I remembered an interview piece with Jon Savage (England's Dreaming) I once watched in the Live Forever documentary. Where, wearing a pretty dodgy lime-green sports jacket, he berated Ocean Colour Scene for being regressive and derivative. Where as Oasis (the subject of the documentary) though criticised by many as equally regressive and pastiche were not tied with the same brush due to in his eyes Liam's androgeny and the feeling of desperation and that je ne sais qoui their debut invoked.
While I pretty much agree with the above it's an interesting concept, most indie bands of the last few years on the whole have been pretty regressive or more positively described as "retro", with a few exceptions. Generally those who've had any longevity and critical have created a more original concept and sound. There's a whole list of bands however, who've essentially borrowed from previous era's. Franz Ferdinand could have slotted into a bill in 1981 as easily they did in 2004. Jet a band who in 2002 were NME darlings were a second rate AC/DC dressed up like The Strokes. The Strokes themselves borrowed heavily from a NYC scene that passed 20 years before their debut.
Which brings me on to the arctic monkeys, who for four guys with guitars a mic and a set of drums produced a pretty unique and progressive sound in 2005 and followed it up in 2007 with a second album that genuinely moved on from Whatever People say... Alex Turners side project however, judging by the first single appears to be a much more conventional record drawing heavily on that Scott Walker dark 1960's sound. Does this make it artistically less important than his bands first two outings, I don't know and I imagine it'll take a while for the dust to settle. It has to be said that the sound they've gone for is hardly an obvious choice. Still it's a single that's certainly got a sense of urgency about it, tight melodies, that stand out sharply against the rest of Radio 1's A list and though it's lyrical content is more ambiguous than the observational wit of the arctics, it's got a growl that could only belong to Alex Turner.
