While watching The The
perform on Friday night, various thoughts swimming about in my head
came together and trends became more clearly understood. When bands
start out, rarely do they realize how innovative they really are. There
is a tendancy among many bands to disregard early records because
everything NEW they're working on is the most important to them at the
time. Unfortunately, they could be completely missing why older stuff
can be so important to the fans. On the first few attempts at a record,
a band will generally have limited funds. Three (of many) possible
scenarios can occur:
- The band has to be tight, aggressive, quick, fierce and talented.
Recording studio rates can be expensive, and for bands like Wire, REM
or The Police, funds were probably tight and songs had to be recorded
in as few takes as possible to get the entire album in.
- Lack of resources forces a band to make more with less:
2-person and 1-person bands utilize the available technology. Groups
like OMD, Human League and The The come to mind. Even Pink Floyd were
playing with electronics long before they became classic rock
dinosaurs.
- Shyness and a lack of self-confidence results in a band
masking their songs with sound. This worked for blurry dreampop greats
like Slowdive and Jesus and Mary Chain.
Alienating old fans, all of these innovators aged into their roles of
generic rock musicians. Sure, their songwriting skills might have
improved, their production skills too, but their popularity dwindled as
time went on while they pursued more popular sounds rather than
sticking with what worked and progressed along that route. All these
examples have either given up, are pretty close to giving or should
just give up because there's simply no interest any more. Keep in mind,
not all bands end up like this, there's a whole list on the Music page
of brainwashed.com which includes many bands who didn't!