They wanna be adored…

Oh, Penny. Where do I start? If you’re going to write a Guardian blog, at least get a few things right…

For a start – ‘I Am The Resurrection’ is 8.13 minutes on my watch…don’t knock off that last second…because, and this is the point, Penny: Every second counts when it comes to The Stone Roses. 

Secondly – not only do you seem to have no grasp of the importance of Stone Roses’ place and meaning within popular musical culture (are we forgetting that glorious moment in ‘89 on ‘Waterfall’ when rhythm and guitars were brought spectacularly back together again after years of existing solitarily apart), but now you’ve gone and brought in the whole chromsome debate again. I thought we’d cleared this up a few blogs ago!

For the record: I am a girl. I adore The Stone Roses…and for me, their debut is up there with The La’s (probably another debut Guardian writer Penny Anderson deems ‘overrated’ yet is as perfect a debut as any band is ever likely to get.)

Lumping The Stone Roses stodgily as a “lad’s band” offers nothing in the way of an active explanation. Because they attract a largely male audience, does that void them of significance? If so, then we might as well throw out The Smiths, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC whilst we’re at it.

Thirdly, are you really suggesting Reni (that’s Reni, Penny, not Rennie. He’s not an indigestion tablet) was merely a drummer to patronisingly pat on the back for simply “loving music”? Get thee to ‘Elephant Stone’ at once.

Let me get back to the question of those 8.13 minutes. 8.13 minutes of undeniable musical prowess by any musician’s standards. Does Neil Young’s ‘Down By The River’ lose any of it’s power because it chugs over 5 minutes? No, because each second is on it’s way to something. ‘I Am The Resurrection’ is always going somewhere. And as John Squire’s guitars jingles and the bass line soars 3/4 of the way through, they finally bring you home. In all sense and purposes, this is a prog-rock song. It’s the ultimate prog-rock song for the throngs of followers who were looking for a band to finally take them back home.

On a more personal note, I remember sending my first love (unrequited, naturally) a Stone Roses CD to his university digs when I was 19. Strapped to the record was a message explaining just what ‘I Am The Resurrection’ meant to me. I recall something along the lines of “and for that 8.13 seconds, let all be well and good with the world.” As if this would unlock his adoration for Ian Brown, and in turn, unleash his love for me. (Naturally it didn’t work. I lapsed into The Smiths soon after).

But that’s the power of a life-changing song. I felt the same way when I heard Love’s ‘Alone Again Or’ all those years ago, or when my mate Kev turned me onto the wonders of XTC one random Saturday afternoon. When you feel like a song was written for you, and only you – that’s the mark of a true life-changing song.

The Stone Roses wrote life-changing songs. They deserve to be celebrated. Long may they reign. Bring on that re-issue!

Men are from Marr, women are from…

It’s been some time since a supplement feature has provoked a tirade-fuelled blog from me.

The feature in question holds fort on page 12 of today’s Sunday Times Culture. The headline kicks off a patronising theme that clumsily treads its lumpy boots throughout an entire double page of un-researched, irrelevant and back-dated opinions, peppered with woeful generalisations and laughable stereotypes. 

Apparantly ‘Men are into Marr, women prefer Amos’ and the common dividing line between the sexes is down to musical integrity. (Namely, that men have it, and women…don’t.)

Couple this clunky manifesto, with a headline that reads ‘Listen, darling, they’re playing your song’ and perhaps you can see where I’m going with this…

For broadsheet writer Andrew Smith, the sexes are divided and consequently listen to two types of music. For our reading delight (and perhaps this is Smith’s handicapped idea of contextualisation) he lists both, defining them as thus:

ARTISTS THAT WOMEN LOVE BUT MEN HATE

James Blunt, Take That, Cat Stevens (Cat Stevens? ‘The thinking woman’s James Blunt’ apparantly. I’m sorry, does this man know anything about musical integrity himself? Or does he just compile tedious articles about it?), Justin Timberlake, Tori Amos, Alanis Morisette, Simply Red, Janis Joplin, Early Genesis (I’ve italicised Early there because Smith clearly didn’t think he had been patronising enough, therefore he quickly adds ‘Before they for all serious and jumped on the boys’ side’. Lovely)

ARTISTS THAT MEN LOVE BUT WOMEN HATE

Neil Young, The Smiths, The House Of Love, The Fall, Steely Dan, Joy Division, Gang Of Four, Led Zeppelin.

To label this feature as testosterone-fuelled, cock waving ignorance masquerading as mature arts-based journalism would be doing this piece a disservice. It’s a winning formula that (at least) goes to show just how bogged down this industry still is in blatant sexist stereotypes. 

I am probably less shocked that (and I’m going to hedge my bets here and categorise Andrew Smith just like he has attempted to categorise an entire sex) a male writer, approaching his middle-years subsequently enjoys a double-page spread in a weekend broadsheet with a piece that (yet again) scrapes the idea-barrel. It’s a running theme that regularly defines music journalism as we know it.

Getting back to the feature at hand, and one question remains: Are we really still expected to believe (in todays’ climate) that the world is actually made up of two such simpleton generalisations?

Let me crank this down a notch: What is Andrew Smith actually trying to say here? That men scratch their bollocks to Led Zep with a can of Stella in hand whilst girls whip up cosmopolitans in their pink pyjamas to James Blunt? 

As Smith creakily attempts to back up this (unimaginative excuse for an opinion piece) with scientific research that he clearly has no knowledge on (or indeed, experience in), the feature descends further into circus journalism.

Merely attributing his science to “recent research” (recent research where exactly?), he goes on to rhetorically raise the question of whether the musical divide between the sexes is a direct result of how differently we as adults talk to our children…and so he meanders:

‘…if we talk differently to our girls, as we very well might without even realising, could we be predisposing them to different types of music later in life?’

I shit you not…

Speaking as a woman who obsesses over Neil Young, The Smiths and Led Zeppelin, just as much (and with as much passion if not more) then her male counterparts; I have found today’s feature an embarrassing and insulting waste of paper, endorsed by countless male readers and editors no doubt, but as far off the mark as one is ever likely to get.

Men are from Marr indeed…

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