Also apologising: Robbie Williams

Brett Anderson said something relatively uncontroversial about how in the 1990s, record labels were churning out boybands:

"There has always been cr*p pop music.

I remember when we had all the crap boybands in the 90s — stuff like that has always been around.

The lack of money in the music industry created a crisis.

Record companies don't have the resources to take a gamble, so these pop stars are created by committee."

I think you'd see the point - A1, Blue, 5ive. You could do a list.

Obviously, not everything that came from the conveyor belt was bad - in the same way that some things on sale in Tesco are actually quite toothsome. And it was twenty years ago, so who could possibly get upset?

Step forward the biggest battery hen of them all, Robbie Williams to speak up for the factory farming:

NOW THIS WAS AT THE HEIGHT OF WHAT WAS BRITPOP AND MAINSTREAM INDIE.

RECORD COMPANIES DON'T/DIDN'T HAVE THE RESOURCES TO GAMBLE?

I THINK NOT …

ANY QUARTER-DECENT 3 CHORD KNOBHEADS COULD AND DID GET A DEAL IN THE 90'S ….

I WON'T NAME NAMES COS IT WOULD BE UNFAIR ON

ECHOBELLY, SHED 7, SYMPOSIUM, MENSWEAR, SLEEPER,
HURRICANE NUMBER 1, RIDE, THE BLUETONES (APART FROM THAT ONE SONG),
OCEAN COLOUR SCENE (APART FROM THAT ONE SONG...HANG ON NAH NOT EVEN THAT SONG)
NORTHERN UPROAR, CHAPTERHOUSE, CURVE, SALAD, ADORABLE, CUD, SPACEHOG,
KULA SHAKER, THE AUDIENCE, POWDER, KING MAKER, GENEVA (SUB-SUEDE - CAN YOU IMAGINE?)

-

SHOULD I GO ON? COS I CAN AND THEY SURE FUCKING DID

THERE WERE A FEW SPECIAL INDIE BANDS THEN JUST AS THERE ARE IN EVERY GENERATION ….
AND JUST AS SOME POP BANDS ARE USELESS, SOME ARE MAGNIFICENT IN EVERY GENERATION
I FEEL SORRY FOR THE PEOPLE WHO ARE TOO BIGOTED TO APPRECIATE THE LATTER

THE WORLD'S A LOT MORE EXCITING WITH A ONE DIRECTION IN IT

AND MORE HEARTS WILL GENUINELY RACE AT A NEW 1D ALBUM
THAN THEY EVER HAVE OR WILL AT ANY SUEDE ALBUM IN ANY TIME PERIOD

SORRY ABOUT THE TRUTH

There's something of a major leap from Brett saying "some boybands were crap" to Williams glossing this as Brett dismissing pop in its entirety.

And I'm not even going to start pointing out that a man who cannot see the difference between, say, Kula Shaker and Adorable probably shouldn't be commenting about music at all.

Or that Williams makes a schoolboy error of actually proving Anderson's wider point - yes, more people will be excited by One Direction than by Suede, precisely because that's where the music industry shoves its investment.

Or that Williams' defeated shuffle back to Take That, tail between legs, is an example of Music Industry Attitude in sixty-foot high letters: 'why do something interesting and new when you can shake cash out of the same-old, same-old'?

Let's just skip to the damage limitation post from a short while later:

ON CLOSER INSPECTION RE MY LAST BLOG
IT WOULD APPEAR THAT I'VE GONE OFF ON TANGENT NOT ENTIRELY
CREATED BY MR BRETT ANDERSON OF POP COMBO SUEDE

IT WON'T BE THE LAST TIME THAT THIS HAPPENS
AND IT FELT GOOD TO GET IT OFF MY CHEST

THANK YOU BRETT… SUEDE'S NEW ALBUM BLOODSPORTS OUT NOW ….
IT'S GOOD TOO…

Yes, a multimillionaire really, really needed to spurt a little bile into the faces of the members of Symposium. I can see how their low-twenties chart career must have been eating away at you for the last two decades.