Robbie Williams: Now Menswear wade in

After Robbie Williams' attack on second-string indie bands has lead to a major skirmish.

Contactmusic is reporting from the frontline:

Menswear? Star? That's a bit of a stretch, surely?

It's the drummer, Matt Everitt, who has at least had a post-Menswe@r career in radio - he's the only one of the band who has his own Wikipedia page. On this basis, the Times have handed him an op-ed slot to start the fightback:

"I find it amusing that Robbie Williams... can let one comment from Brett Anderson... get his back up... It's quite endearing, but also slightly worrying...

"Menswear weren't manufactured, but I can see why people went on about the whole style over substance thing with us... We actually used to go on stage to Back For Good by Take That, a staggeringly great pop single. In the mid-nineties there wasn't really any rivalry between pop groups and the guitar bands...

"Traditionally your big pop acts allow record labels to invest in guitar bands, because they take longer to develop. Some rock bands take a few albums before they start making money and those tend to be the bands, like U2 and Radiohead, that in the longterm become important and fund everything. It's always been like that."

And that's an important point. It's worth remembering that even when Take That came off the production line, it took them four goes before they managed a hit; some of the bands slated by Williams didn't get given the same space to develop a following before the label pulled the plug.