A Response To 'Landfill Indie'
The cruel term used to label many tracks that stemmed from guitar bands in the 2000s. A retrospective, vitriolic example of the music press and their incessant need for controversy.
During that strange summer of 2020, Vice Magazine revealed their Top 50 Greatest Landfill Indie Songs of All Time. Few headlines have created as much vitriol amongst music fans as that one. NME’s Mark Beaumont called it ‘musical snobbery’ and ‘sneeringly reductive’. Given how prevalent Beaumont was as a music journalist at the time, I’m happy to align with his views.
It’s one of the strange facets of music writing that so many journalists seem to forget where they left their rose-tinted glasses. Perhaps they enjoyed themselves too much during those heady days yet why dump so many impressive bands in the same hole with that derogatory term, what does it gain?
Landfill. Indie.
You can imagine an online pitch meeting during lockdown with journalists aiming for something so hideous it’ll create a stir. Landfill. Indie. The term itself is intensely odious, as if the best efforts of certain bands should have never entered our ears, let alone the charts. It’s what you should expect from journalists keen on putdowns and appearing cooler than thou rather than having to explain what they actually like.
Throughout the manuscript, I’ve tried to look back at the time as objectively as I can. Undoubtedly, there are highlights. Arctic Monkeys going number one with their first single. City-focused festivals sprouting into existence, independent publications like Sandman Magazine run by passionate music fans, and record labels being created to get the music out there. Fans propelling bands to stardom without the help of major labels via online message boards and file-sharing. The Cribs creating a localised music scene in Wakefield via their own recording and rehearsal space known as Springtime. Guerilla gigs. Local bands going on to secure record deals and realising their dreams.
It was an incredibly inventive and exciting time, yet Vice Magazine wants you to forget all that. Let’s not forget, the early 2000s found the British music industry in a difficult place. Oasis were still going strong, despite being on the slide. Festival line-ups seemed devoid of inspiration with bands, whose best days were behind them, commandeering the headline slots. Electroclash and alternative rock threatened to finish off what US Grunge had started. Hell, I remember Leeds Festival 2000 and literally fighting for survival in a Limp Bizkit moshpit after failing to find out who was on after The Bluetones. It was not an especially fun time.
Then something magical happened almost overnight. The Strokes arrived and ushered in a New Rock Revolution with the likes of The Hives, The Vines, The White Stripes, and The Libertines. Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs took the lead before The Coral, The Zutons, The Long Blondes, The Cribs, and Arctic Monkeys revitalised the British music scene.
Sure, some British bands snuck in and secured record deals yet that was largely due to the music industry cashing in on what was popular. Vice’s bitter, malicious piece proves difficult to stomach and looks to pour scorn on a moment in time when British guitar music had never seemed so popular. As if the magazine took aim at certain bands, and your own taste, to make you wonder what on earth compelled you to listen to THAT. But I did. I’ve still got several of the songs as digital files on my phone because I enjoyed them then and I enjoy them now.
Featured Songs From The New Yorkshire Wave
Perhaps inevitably, the article took aim at some of those bands featured in the New Yorkshire Wave.
Little Man Tate - House Party At Boothy’s
The Pigeon Detectives - Romantic Type
Bromheads Jacket - Woolley Bridge
*Special Mention* 29. The Automatic - Monster
Milburn - Send In The Boys
The Cribs - Men’s Needs
Arctic Monkeys - Mardy Bum
The Cribs - Hey Scenesters
Of course, I’ll always find favour with each of these tracks and Vice’s reasoning for their inclusion tends to back me up, the killjoys. Each track has its merits and they’re mainly about social commentary, as well as having fun. There’s a house party in Sheffield and going out to an indie disco to pull girls (‘Romantic Type’, just as Arctic Monkeys did with ‘Dancing Shoes’). A song about selfish Surrey Girls (‘Woolley Bridge’) and a girl being held hostage (‘Send In The Boys’).
The article’s arguments for including The Cribs TWICE should also not be ignored. For ‘Men’s Needs’, the fact that the song pushed the band into the mainstream is a strange argument for the song’s inclusion. As if the Wakefield trio had meticulously orchestrated the drum sounds to get them on the radio against the magazine’s wishes. Like the writers at Vice would have preferred to pat them on the head and know their place. Not enjoy widespread appeal, how dare they.
That the list also includes ‘Hey Scenesters’ appears to be a vindicative swipe, as if the Vice writer voting for it is concerned at how old he may appear when dancing to it at a wedding. That’s on you though, pal. Or perhaps the initial thought was that the single took aim at trendy magazine’s like Vice and this is a long-standing beef. Not that the band much care considering they’re still touring.
Granted, Vice simply could not avoid including Arctic Monkeys could they. Possibly to appear edgy and knowingly controversial. Their reasoning is that the success of the band ushered in so much dross from other bands that it’s actually all their fault. ‘Mardy Bum’ has stood the test of time and the review insists that you should dim it down to ‘relatableLAD lyrics’. Yawn.
A Retrospective Look
Part of the manuscript looks at how the music press built up bands to boost their own sales figures, only to knock them down when they saw fit. Vice Magazine have taken a retrospective look at the era’s bands and then took a swipe. Few of those bands still exist which makes you wonder quite why they commissioned the article. Was it just musical snobbery or some bitter response to some decidedly average bands finding their own audience against the magazine’s interests?
Part of me wonders if the snobbery extends to class warfare considering the working-class roots of so many featured bands who were simply out living their dreams. Granted, the music industry did try to capatalise on guitar music and some bands failed to match up to the hype, certainly coming up short against the likes of Arctic Monkeys and Kaiser Chiefs. Yet part of that responsibility was down to the labels who decided to sign and promote them. Maybe the music industry commissioned the article to take aim at those youthful, optimistic guitar-wielding bands that had irked them so back in the day when file-sharing threatened their dominance.
Glancing at the list, you realise how fascinating a time it was. Landfill indie makes you imagine forgettable, tedious guitar songs. The article includes The Automatic singing about monsters and the manuscript describes how the band were touring with iForward Russia! and The Long Blondes on the NME New Music Tour at the time. Upon the single’s release, headliners Boy Kill Boy suffered the embarrassment of a diminished crowd as ‘Monster’ was the main reason a lot of the audience had gone.
Also included on the list is the deep brooding of Editors. An ingenious cover of Kate Bush’s ‘Hounds of Love’ by The Futureheads is there, as is the 80s-mining banger that is ‘Two Doors Down’ by Mystery Jets, a song I’m proud to say I own on vinyl.
Amidst all the furore about the term ‘landfill indie’, the article should have the opposite effect. It should remind music fans of some forgetten gems, bands they may have seen yet failed to keep up with. Some of those songs have soundtracked people’s lives. That some of these songs still soundtrack Match of the Day montages and find their way into disco sets seems lost in the vitriol. Some of these bands should be looked upon as saviours to a moribund music scene. There are some great songs on the list, songs I’ll be fondly adding to my playlist. Landfill indie? Clickbait nonsense.
The article was always flawed, how can you have “great landfill”? It was clickbait when clickbait was rife and people were desperate for any content. In opposition, I will be blasting Good Shoes loud today.