Someone to drive you mad

The reason we can never fully go along with the whole 'landfill indie' backlash no matter how genuine the rotten-ness of the bands corralled into it is its inherent smugness, the way it's always approached as if finally some great truth (that everyone else spotted at inception, maybe even Mark Beaumont) can be revealed, the approach of being told who to hate because it's easier than listing who to love. A lot of people crowed about the Independent article that crystallised all this, but essentially it was a journalist being given two pages of a major national newspaper to list bands they didn't like as if they were an eleven year old writing in their rough book.

(In fact, we get far more annoyed by those who present themselves as some sort of alternative despite having precisely the same number of ideas, because at least commercial guitar bands aren't trying to hide their Pete Doherty ambitions. If we must play this facile game between us, we'd honestly rather see Late Of The Pier split than The View.)

Eventually, this is what it leads to - the self-same newspaper getting someone to list bands they think should split up. Nyah nyah nyah-nyah nyah. It'd be uniquely cloying even if the springboard for it wasn't an incident nobody affected could really help, the Long Blondes split (you know, the Long Blondes who endless commentators reassured us were nothing like the commercial indie you hate) Indeed, the only levity from the piece comes when you read it and realise Cat Gordon clearly didn't know (/care?) about Dorian's stroke being the breakup catalyst, just saw a headline somewhere about it and decided to write a piece celebrating

before an editor took them aside to mention that it might seem a touch insensitive at the moment, hence that pasted in "actually they had some really good songs, I don't mean them harm really" second paragraph, which given they then forget to edit out the way they immediately declare medical incapacitation has "made my day" and spend the rest of the piece going 'look at me listing bands I don't like!' regardless, which even Gordon runs out of patience with before the end ("The Editors - we haven’t got time" - yes you have, it's a blog and you haven't explained yourself through choice because you've decided you can't be arsed) is astonishingly jarring.

Funnily enough, nobody on the Independent's sports desk has today listed rugby league players they'd like to see in car crashes.