Off With The Joy Division Oven Gloves, No More Dull Musical Influences!

First and foremost, lets get my feelings on ‘Primary Colours’ by The Horrors out of the way. I’m actually going to join the chorus of positive critical noise and say that it is a truly great record, an exciting and unexpected leap forward for a band sculpting esoteric influences into some glorious, spine tingling pop.

So why is it frequently being described as ‘The third Joy Division’ album? Why would this be a good thing? Aren’t we fed up yet with the shadow cast over popular music from two mediocre albums and the tragically romanticised suicide of a young man?

In most musical circles, critiquing Joy Division is akin to walking into a house party loudly cracking jokes about Josef Fritzl before proceeding to take a massive steaming dump in the corner: You just don’t do it. This awed revisionism seemingly started with Interpol (who actually resemble The Chameleons much more than anyone else) but when will the unhealthy obsession end?

The ethos and mystique of the band have always appealed but the actual tunes? They have about five decent timeless songs if that. They are a black and white analogue band in a Technicolor digital age, monochrome and dreary, the perpetual student Peter Pan band whose followers need never grow up.

While we’re on the subject- Why do bands like The Cars get constantly discarded from the new wave Talking Heads / Blondie/ Television axis of cool?

Their derided status has nothing to do with how good the songs are, the first album is a breathtaking pop classic but they have been unfairly evacuated from hip influence territory. Its like new bands indulging us in their fan worship of The Smiths all day long but they won’t dare mention Prefab Sprout or The Slits taking all of the feminist punk kudos, leaving The Raincoats out in the cold save for the consolation prize of a passing mention in Kurt Cobain's journals.
These reference points for songwriting and aesthetics have become dull and the end result is White Lies or whoever else will follow them with a generic baritone and vague sense of dread, straight to a number one album.

Where are the new bands inspired by Mudhoney? Or Husker Du or Teenage Fanclub?

The solution? Well, I’m no cultural fascist but how about we start with a legal ban on all new bands from owning any records by Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen or The Cure? As much as we may love epic doomed romance, we are in dire need of a change. And someone needs to step up and form that band who have perfect pop songs and an authentic sense of ‘Otherness’ about them, landing somewhere between The Lemonheads, The Replacements and Sonic Youth so that I can stop fantasising about how refreshingly ace they would sound!