undercurrent

May 12, 2004

Revenge of the Larky

I am way behind the times, but less than may appear, cos I just forgot to complete and post this up weeks ago...

 

I only ever listen to Radio 1 when I'm driving, so I've only just heard The Streets' new single yesterday. I laughed...I smiled and smiled...I almost wept tears of joy...I loved it. First of all, he's mental - what unfathomable depth of recreational drug use is necessary to result in someone's coming up with this - and actually releasing it...?

Secondly, sonically there's more in there than some are giving him credit for.
i) although by some measures this couldn't be further from Grime, it partakes of similar developments in terms of lyrical rhythm, ie weirdly off-centre yet semi-metronomic delivery rather than the sliding, liquid too-late-too-early delivery of post-WuTang hiphop, making of the MC a comical malfunctioning monosyllabic verbodroid rather than byzantine meterological poesy (pints of carling vs kgs of tikal?).
ii) that sweet melodic vocal interlude (not done by Skinner I think, but by one of his regular mates/collaborators) remind me of nothing so much as Syd Barrett - modal english folk tinged with blues, thick harmonic layers, the sing-song innocence. The last thing you'd expect, and yet perhaps not, because...
iii) the rich historical resonances - the fact that you can not only detect most obviously, the glam stomp/status quo thing, but also chas'n'dave and pg wodehouse is testament to the fact that he's unwittingly picked up a thread that goes all the way back to east-end vaudeville and beyond, and forwards through Barrett, The Two Ronnies, Lennon&McCartney, ahem...Right Said Fred (but seriously, it does, if somewhat knowingly), etc. etc.

I recently heard a radio programme about the Ted Dicks and Mike Rudge, who wrote 'Hole in the Ground' and 'Right Said Fred': intriguingly, George Martin was the producer for these 'novelty' hits, and although by the late sixties such songs had very much gone out of fashion, overtaken by the hard-edged import of American rock'n'roll, there was a fair amount of influence (obvious if you listen) from what Dicks and Rudge called their 'larky' (great word!) songs from the post-war years, and The Beatles whimsical pieces like Yellow Submarine, Octopus's Garden, Maxwell's Silver Hammer, etc; The Beatles reinvigorating rock'n'roll (or injecting it with insipid anglophilia, depending on your pov) with the comical, parochial, narrative style descended from the larky repertoire that they grew up with, and which in turn reflected the turning point where undemanding, simple forms of entertainment rich in the tradition of the working classes met with the emergence of a common, 'classless' media-driven culture, an undecidably cusp of folk/pop form where although the folksy 'authenticity' of the comedy drove the popularity, the converse was also true, cultural currency had begun to emerge from mere popularity (As much as this musical line, Dicks and Rudge belong to the lineage of a certain type of TV comedy, with its characters that become common currency, and its endlessly repeatable catchphrases).

Dicks and Rudge recall that a great moment of vindication, proving the pedigree of this lineage in the opposite direction, came when Noel Coward chose 'Right Said Fred' on Desert Island Discs. (Robin Carmody can probably do a more comprehensive job than I in expanding on these connections...?)

Skinner is showing that this heritage need not be curtailed at the point when 'BBC accents' are consigned to ridicule, country estates are province of business meetings rather than bumbling-parson comedies, and when Hancock's working-class common man is an unrecognisable ghost of another world.
Skinner confidently reclaims the genre as his own, the rightful property of the digitally-scrambled-ex-working-class-loafer - thus rescuing it from cynical heritage-merchants and the Blurs and Hugh Grants of this world. So that however meanly and bitterly these comparisons are meant by scenesters and purists, I can't help seeing them as a compliment.

I remember Skinner being interviewed when the 1st album was released and bemoaning the fact that the 'Garage' community had not 'accepted' him and his album was being picked up by middle-class types instead, for different reasons than he expected. He seems to have lost any such inhibitions now and settled into making songs not tracks (and the album's sounds like some sort of ealing comedy-meets-trainspotting concept piece...) which is probably a good thing. What the world needs is more artists ready to accept that they're not, and they shouldn't try to be, doing the same as a bunch of scenesters (no matter how good said scenesters might be).

It goes back to what I was saying before: the best music comes from people trying to do something (in this case to 'do' garage) and failing in a way that innocently exposes everything that's characteristic about that person. A true scenester would smother this under layers of gloss, try to mute it within the confines of the genre (not to devalue the importance of the hothouse gang-mentality to the development of musics). Skinner doesn't: Let's take things forward is right, even if it sometimes sounds a little backward. It may be a fake mythology of the 'real', but it's also the real production of pop-mythology.

But apart from all this, most important is the sheer joy of it all. It totters on the edge of being a forgettable novelty ('parklife' being the most dangerous reference point, happily Skinner lacks that artschool knowingness) but manages to keep the right side using a precise yet fugitive formula. It's not exactly easy to do 'larky' once as a novelty, but undoubtedly it's more difficult to continue treading the fine line. We'll have to see, but right now, particularly on Radio 1 (for non-uk dwellers, mainstream pop radio), it stands out amongst the po-faced self-aggrandising glossy bullshit. This failure to properly armour-up, sonically or lyrically, is a large part of why The Streets appeal to me.

Anyway, Marcello was so cruel doing that review so far in advance, I can't wait to finally get my hands on the album this week.

Posted by robin at May 12, 2004 04:19 PM