer of Love and the revolution in the head that was the Beatles' influence on our current consumer driven society.

Money cant buy you love but it can buy you the next best thing in consumer society. Nothing says it better than the Beatles.
Watching the demonstrators in London over the last few days getting all worked up over greedy bankers has made me think. This recession could be good. Why? Because it’ll make the youth of the nation angry. Let’s face it; we’ve all got just a little too comfortable over the last decade or so. While some may argue the rich have got richer and the poor, poorer, the truth is that most of us have got better off and have access to materialistic things and opportunities we didn’t have years ago. That’s about to change. If the recession lasts for more than 18 months – all of us will feel not a pinch but a punch. And in the past this has proved good news, for music. If you look back at the sixties, a lot of that creativity came from a post-war doldrums, the punk scene and the following New Romantics, came from a tough and frankly rubbish decade in the seventies. Then Brit-pop followed the late 80 and early 90s crash. But in the last few years it’s all been a bit safe and nice. Many bands have sat in second or third gear providing us with good but ultimately flat sounding records. Only Arctic Monkeys and a few others have risen above the mundane.

The most recent tough economic times were the early eighties when quite frankly for a few years the music scene was all Aceeed and no substance. Oasis and Blur came along partly because of that scene and partly because there had been a slump in the economy. Punk’s anger was partly aimed at old rockers and over indulgent music but also of course at the government and showed a country almost on its knees. ‘Ghost Town’ by the Specials epitomises the music resulting from riots across the UK in the early eighties, but there was so much more too. Hammered as it maybe by the music critics, but the likes of Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Visage, Culture Club and others all produced wonderful music as a result of challenging times in their youth.

Let’s face it – bands like Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight and Snow Patrol could all do with a bit of hardship. In the corporate world, a recession flushes out the badly run and over bloated businesses – for music the same might happen. This is a new world; the internet has dealt large record companies an almost fatal blow. Bands can survive without the big machines. Costs can be cut and the good can survive choppy waters. Let’s hope a few find the voyage so turbulent it shakes them up and they give us some music to remember. It might be too late to save the 00s but the 2010s might start with something very exciting going on. You can only hope.