Local Teen – It’s Not Your Fault You’re Dumb
Records, typically, take a lot of planning. Once that’s done, people have to be brought in to evaluate the plans. And once that process has ended, other people need to be employed to help the band or artist realise their vision.
And while all of that sounds rather dull, it’s just the start of the process. That’s the point at which, if the band is important enough, other people are brought in to advise how the music ought to be presented and promoted.
With so many people on the payroll at any time, it’s no wonder that the music business is going bust. What they need are bands like Local Teen, who are brash enough to put all their ideas into one quick one-two punch of a song, load it up with humour, and all the musical ideas they can find, and propel it out into the world.
Local Teen’s “It’s Not Your Fault You’re Dumb” doesn’t just lead off with a great title, but with music that seems to have been recorded before anybody involved with this had a chance to warm up or drink their morning coffee. It’s a song about coming to terms with being immature, and the sound reflects just that. There couldn’t have been a committee deciding on how this should sound because the meeting would be over before everybody had had the chance to sit down.
Surface wound – I Wrote This Song for the Sleaford Mods
The modern world of fandoms belongs to the obsessive collectors. Found an old original pressing of a Sex Pistols single? Might be able to sell it for a small fortune. An original Star Wars action figure was located in your basement? Put it up on eBay. An original R.R. Martin was left in the house that you’ve just bought? You may have just, unwillingly, invested in a gold mine.
That’s all well and good, and somehow we’ve accepted that collecting things that we’re passionate about is better than facing the grim truths about the world around us. Playing Dungeons & Dragons, while millions of people around the world are thrown into dungeons and mercilessly executed, somehow feels like an exercise in sanity maintenance.
But can’t all these fan obsessions go too far, and will it be tragic, and darkly hilarious when it does? Wasn’t Mark David Chapman just a guy who played The Beatles while reading “The Catcher in the Rye,” something that all of your English teachers advised you not to do?
Surface wound are out there to have a good time, but they’re mad about the world around them. Hearing “I Wrote This Song for the Sleaford Mods,” you get the feeling that the Surface wound’s members may be getting time out to rehearse because their significant others have simply devised a plan to throw them out of the house.
And while the passion for Britain’s post-punk everything-sucks merchants is endearing, damn, is it also scary. Just don’t mix your Sleaford Mods with your Houellebecq, and this should, hopefully, be out of the news.
