Foreword: I’ve been out of education for so long that I think I’ve forgotten how to spell and those tricky little buggers like full stops and that so bear (bare? blurgh…) with me.
Well… I guess I sort of have to admit that I started writing this post as a reaction to the BBC’s Sound of 2011 longlist announcement, which was whenever that happened, most of the days have blended into one so I’m not too hot with months and weeks anymore which is equal parts liberating and cripplingly impractical for all of its romantic attraction. Most of the trouble is that I now live here and get paid this to do this, and clearly have been spending the rest of my time learning how to abuse wordpress to waste your time in mildly-amusing, vaguely off topic wanderings.
Speaking of abusing wordpress, if that wasn’t a satisfactory excuse then let me go for the sympathy vote – as always, always happens whenever I set foot outside of a trusty internet connection, wordpress detrousered itself and waved through a hacker of a moral-less, talentless capitalist from Slough (fair enough, he’s probably depressed). He (and we’re assuming it’s a he for stereotypical-villain convenience) thought that it would be a bright idea to trick people looking for new music on a web site into giving said music web-site their credit card details. If depressed Slough resident is reading: you could probably hack this site hundreds of times, but that is never going to work seeing as the success of music blogs is based on the fact that you can get music for free, so that plan is pretty fatally flawed from the start… Cheer up and get a job, or at least steal from the government instead of the general public. Is there no integrity left in thievery?
Anyway… Just to direct us slightly towards what this post was intending to say; yesterday the BBC shocked all in the world of music-dom by announcing the Brit-schooled woman with past chart success as a writer, and present chart success with her own song (which, as far as I can tell, is only popular because Stephen Fry made it so via twitter) as the “Sound of 2011”. Call me cynical, because I am, but… Becky who is 10 and from Milton Keynes and loves X Factor and Zac Efron could have done that for them. This gave me an opportunity to pretend that I had been waiting for the announcement to unleash my own list upon the world, but I think that that dishonesty would probably put me on a level with my friend from Slough, so, instead, have it for what it is; here is a list of artists, all of whom I love, some of whom I think are going to sell some records to Becky next year, and all of whom are well worth spending 3 minutes working out whether or not you like them. You don’t even have to put your card details in, trust me, it’s a brilliant deal.
Two trends bucked by Summer Camp within 4 minutes:
A video that’s actually worth watching instead of the usual self aggrandising bullshit with fancy lights and self-conscious dance routines designed to sell the record. The footage is from “En kärlekshistoria” by Roy Andersson (apparently, as if I know anything about 1970s obscure cinema). Random, but at least they’re more interested in their aesthetic than marketing.
Said video is accompanied by a song that is just compounding how much we love Summer Camp, rather unlike the usual first-shag of an underwhelming let down that some of the most hyped artists wheel out before the public for their first-single-proper.
Oh, and they released it all on Vimeo. God they are cool.
I know I said there would be just two points, but now I’ve got into this trés organised numbered system I’m quite enjoying it. It’s worth mentioning that this is the first single from their debut EP, “Young”, out in September on Moshi Moshi, and if you decided to buy it, it would probably make them quite happy. If not then there’s a free mp3 for you below.
I get myself into this situation often. I’ll try to claim that I’m just making attempts at achieving some sort of perfect-seasonal alignment for the tone of the band name, but the truth probably lies nearer to my being quite busy most of the time. So I feel stuck between feeling like I should have posted about Summer Camp a few months back, and being “too late” and just bandwagon jumping. But the whole one-upmanship of trying to post about bands before everybody else is blatantly ridiculous. So it’s late. But it’s here.
The unpretentiously shining pop music that Summer Camp are making sounds like all of those teenage summer months condensed into three minute rays of burning nostalgia, fleshed out with a sense of purpose, not-giving-a-fuck and bursting raw drums that all pull them back from the wrong side of twee and excessively sentimental. That said, if you’re looking to exercise your macho-ears then you’re better off slobbering over the knuckle dragging legacy of Britpop; Summer Camp are unapologetically fey at times, but their bravery to attempt something completely different is far bolder than aping 1995, and as a result they are only something to be admired. And if they’re anything like as good live as we have been hearing, then it won’t be long before every crevice on the internet will be declaring their keyboard based love. Bleeding bandwagon jumpers.
RSS
Newsletter
Twitter
NetworkedBlogs
