Why Everett True is right

OK, then, where are the female Pink Floyds, Led Zeppelins and Iron Maidens?

It’s a fair question, but I’ll ask you this in return: why aren’t there 10 times as many Floyds and Zeps – and where are they now? Those bands that invented new ways of making music – the ones that truly altered our expectations of what music can achieve – are now old and grey and sometimes dead. Who will replace them, from either sex? If you tell me Arcade Fucking Fire I’ll bash you with this keyboard!

I guess Arcade Fire (a mixed-gender band) sums it up: they don’t entirely suck, but they’re not that good, either. They might sound “wow” for a few bars but that’s all that song does for the next four minutes, and by the end of it I’m left cold and bored and disappointed.

I could go through any one of the Pitchfork-praised set and find the same: albums with only the shallowest of appeal. It’s like a Monet – great from a distance but when you get up close it’s just a mess.

Wait, are we agreeing here?

I guess we are. It’s just this fear I have that once the current crop of game-changers retire or die of old age, there won’t be anyone new to replace them. If I was Pitchfork, I’d give music, in general, a 6.1 out of 10.

If you were Pitchfork, you’d like Arcade Fire. Besides, didn’t you spend half the last decade listening to MTV rock?

Yes, but when I was listening to those bands – Lacuna Coil, Disturbed, 30 Seconds To Mars – I didn’t pretend they were great bands any more than if I grab a Double Whopper on the way out I pretend it’s haute cuisine. It’s just … Fast Music. I just took it because it was there and available and I didn’t know there was better to be heard. It was only when I heard great music again that I lost the taste for what I’d accepted as palatable before. What I don’t understand is how people can hear the great stuff and then insist that so many very mediocre bands are other than just plain ordinary.

So how does this relate to the lack of male Kate Bushes?

I think we need to hop back a little bit.

(continues overleaf)

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by Princess Stomper

Princess Stomper is a former magazine contributor and music researcher, who now works in a marketing department for an academic organisation. She lives in the English countryside and runs the Reinspired blog.

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