Musical Genres That Don’t Exist Part Three – Nu Yorkshire
Well its been a bloody while, eh, eh don’t you think? Pull up a pew and listen to my ranty scribbles once more. To me the best form of journalism is ill-informed journalism. This tends to lead to far more adventitious stories; the kind of stories that stop you in your tracks (if you’re a train) or just stop you if you’re a human; the kind of stories that you don’t believe because they sound so mind bogglingly impossible, yet must be true as they exist in print or on our blog. I mean if you cannot trust the Internet who can you trust? Would the world have been a more interesting place if we were informed that the recently passing of Michael Jackson (‘This Is It’ review coming soon!) was actually a killer sting operation by MI6 to defend the security of our believed nation. It would not be true but it would make for a bloody good read. Anyhow I seem to be going off topic, however a blog posted is thought out and edited so everything I have left in could quite easily have been taken out by me and replaced by real content thus its kind of impossible to go off topic. ANYHOW! my point is I am in no way qualified to talk about these topics and have no authority to do so, but shall anyhow. If you’re cool with this then pray continue…
New again. If it’s not new its crap. That’s the way i see it. Youth is the only force in our world worth fighting for right? Take cats, everyone loves a kitten, it grows up into been a cat… luckily for a friend of mine recently her cat got stuck down after the transformation, after a week or to of feeling sorry she now get to get another kitten.  I am use this analogy and apply it to music, humm. New bands these days, snapped up by a label and pushed into the studio with their heads spinning with a “great” deal and squeezing an album out quickly, then second album maybe. Then BANG you’re gone. Not much longevity but the entire ‘New Yorkshire’ scene seems to have been built on this premise, bands don’t seem to have a chance to build and develop (I am talking about the heavily promoted acts here…not the many fine musicians of this country who have been perfecting there sound for years).
Lets take 3 Big names, The Pigeon Detectives, The Cribs and Kaiser Chiefs. All massively successful bands that struck a chord with the mainstream audience. Good press and indeed some good music from talented people (some bloody awful stuff as well). But can we see the Pigeon Detectives towing the line in 10 years time? Probably not. Am not really sure what my point here is, it’s just more of an observation.
However this is not getting to the point of NU Y0rkEshire, the term was just to describe an apparent creative surge in the region by the popular music press.  But surely the press creates such hype then aptly christens it with its own terms. Its that irritating thing with the boxes once again. Did this surge ever actually happen? Maybe the London centric media just got board with the London scene and turned its attentions up north. In which case we should be very pleased? Well I would be if the attention were still here. Has the medias love affair with Yorkshire ended? The fair lady batted her eye lids, got everyone surrounding her then lifted up her dress to reveal a rather unpleasant surprise.
Humm, If we had new Yorkshire what was going on before then? Old Yorkshire? Black Dyke Band, nahhhh we have some fantastic musical folk. For some reason the only ones who I feel like mentioning are the wedding present who are good and have been around forever, If you want to know some more I suggest googling Yorkshire and Music and if you cannot be arsed to do that click here.
So is 3U y00rkseI3Rzi! still going on? Well yeah durrrr, its impossible for it not to be since any music that is new and from Yorkshire is just that but does will it garner the same attention as the last few years. Well quite frankly if they are good then yes. I don’t think bands receive more attention if there rubbish just because they belong to a particular scene (I can think of some terrible Yorkshire bands who were around while NU y98fhdiaershire was kicking off).
We have have always had a sold musical scene here in Yorkshire and I feel that it will continue to produce fine popular musicians for many years. At the core of the new Yorkshire crazy was the Internet and Myspace. I think that maybe people started to listen to bands from other scenes a lot more and this is probably where the hyper machine came from in the end. I know i did (who would had thought that London had a music scene!)
Good times and watch out for you eyes. and thanks for bearing with me.
Adam, you’ve taught me a new word! “adventitious”
You are actually mad, aren’t you.
My hairdresser is the principal percussionist for the Black Dyke Band, y’know.
What, no mention of Be Bop Deluxe, Allan Holdsworth or Jake Thackray (to say nothing of Gygafo or Terry Durham’s “Crystal Telephone”?)
That is the “Dewsbury Noir” genre made flesh, my son, long before David Peace appropriated the term!
I wish I could say I liked this post, but I don’t. Sorry, but I think you are off the mark.