Oh, I think you'd really like it SR. Get yourself on LimeWire.

(and yeah, "Some Girls" is daylight robbery really)

On the substantive: I think this is tricky. There's no shortage of bands like Kasabian who've inherited Oasis' Mantle of Blokey Lairiness together with their love of beer and cocaine, but in some ways I prefer "irritating" to "dreary". It's the sheer so-what-ness of so much indie these days that's its true curse. The macho swaggerers have at least got something about them. Something annoying, but something.

Can we blame the Athletes and Coldplays on Radiohead? Hmm. I'm not sure. I'm far from being a fan of Radiohead, but it's obvious, even to a tin-eared Radioheadsceptic like me, that they were always pretty multidimensional. There were a number of directions in which their legacy could have been taken. It wasn't written in the stars that the bands of the noughties would draw only on Radiohead's downbeat moaniness, and jettison all the band's musicality and inventiveness. Or at least, it wasn't written in the stars that the ones who did would find such ready buyers for their pointless dirges.

Estelle– that single with Kanye is really irritating, so smooth it's offensive. Gnarls Berkeley- yeah, he's, sporadically, brilliant, sure. Erykah- yeah, she's been pretty good since she got some hiphop producers in. But Kelly Rowland and Ne-Yo– nah, I've never heard anything by them that wasn't insipid to the max.

It's hit and miss, RnB. I don't think there's anyone out there who's a quarter as exciting as Timbaland when he first broke through (and half of the ones who are good, eg Rhianna, sound a lot like Timbaland anyway).

Spearmint Rhino wrote:

QUOTE:
I think you've missed the point. You couldn't buy The Strokes look off the peg from JD Sports (or indeed your local goth-metal emporium) even if you wanted to, so if the way The Strokes looked excited you, it forced you to think for yourself a little bit and experiment. Most people ended up with their own individual version of it, because you couldn't just replicate it exactly. That was a very positive development.

Ah but what about the original genesis of the scally look? You are aware that it was copied wholesale off the girls of St Etienne?

Plus ever since then, at the sharper end, it's always been about what isn't available on the British high street. You find stuff on the internet, or on Euro away trips, or in the adidas factory shops. Or even, before they was ruined by over exposure, budget places like TK Maxx and Brunswick Warehouse.

Five or six years ago they were the places to source rare adidas gear - trainers that now go on ebay for 80 quid were going for 20 to 25 in those gaffs, in unique colour schemes as well. it's a sort of neo-mod one upmanship and always has been.

I'd no sooner go in a JJB that you would, SR.

Harry Lime wrote:

QUOTE:
Spearmint Rhino wrote:

QUOTE:
I think you've missed the point. You couldn't buy The Strokes look off the peg from JD Sports (or indeed your local goth-metal emporium) even if you wanted to, so if the way The Strokes looked excited you, it forced you to think for yourself a little bit and experiment. Most people ended up with their own individual version of it, because you couldn't just replicate it exactly. That was a very positive development.

Ah but what about the original genesis of the scally look? You are aware that it was copied wholesale off the girls of St Etienne?

Plus ever since then, at the sharper end, it's always been about what isn't available on the British high street. You find stuff on the internet, or on Euro away trips, or in the adidas factory shops. Or even, before they was ruined by over exposure, budget places like TK Maxx and Brunswick Warehouse.

Five or six years ago they were the places to source rare adidas gear - trainers that now go on ebay for 80 quid were going for 20 to 25 in those gaffs, in unique colour schemes as well. it's a sort of neo-mod one upmanship and always has been.

I'd no sooner go in a JJB that you would, SR.

You seem to be off into some kind of elite football casual realm there. We're not talking about that. We're talking about the Oasis look, and its massive cultural repercussions.

Oh sure, and Oasis were very reactionary and undoubtedly a bad thing, but Noel in particular sees himself as part of that "elite vanguard" rather than man at JJB.

Just thought I'd mention it because it's a subject that interests me.

Harry Lime wrote:

QUOTE:
Oh sure, and Oasis were very reactionary and undoubtedly a bad thing, but Noel in particular sees himself as part of that "elite vanguard" rather than man at JJB.

Just thought I'd mention it because it's a subject that interests me.

Well, I do know all about the football casual thing, from an arms-length distance. I saw a lot of my ex-mod mates go into that in the mid-80s (via a transitional Style Council-influenced Europhile phase), and I used to follow it all in The Face etc, even though I hated that look myself.

The thing is, sure, maybe at the very elite level the top crews of football supporters could spot the minute differences in the labels their opponents were wearing, but the average bloke and blokette didn't 'get' that, and on a broader level it just meant that everyone started wearing mass-manufactured sportswear. And Oasis and their fans are coming from that phenomenon, I reckon (via Baggy, of course).

Well... I'm uncomfortable with the word "crews" myself... I go to the match but I don't see myself as "a lad" and I'd hate to think I dressed like a football hooligan.

As I say, I see it as a neo-mod thing. I've always liked those particular clothes, and finding a rare adidas jumper in a place like Preston TJ Hughes is as exciting as finding a Julian Casablancas style denim jacket in Camden would be.

If I saw the same jumper in JJB a week later, I genuinely wouldn't wear it again!

I pretty much agree with Neil's opening but I think some of the blame must lie with a band that came before Oasis and were an obvious influence on them: The Stone Roses. Ever since them, British indie rock has been mostly backwards looking.

Ah, but then surely you should blame Primal Scream, because the Roses were making a goth racket of a completely different kind until they heard Velocity Girl.

Oasis were a watershed unlike any other band, it's hard to deny that. The press happily fed the monster however - and I include MM in this - in fact arguably they even created it.

I'm certain Melody Maker even covered Oasis before the NME.

QUOTE:
Ah but what about the original genesis of the scally look? You are aware that it was copied wholesale off the girls of St Etienne?

I hope you mean the city and not the band, arf arf.

Hah! Easy for a Londoner to get confused on these sartorial matters though (Liquidator = Chelsea, right?) All the cockneys bar Millwall were still wearing donkey jackets and air ware until about summer 1980.

Even Carlisle were on the case by then!

Who is this Harry Lime?

Blimey, this didn't take long.

Well I've been keeping my head down since the Vienna thing went tits up...

Oasis did their damage more than a decade ago (and the Stone Roses nearly 2 decades ago). Radiohead's damage was all OK Computer and The Bends, so I think falls out of "the last decade" category, too.