Six of one

Last week, I went to see a double-header featuring two bands of a similar vintage and of similar status, the Manic Street Preachers and Suede. A canny idea for these two doyens of British rock, putatively co-headlining, both playing 75 minute sets, swapping who gets to go last as they tour the country to big crowds.

I've generally been a lot more of a Manics fan than Suede. but this was very much Suede's night. The Manics were decent. Their sound was a bit muffled. I guess, even though they were supposed co-headliners, the later band got to use more of the "sound budget". Obviously, on top of that, people are generally more chatty earlier in the evening as they meet their friends and the sun's still up. 

Still, they were good - very nice to hear Little Baby Nothing, No Surface All Feeling, From Despair to Where etc . But Suede were really great. Brett Anderson is in his prime. He looks and acts like a 56 year old man who runs 50 miles a week. Not an inch of fat, but not in a wasted drug-fiend way. They were magnificent -  I've seen them twice before, and did not find them to be so. They released a truly excellent album in 2022 - I guess that helps.

Not that the Manics are a nostalgia act either. I'd contend there are six major British guitar acts of the 90s, and of the six, the Manics have been by far the busiest - the only ones to never split up, never even go on hiatus, despite the most trying circumstances.

They've released 14 albums, of which I think at least half are really good, including a handful from this century. Admirable in every way. 

Who are the other five bands? There may be a case for a couple of others, but I'd say it's Oasis, Blur, Pulp, Radiohead and the aforementioned Suede.

Why them? I guess, on a basic level, the criteria are ... long career, big sales, big cultural impact, could fill an arena of a certain size at the time and also now.

Of those six, Oasis were, domestically and worldwide, the biggest, and probably the only ones whose reputation is thoroughly degraded. I know lots of people would still go and see an Oasis reunion, but it feels to me that amongst most music lovers, their good will drained away a long time ago. They left a trail of mediocre records, some bad interpersonal vibes, and Noel Gallagher's increasingly awful personality.

Pulp have actually only done seven albums, and none since 2001. They are a very popular live act but have opted against going back into the studio. I myself was never a big Pulp fan, and I tend to find the worst people on twitter and in real life are those that reply? "Pulp" to the Question: Blur or Oasis. Them and people who say Bob Dylan couldn't sing ....

Suede obviously had pre- and post-Butler eras and until their comeback, one would have felt that Butler leaving was very much the downturn in the band's claim to greatness. Not so sure, now. I reckon Autofiction is in their top 3 albums. They are, I think, for most people, the least "big" of the six, albeit they arguably kicked off the whole Britpop fandango. They've released nine albums.

Radiohead are on another level really, in terms of transatlantic acclaim set against big record sales. I don't particularly feel they have a kinship with any of the other bands. They've done nine albums.

And Blur? Well, I love the Blur, and i've written the most about them. They've done nine albums. It strikes me that one of the keys to their success is that they're the truly most versatile (i guess apart, arguably, from Radiohead, but even then, Radiohead are always Radioheady). You really don't know what a Blur album or song is going to sound like. That is exciting and means they have a lot of different types of fans. 

Those are the Big Six, I think. Supergrass are not far off Suede in numbers, but I think Supergrass were always part of something not the start of something. The Verve were massive for a moment, but don't really have any kind of longstanding catalogue.

I made a list of other bands, and put them into different categories to convince myself why they're different from the Top 6, but now can't quite remember exactly what those categories were ... but here they are anyway ...

 - Stone Roses, Supergrass, The Verve, Elastica, Primal Scream, James

 - Ash, Sleeper, Shed Seven, Cast, OCS,  Bluetones, Boo Radleys, Charlatans, Mondays, Kula Shaker, Dodgy, Lush, Echobelly

- B and S, Teenage Fanclub, SFA, Beta Band, Spiritualized, Divine Comedy, Gene

- Cornershop, Catatonia, Travis, Stereophonics, Embrace, Mansun, Longpigs

- Garbage, Placebo, Jamiroquai, Prodigy, Underworld, Chemical Brothers, Terrorvision, Lightning Seeds, Reef

Anyway, a bit of a pointless bit of writing all in, but i wonder how many of these bands could boost their live sales with a solid double-bill. 

Kinnock

It is very moving that we no longer have a Conservative government. It has blighted my middle adulthood, cast a dark shadow over how I view my fellow citizens, and made the country we live in immeasurably worse in every single way. Hopefully we never have one again.

It was a strange feeling staying up to watch on Thurs/Fri, though, because it was, statistically, of course, just a little disappointing. I told myself beforehand to just be happy if Labour won and, in particular, just be happy if Labour got over 400, but, still, we were all secretly hoping that Farage got put back in his box and that the Tories be reduced to 50 or 60. Was never going to happen of course, but I only mean to say it was not, as experienced, an unambiguously joyful night. 

Only once did I allow it to really sink in, did I really feel a brief moment of enormous joy that the national nightmare was over. That was when Neil Kinnock was talking. Still going strong, old Kinnock, grieving, rueful and proud, talking more rich and romantic common sense than almost anyone else.

Somewhere in my childhood I became left-wing. I guess I wasn't left-wing in 1987, when I was 8, and I was told that Kinnock's Labour might shut down my public school. That seemed a bit much. 

But I think I was by 1992, just about. I liked Kinnock, for one thing. He lived near me, and I saw him occasionally. He smiled and gave me a thumbs up once (though I stuck my tongue out). His house had a nice red door. But, trivialities aside, by the age of 13, I was moving towards myself. 

People really thought Labour were going to win that year. I remember watching what I think was the National TV Awards a month or so before the election, and a writer called Alan Plater, who won a lifetime achievement award, gave a speech about the hope of a Labour government and the damage done to the North and the arts and communities by the Tories, and I think that was the first time i caught the bug, little public school boy sitting in front of his telly in Ealing. Me with my Brassed Off/Our Friends in the North politics.

This is the real shit, I thought. This is going to be great. 

It wasn't to be. To be fair, Major's much-mocked 92-97 is probably the least vile Tory government of my lifetime, and I didn't spend my teenage years as a rampant lefty, as religion took over, but mine was always a pretty socialist Christianity, and by the time the God disappeared, the politics were solidly entrenched.

So I cried a little when Neil Kinnock was talking on Thursday night, because he reminded me that it's hard, whatever the circumstances, for Labour to get in. Very fucking hard. Because the other lot lie and cheat and load the dice and people fall for it, and people hold Labour to a far higher standard, of course, and too many people don't realise that it really is important to be "not as shit". "Not as shit" in every way, every day, for 14 years, would have been an awful lot less shit, even when it seemed like it was a bit shit.

Anyway, there's no time to fuck around now. The Corbynite left, which i'd broadly thought I belonged to, from a distance, without the bad stuff, has really disgraced itself by its inability to not respond like spoilt babies. I hate the phrase "the adults are back in charge" but, ok, we'll see.