Saturday, February 26, 2005
V, See Come. V, See Go.
This is getting ridiculous.
Without even allowing enough time for the dust to settle on Pop!'s glamorous corpse, V have seen the split bandwagon racing on by and have leapt onto it after being dropped by their record company. Of course, given that their album sold approximately 6 copies and that their last single, You Stood Up failed to dent the top ten, this news is about as surprising as the fact cats are quite fond of fish, but it's still another sign that traditional pop is being left out in the cold. V were quite happy to be a proper Boy Band; no instruments or half-hearted claims to write their own material for them. No, they were quite happy to dance around with gay abandon, make fools of themselves in their videos and flirt with homo-erotic imagery. They even got under a rain machine on Top of the Pops yet still failed to sell enough records. Now, of course, rather than standing under a rain machine they're more likely to be hanging around their popstar flat, making like one and weeping bitter tears, wondering just what went wrong. We're definitely blaming the public on this one.
So that's 3 bands who have said their goodbyes in the space of a week and the latest in a long list who've given up on the music industry in the two short months of this year. At this rate of splitting by the time summer comes around there will be no more bands in existence and record companies will be forced to make their money by constantly repackaging and re-issuing their back catalogue, something which they're probably quite looking forward to and are certainly well practiced at, but who will be next to find themselves spending their twilight years in a manky pub telling anyone that will listen that they used to be somebody? Let's have a look at the options shall we?
Without even allowing enough time for the dust to settle on Pop!'s glamorous corpse, V have seen the split bandwagon racing on by and have leapt onto it after being dropped by their record company. Of course, given that their album sold approximately 6 copies and that their last single, You Stood Up failed to dent the top ten, this news is about as surprising as the fact cats are quite fond of fish, but it's still another sign that traditional pop is being left out in the cold. V were quite happy to be a proper Boy Band; no instruments or half-hearted claims to write their own material for them. No, they were quite happy to dance around with gay abandon, make fools of themselves in their videos and flirt with homo-erotic imagery. They even got under a rain machine on Top of the Pops yet still failed to sell enough records. Now, of course, rather than standing under a rain machine they're more likely to be hanging around their popstar flat, making like one and weeping bitter tears, wondering just what went wrong. We're definitely blaming the public on this one.
So that's 3 bands who have said their goodbyes in the space of a week and the latest in a long list who've given up on the music industry in the two short months of this year. At this rate of splitting by the time summer comes around there will be no more bands in existence and record companies will be forced to make their money by constantly repackaging and re-issuing their back catalogue, something which they're probably quite looking forward to and are certainly well practiced at, but who will be next to find themselves spending their twilight years in a manky pub telling anyone that will listen that they used to be somebody? Let's have a look at the options shall we?
- Girls Aloud // Very unlikely just now, they're still riding high on a wave of both critical and commercial success and are about to head out on their first tour so they'd be remarkably foolish to let all that go right now. Of course, in the future Nicola is going to want to allow her talent to truly shine, or at least get a job were they actually let her do something, so will no doubt be the first to head towards solo town. We reckon they've got at least one more album in them though.
- The 411 // Quite likely to be getting dropped-diggy-diggy-de-dropped-de-dropped after their album missed the top 40 by miles and the actually quite good Teardrops only made it to number 23. Fortunately as recent appearances showed them rocking a quite dodgy eighties secretary look, they're clearly already prepared for a new career.
- Vs // Despite their most recent single, Make it Hot being excellent, if let down by a ropey video in a cornfield, it only managed to make it to the entirely undizzy heights of number 29. Their hopes now rest on a dodgy cover of Chicago's If You Leave Me Now. As the last band who decided to put their faith in this soft rock 'classic' were Upside Down, it's pretty safe to say that Vs won't just be following V in an alphabetical fashion in the future.
- The Sugababes // Often the subject of rumours about how much they all hate each other, the odds of them splitting seem quite high, but bear in mind that they are quite keen to stress how much they all like each other, which is, of course, exactly what you'd do if you genuinely did all like each other. We reckon a massive fall out during promotion of their fourth album, possibly over who had the last chocolate hobnob, will lead to them breaking up, with the official story being that Keisha is taking time out to look after her baby.
- The Noise Next Door // Please. If there is a God in heaven, let them fuck right off and never bother us again. Latest single Calendar Girl failed to capitalise on the gap in the market left by the Busted split and only just improved on it's predecessor's position so it's possible. Unfortunately, with news of a series of novels, in the loosest sense of the word, based around the lad's exploits, it seems like they're going to be in it for the long haul. Oh dear.
- McFly // Well, as label mates V and Busted have split up and given that McFly have never had an original thought in their life, hopefully they'll just follow their lead regardless, throw away their copy of The Best Sixties Album in the World... Ever and let a band who actually have some talent take over.
