Death of the guitar band

[Gob]

rom The Beatles to the Arctic Monkeys, Britain's great rock bands have belted out the soundtracks to our lives and carved a place at the heart of our culture.

So why have so few new bands broken through in the past couple of years? And what are new acts doing to keep guitar music alive?

There is a theory that says, almost 60 years since the birth of rock 'n' roll, all the great guitar riffs have been played to death.

All the great anthems have been written, every sound has been wrung from the instrument and every possible band line-up and look have been worn out.

In other words, it has all been done a million times before.

A glance at the singles charts, where rock and indie bands are an endangered species, makes that a persuasive notion.

Killers frontman Brandon Flowers and The Kings of Leon are the only such acts to have cracked the top 10 so far this year.

Two years ago, more than a dozen guitar-wielding bands - including Coldplay, Oasis, Razorlight, Kaiser Chiefs and The Kooks - reached the same heights.

But then the world seemed to get bored of the conventional guitar sound and the term "landfill indie" was enthusiastically wielded to beat down bands that sounded safe and stale - The Pigeon Detectives, The Fratellis, The Enemy, The View, Editors and The Courteeners among them.

This year, bands like Muse and Kings of Leon, with large fanbases built over long careers, have remained huge.

Mumford and Sons are the most successful new band of 2010 and The xx won the Mercury Music Prize. Both have had great years, partly because they have broken the conventional indie stereotype.

There are still thousands of aspiring guitar bands under the radar - but it does not feel like many are threatening to grab the public's attention.

The disillusionment can be traced back to record labels chasing quick hits rather than acts with longevity, according to BBC 6 Music DJ Steve Lamacq.

"In this current climate, people are signing bands who have got one or two good tracks, hoping they can make one good album," he says. "And inevitably a lot of these bands are going to come and go.

"You end up ruining the sense of trust between tastemaker and audience, or record label and audience, or even musical genre and audience.

"If you stop believing in a certain sort of music, it's going to take a lot for you to come back."

Lamacq is 6 Music's arbiter-in-chief of good new guitar music, and has been casting a critical ear over new bands since hosting Radio 1's Evening Session in the heady days of Britpop.

If Radiohead emerged with their debut album today, it would be "unthinkable" that their long-term prospects would be recognised, he believes.

"It's the short term-ism coming home to roost, and that's a problem for the music industry and the media. But it's a problem that they've created for themselves in a lot of cases."

Singer and songwriter Fran Barker cites Radiohead's second album The Bends as the record that "made me really want to pick up the guitar".

Her band Seerauber Jenny is "very much guitar-driven", she says, with an extra dimension added by bandmate Neil Claxton, who was behind dance act Mint Royale.

Artists cannot get away with simply playing traditional guitar music any more, Barker believes.

"People expect so much more from what they hear, and you've got access to so much more," she says.

"To be edgy you've got to try harder. You can't have a simple sound any more - it's got to be much more complex and instruments need to be used a lot more imaginatively."

A hospital heart monitor - used for beats instead of drums - is among the gadgets Seerauber Jenny have employed.

Many bands are going further in their quests for a fresh sound, taking them far away from their "landfill indie" cousins.

Manchester gig promoters Now Wave say they showcase "the sounds of the near future", seeking bands that are alternative, exciting and original.

Now Wave's Wesley Jones is "a little bit bored" of the standard indie formula. "I think the public are as well," he says.

He mentions Glasgow quartet Errors, who recently played a Now Wave night, as an antidote. "That's four guys with guitars in there - but also an array of other instruments," Mr Jones says.

"And it doesn't sound dissimilar to dance music. It's 120bpm, there are no vocals, there's no singing about having lost your girlfriend.

"But they're utilising guitars in a different way. Not strumming them. There are all sorts of different ways to play it."

Mount Kimbie, another forward-thinking bunch, play "post dubstep", Jones says, which would be "unrecognisable to most indie rock fans".

"And yet there's a guitar in there, both plucked and played with a violin bow. It is used more in a soundscape way, or played and then heavily processed through other instruments to give it a very different sound."

If you're a budding music-maker with home software to create and record all the sounds you need, who needs bandmates anyway?

Sean Adams, founder of the Drowned In Sound music website, says wryly: "If you're a solo artist, you can create your own drummer without having to deal with drummers.
Mumford & Sons Folk rockers Mumford & Sons are the best-selling new British band of 2010

"Because of the way you can now create stuff with Garageband or Logic, it seems really limited to just be making sounds with the guitar, when there's so much more you can do with a palette of sounds."

Mr Adams, who released the Kaiser Chiefs' first single, also believes fans find it unnatural to listen to something that is "attached to previous generations" on their ultra-modern devices.

So where will the sound of the near future really come from? Will one of the mega-hip, bleeding-edge experimentalists hit upon a formula that propels them into the big time?

Or will young fans get sick of the soon-to-be landfill R&B, hip-hop and dubstep, and look to something they have rarely heard before - four blokes (or girls) with guitars, bass and drums and a rebellious rallying cry that they can relate to?
'Second wind'

"Maybe the guitar isn't as exciting and dangerous and vital as it once was," Mr Adams says. "Maybe that's going to come in a second wind with a backlash against all the dancier sounds and getting bored of seeing a guy on a laptop."

"I think the next big thing that will come along will be like an Oasis," Lamacq concludes. "It will sound like something you've heard before.

"And I don't think we'd mind - if they said something about your life. If they were engaging and charismatic. If, when you listen to their song, you want to listen to it again. You want something to believe in."

Very few new bands have been "touching people in that way" in the last 12 months, the DJ says.

"I can't really put my finger on why bands aren't forming like this - apart from they just want to take a short cut to success.

"Trying to be different now will be a struggle. But it will be the bands that are prepared to struggle that will take us out of this mess."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11664781

I must admit I haven't picked up on a good new band in some time...

[Crackpot]

Alot of bands still playing good Guitar rock but new bands? Unfortunately I've had to admit to myself that I'm just not into much new music anymore. I don't know if that's due to with the general state of the music industry, a larger lack of talent, or I'm getting old.

[Gob]

My dilemma exactly.

[Sean]

Same here. It's been quite a while since I've heard something new that struck a chord (punny-pun-pun) with me. Indie bands do all sound very similar... it's as if new bands are afraid to break away from the tried and tested mainstream mould. I agree that a new band will come along and take the charts by storm much like Oasis did but I don't think it'll be anything new or unique. It'll be somebody who is a breath of fresh air; whether it be their personality, philosophy or style.

I also disagree with the theory that "all the great guitar riffs have been played to death." Major and Pentatonic riffs have done pretty well for about a hundred years... maybe the next generation of great riffs will be based on the up to now little used Dorian (Eleanor Rigby) or Mixolydian (Sweet Home Alabama) modes... or any of the others for that matter! There are hundreds of different ways to create a riff which have never been utilised in mainstream, modern music. So there!

[Gob]

The next great guitar band, will be four guys playing samplers...

[loCAtek]

So, the guitar will go the way of saxophone, which went the way of the ragtime piano...

[oldr_n_wsr]

Alot of bands still playing good Guitar rock but new bands? Unfortunately I've had to admit to myself that I'm just not into much new music anymore. I don't know if that's due to with the general state of the music industry, a larger lack of talent, or I'm getting old.

Count me in this group.

[Crackpot]

Also alot of it has to do with what you consider "guitar rock" are we talking complex riffs and long solos or dimple riffs with driven beats?

It seems to me that the guitar is an instument that is not only suseptible to the "watch me musically masturbate with my instument" set (which most instuments are) it is actually encouraged to the point that the smipler and often more powerful stuff is just plain forgotten.

In short the Guitar has got so used to being the forefront that it has been forgotten that it's extremely useful as a part of the whole

[oldr_n_wsr]

With all the prepackaged, single artist, american idol, type preformers, is it a wonder that the "Band" (3+ people playing a variety of insturments) has fell by the wayside? Pay Britney $5mil or a 3 person band $15mil (or even $8mil) and it's a no brainer. One person is cheaper and easier to control. "Here bitch, sing this, shake some T&A, kiss some other bitch and we'll throw in a bonus $1mil". As for the other "musicians" that pretend to play at those concerts, hell you can hire some high school grad to stand there and air guitar while Britney lipsinks for minimum wage.

I don't even want to get into RAP.

[Gob]

Reasonable points by both O-n-W and C-P.

It's undoubtedly true that "pop" music has become so prepackaged and manipulated by the "industry" that it has little appeal outside of its own tightly defined "target audiences" and "demographics".

Guitar bands are passe at present, and even within such "musicianly" bands such as Muse and Radiohead, the guitar is more often subsumed in a welter of synth and sequencers.

[loCAtek]

OK forget RAP as droning, pitchless, bad lyrics.

What makes up the bass and sampling, is done by software now. No more masters scratchin' tracks, even that talent has been eliminated.

[Long Run]

If I were to rush to ventures who will be the next great guitar band and which will be shown the doors, it wouldn't be nirvana like a kiss but might beat smashing pumpkins this rainy black sabbath. Maybe Joe Guy Satriani can turn the page and give us one his korny jokes

[Sean]

Also alot of it has to do with what you consider "guitar rock" are we talking complex riffs and long solos or dimple riffs with driven beats?

It seems to me that the guitar is an instument that is not only suseptible to the "watch me musically masturbate with my instument" set (which most instuments are) it is actually encouraged to the point that the smipler and often more powerful stuff is just plain forgotten.

In short the Guitar has got so used to being the forefront that it has been forgotten that it's extremely useful as a part of the whole

It could be either CP... For me guitar rock is guitar led rock where the guitar is the main instrument... be it screaming in the front or holding the whole lot together at the back.

The number of kids who have come to me for guitar lessons because they want to play what Steve Vai or Joe Satriani does is enough to make me weep! I don't teach party tricks! Never have done, never will!

"If you want to learn chords, scales, modes and everything else needed to play a melodic instrument come to me. If you want to learn how to wank, go ask your dad!"

Hmmm... I may have found a new jingle...

[rubato]

"hope I die before I get old"

For most pop-rock I wish it had. It has aged badly with sagging skin and flabby repetitions of old hooks.

Sometime in the 1980s western pop-rock fell into a ditch and never got back out again. Just ever-more formulaic reworkings of music that was often emotionally adolescent when it had the appeal of novelty.

The only music I care about is on the verge, international, jazz, folk, bluegrass, 'other' and much from that great outpouring of creativity that made the United States 'the epicenter of creativity' between 1900 and 1980 (or thereabouts).

There is a lot in music still to excite passion like Bela Fleck (for one example) but the creative juice has moved on and left commercial derivative repetitive crap in its wake.

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

"...

The number of kids who have come to me for guitar lessons because they want to play what Steve Vai or Joe Satriani does is enough to make me weep! I don't teach party tricks! ... "

Great illustrations of strong technique with no musical ideas worth listening to.


yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

The days when the guitar was the mainstay instrument of any band are fast vanishing. I have to agree with you about Vai and Satriani et al Sean, (Though their work is of value "in it's place, in it's time".)

There are few REAL innovators coming through.

Jazz guitar lost its way two decades ago, vanishing up its own arse.

The studio is now the main pop instrument, the guitar bass and drums merely decoration for live performance.

Metal and hard rock will probably limp on for another decade, waving it's shriveled willy.

Live music will be reduced to "grand spectacle" which will have little to do with musicians and musicianship, nostalgia tours and "final chance to see before they die".

I do hope that there will also be some folk music tradition continue, with new and real folk music from new and real folk.

[Crackpot]

After listening to a fair amount of electronica I have come to the conclusion that the whole genre is noting but musical masturbation.

[Sean]

Exactly CP!

Sadly we live in an era where someone who spins a record is considered a musician.

I'm looking at you Fat Boy Slim!

[Gob]

Bollocks, DJ's are as good musicians, if not better, than most guitar based musicians these days..

[Sean]

If they actually CREATE the music then I'll give them credit but sampling other people's creations does not (IMO) a musician make.

How did I know that you'd object to my post...