Editors - 'An End Has A Start'
In genetics and reproduction, it's always considered to be a really bad idea if the gene pool you're swimming in is so shallow it would make the damp patch on a sweaty plastic chair - like they have in fast food restaurants on a hot day - look like the Atlantic. Your offspring would be weak, and prone to genetic defects, like having two brains...on your back. This is one of the many reasons why it's considered to be a really bad idea if you marry your own cousin, another one being the total chaos at the church when the ushers ask family members if they're with the bride or the groom.
In music, the same rules should also apply. If you're getting a band together, and you all really like the music made by one other band - let's say Joy Division, just as a useful reference point - it's possibly not a brilliant idea to fuse all of your learning-to-play inexperience with all of Joy Division's musical ideas, because the best you can hope for is to get really, really good at playing music just like Joy Division used to do.
In the case of the Editors, it is somehow becoming seen as bad form for reviewers to mention that this is essentially what they do, because a ) people clearly love the band, and b) there aren't any new ideas under the sun, after all, and c) doesn't everyone steal musical ideas from the artists they love?
There's also the idea that it is somehow boring to keep harping on about Joy Division, as if this comparision has been concocted by the music press, just to annoy the band and their fans.
So, in the spirit of fair play, and moving the debate along a bit, can I just say that I will happily stop reviewing Editors songs using Joy Division as a prime reference when they stop making Editors songs using Joy Division as a prime reference.
This song, for example, is grand. It's anthemic, urgent, hook-laden indie rock with a huge beating heart and dark wisdom running through it like the words in a stick of rock. If Ian Curtis out of Joy Division had not died, and the band had kept making the kind of music they were making when he did die, well this would be the kind of song you would want them to be coming out with nowadays.
And if that sounds like faint praise (with an equally underwhelming star rating), well that's just because sound like a very good facsimilie of where Joy Division might be these days is a genetically weak thing to aim for, making Editors the two-nosed inbred cousin of your dad's record collection. You can't dismiss them totally, but nor can you claim they are a blueprint for future generations, otherwise humankind as we know it is doomed.
Download: Out now
CD Released: August 27th
(Fraser McAlpine)
Comments
MY AUNT LINDA TAUGHT RUSSEL LEETCH!!! *ahem* sorry about that. just wanted to say :D
unfortunately, the editors don't really appeal to me :(
Amd I will happily stop burning effigies of Editors when they stop making Editors songs. Full stop.
Not that I would recognise an Editor if I ran over one. Again. And again. And again...