Liam Is A Parasite: 10 Artists With the Most Malign Influence in Pop Music

The problem with producing an awe-inspiring masterpiece is that, in inspiring awe and reverence in a generation of music fans, you get a rash of musicians who are either unable or unwilling to creatively step out of your pervading influence. The problem with producing a dreadful piece of crap that so happens to come along at the right time and place in people’s lives is that you have a generation of musicians whose idea of a great record is the appalling rubbish that you put out. If you’re really unlucky, could wind up influencing multiple generations of music. Gross simplification as this is, I feel it makes a valid point. Influence is always a tricky area, for both those influencing and influenced – witness Mark E Smith’s belligerence towards all the modern bands who have claimed to be influenced by The Fall. And in this day and age of casual musical plagiarism, the line between ‘influenced by’ and ‘blatantly ripping off’ becomes further and further removed. However, that’s another story. The point of this article is to look at bands that I feel have had a malign influence over pop music in recent years. There are several easy shots that I have decided not to take because they should really go without saying – no one needs another band ripping off The Beatles, The Stones and Dylan. Also, as this is my list, I’m sticking mainly to indie rock, because I think this is where the focus is most needed – I could whine about the way the gangster rap has wrecked the original political ideals of, say, Public Enemy, but I feel this is a widely enough acknowledged point. Also, I could sit here and blame Black Sabbath or Led Zep for inventing heavy metal, but I don’t really think that would be very constructive. Plus I have my own axes to grind. I’m not saying that everyone who has been influenced by these records are rubbish, or that these bands are necessarily rubbish, but it does bother me when a band I like says, ‘Nirvana really influenced me, they changed my life, maaaan’. In this day and age, it’s not hard to find decent, interesting and different music to listen to or draw fuel from. Let’s give these records a rest.

10. Queen

An admittedly odd choice to start off with. I certainly wouldn’t have thought that Queen would really have had any lasting influence over the music scene. I hate them and everyone else loves them, but I didn’t realistically think that any band whose main contribution to musical innovation was extreme bombast and daft genre exercises would wind up being musically referenced by anyone at all much. Unfortunately I was wrong. In a strange way, Queen are more influential then they have ever been. The first stirrings were the novelty rock horror that was The Darkness, who basically replayed Queen’s daft costumes and airbrushed rock shtick but with far less charm and infinitely less talent. Then Muse decided that their silly Radiohead-lite act just wasn’t silly enough, and so went even further into the land of ever-increasing overdubs and screeching operatics that, I suppose, had already been their stock in trade. Now, My Chemical Romance have mined Queen’s overblown sonic armoury and coupled it with loathsome self-pity and have managed to delight a generation of teenagers who must have something seriously wrong with their ears. But the biggest tragedy here is that, post-Darkness, Queen seem to have become a novelty rock text, with increasingly diminishing returns, the most dramatic of which has been the deplorable Mika, who has taken Queen’s template and combined it with dreadful songwriting, a sickeningly narcissistic desperation to be liked and a horrifically overblown ego, sucking anything resembling fun out of the proceedings in the process. Indeed, the irony is that none of Queen’s bastard progeny have that quality for which the band were originally, justly or not, known for – fun.

9. Coldplay

A no-brainer really. We all have to live in a world in which Coldplay are huge, which is bad enough. But even more depressing is the fact that a lot of people in bands have been hugely influenced by them. Coldplay have done a huge disservice to music in a number of ways. Their mind-numbingly bland sound is hugely popular, creating legions of bands trading in the same unadventurous whiny indie rock, from Snow Patrol to Athlete to Keane and onwards – the list is endless and still growing. For a band famed for alleged ‘songwriting’, Coldplay’s music is curiously unmusical. All their songs use very similar hackneyed chord sequences, layers of instruments come in only to play exactly the same parts as other instruments, their over-compressed recordings leave no room for dynamics, and all their lyrics are trite clichés that a 13 year old would be ashamed of. And whilst pop music doesn’t have to be raucous guitar rock to be exciting, Coldplay’s incredibly dull and unexciting music is surely the polar opposite of what pop music should be about. But not only have Coldplay caused blandness, poor songwriting and trite empty sentimentality to spread through modern music like a cancer, they have perpetuated a stereotype of ‘miserable music’ that is incredibly unrepresentative. Coldplay, like Emo (hold your horses, we’re getting there), is whiny music made by boring middle class wimps with absolutely nothing to say. As a result, all miserable music gets tarred with the same brush by people who like and dislike Coldplay/Emo, meaning that many people will never get a chance to appreciate the icy bleakness of The Marble Index or the drugged-out visions of hell that surface on Closer, nor the cleansing catharsis they bring to the listener. Miserable music and piano-led songs can be exciting and deeply affecting; Coldplay are not.

8. Blur

First thing first – I hated Britpop. Lazy retro guitar music, gratuitous plagiarism and brainless lad-ism. The great bands of the era either ha nothing to do with it (Stereolab, Current 93, Massive Attack, The Fall), or set themselves apart from the pack by possessing intelligence and wit, as well as actually owning more then three records to rip off (Denim, The Auteurs, Pulp, Elastica). Blur’s smarmy, happy-chappy lad-ism grated enough by itself, without the music to go with it. Yes, I have also listened to the Beatles and The Kinks, do you want a meddle? As well as not paying attention to any musical advancement after 1969 unless it was to mindlessly plagiarise XTC or Talking Heads in a vain attempt to achieve sonic variety, Blur were one of the original proponents of what I like to call lumpy songwriting. Put on Modern Life Is Rubbish and listen to the clumsiness of the melodies, the misjudged leaps into the chorus, the utter lack of melodic grace – this is what I’m talking about. Now, I will be the first to say that you don’t necessarily need great tunes to have a great record, but if you’re trying to be the Beatles of the Kinks, it helps to be able to write a melody as sublime as Waterloo Sunset. Also, if you’re aiming for Ray Davies’ witty social commentary, it helps if you can write lyrics that don’t make you sound like a complete retard, and are possessed of more wit then one of those ‘You Don’t Have To Be Mad To Work Here, But It Helps!!!!!’ signs. Also, signing in provincial accents is fine, as long as it actually is your accent. Pretending to be a cockney geezer shouldn’t make anyone like you. Unfortunately, none of this stopped Blur becoming huge, and now a generation of young musicians write music whilst thinking that Parklife is the best thing since sliced bread. The result: The Kaiser Chiefs. I don’t think I need to say anymore.

7. Green Day

Punk is a classic example of what I’m talking about with influence. People who formed bands after seeing the Sex Pistols include Magazine, Subway Sect, Joy Division, The Slits, The Fall… and it also includes Sham 69 and Simply Red. People get all idealistic about punk, but these days it mostly seems to be some berk with pink hair and daft tattoos getting incredibly inarticulate when asked what Black Flag mean to him. Musically it was played out by 1978 at the very latest, and that’s me being generous. Nevertheless, Never Mind The Bollocks and Damaged provide much artistic fuel to inarticulate youths the world over, including this lot, who I blame for the resurgence of not just ‘punk’ and therefore loads of lame punk bands, but that loathsome hybrid ‘pop punk’. Blink 182 owe far more to Green Day’s obnoxious vocals, immature posturing and daft clothes then anything else. ‘But Blink 182 aren’t real punks!’ cries a voice from the back. Well done. Neither are Green Day. More recently, Green Day’s poor music and self-centred whining have provided the template for all the horrendous Emo bands that we are now saddled with. Don’t believe me? Take Green Day’s ‘Basketcase’ – with its themes of ‘misunderstood’ adolescence, daft flirtation with ‘edgy’ themes like madness (remember the incredibly silly video with the band as mental patients?) and its oh-so-self-deprecating opening couplet. ‘Do you have the time / To listen to me whine’, if the song was released today, it would be classified as Emo. Billy Joe Armstrong even wears eyeliner these days. Thanks guys.

6. The Libertines

I was tempted to put The Strokes here instead, seeing as it’s thanks to them that we have The Libs, but I decided against it, if only because The Libertines are so dramatically worse then The Strokes. More retro guitar pop mixed with blatantly sexist lad-ism, but this time played by people who can’t even play their instruments properly. And in the Libertines’ case, this isn’t a case of inventive non-musicians bravely pushing the boundaries of popular music, or even cute C86-style incompetence, it’s a case of a bunch of morons failing to play their instruments, and not even in an interesting and endearing way. Hell, the Strokes were no Television, despite what press releases may have told you, but at least they could play better then the Libs. But worst of all, the Libertines showed a generation that you can get by on tabloid hysteria and a shrewd press campaign and music need have nothing to do with it. Pete Docherty may have failed to kill himself at the most opportune time to guarantee true immortality, but the sickening press circus that tore the band apart was truly disturbing to watch. The NME journalists circled the band like vultures, and you got the feeling that no one could have cared less about the safety of the people involved as long as it would generate more column inches. But the truly disturbing thing about it was the controversy whipped up simply due to the fact that Pete Docherty was doing heroin. Pop Star Takes Drugs Shock. Pop stars have been taking drugs since there were drugs for pop stars to take, why this should be a surprise or a noteworthy subject in this day and age is a complete mystery, which makes the whole thing leave quite an unpleasant aftertaste. The Libertines and the associated hysteria was nothing more then a very cynical hype campaign – one listen to their very mediocre records should tell you all you need to know. The press comparisons to Sid Vicious were, for once, quite accurate – both Vicious and Docherty were ultimately expendable individuals whose main purpose was to whip up public interest by any means possible. And yet there are people who genuinely think that Pete Docherty is a talented individual – see The View, The Kooks and dozens more who have sprung up in the band’s wake. What this all calls into question is, how far are you prepared to go in order to become a legend? Disturbing.

5. David Gray

I really think it’s a bit unfair that David Gray and his hordes of followers get labeled singer-songwriters. This immediately puts them in the same genre as incredibly talented individuals such as Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake, whose complex, innovative yet deeply soul-searching music is miles and miles away from the chart-friendly dross put out by Mr Gray and his ilk. David Gray has been largely responsible, in my eyes, for dragging this respected genre through the dirt. Gray’s simple, bland songs hold an obvious appeal for a market that snapped up Coldplay and made them superstars, and indeed he shares much of Coldplay’s unimaginative musical approach and ‘serious young man’ image. His breakthrough into the charts opened up the floodgates for many imitators, culminating in the truly odious James Blunt, one of modern music’s most cynical and unpleasant creations. Though nowhere near as disturbingly exploitative as James Blunt, the main ingredients are all in Gray’s music, from the shamelessly exploitative ‘emotional’ chord changes upwards. The sooner the Great British Record Buying Public snaps out of it the better, then hopefully all these idiots will be out of a job.

4. The Streets

Another no-brainer really. Mike Skinner’s blokey tales of everyday working-class British life were largely responsible for bringing back social realism to British pop music. But not even the man himself could have realized how influential this would have been. Although British indie rock had been revitalized (read: found something slightly different to rip off) by the appearance of the Strokes and the White Stripes, lyrically it was still running around like a headless chicken. In the post-Britpop, post-Radiohead landscape, Coldplay and Travis-style lyrical emptiness was the style of the day. The genre greedily hopped on the social realism bandwagon, giving rise to the likes of Hard-Fi, the Arctic Monkeys, Lilly Allen and so forth. Suddenly, everyone was singing in thick provincial accents about how crappy 9-to-5 jobs are. Now, the main problem with social realism is that, if you write about how boring and mundane modern life is, there’s a limited amount of time that you can go without your lyrics becoming, well, boring and mundane. As a lyrical slant, it has a very limited half life. No one cares about Kate Nash’s boyfriend being sick on her trainers, it’s just not very interesting. Also, there is a tendency for the lyricists to be unable to make any interesting comments about their chosen subjects because they are simply too involved themselves to be able to see the larger picture. This results in a very self-centred lyrical approach, dove-tailing with Emo-style self-pity – both are unable to see past their own nose, making for an almost autistic lyrical world that isn’t very inviting to the listener, nor, ironically for the social realists, having much to do with reality. And of course, there’s the fact that with ‘Dry Your Eyes’, Skinner managed to combine social realism, hip hip-lie and the power ballad, paving the way for such despicable entities as Jamie T and Just Jack. Unforgivable.

3. Nirvana

There have been few bands in recent memory capable of inspiring such undying devotion and worship as Nirvana. Everyone likes Nirvana, they were a huge influence on just about every band who followed in their wake. All this despite a very slim legacy – Nevermind is pretty much Bon Jovi with more street cred, their early thrashings are something of a joke to all but the most desperate of wanna-be hipsters and In Utero is very patchy despite the Steve Albini production credits. But the really perplexing thing it that Nirvana regularly get let off the hook for all the dreadful bands they inspired. I realize that Silverchair and Nickleback would have horrified dear old Kurt, but they exist because he left them Nevermind as a template. Plus, already Nirvana have aged horribly – play them next to Kurt’s heroes The Pixies and Husker Du, and Nirvana sound very poor indeed. Yet for some reason, everyone still falls over themselves to tell people how much Nevermind meant to them as a kid. Get over it and go and listen to something else.

2. U2

There are an awful lot of U2 fans making music out there at the moment, but surely few will ever achieve such stellar levels of self-importance and pomposity as U2 themselves. From Bono’s deranged messianic posturing to their music’s sexless bombast, there are many reasons to hate U2, and indeed, many do, but I’m not going to let them off the hook just for that. U2 have always strived for passion and meaning, but you get the feeling that it is just that – an overwhelming desire to be passionate about some sort of meaning or other which the band, bless their cotton socks, have never been quite bright enough to figure out. However, from day one they were certain that they were An Important Band who made Important Albums, and everything they have done has been stuffed with this bizarre self-importance, from the overbearingly earnest early records to their 90s output where they overbearingly and earnestly discovered irony. There music is completely devoid of subtlety, always going for the grand gesture before figuring out what the grand gesture is for, or even thinking whether it might or might not be appropriate. Equally missing is any sense of sexuality or humour that might leaven the heavy-handed moral tone. Their shows are excruciatingly staged to the last detail, sucking out any form of spontaneity or humanity. Their influence is everywhere, a direct musical influence on Coldplay and their soft-rock following, but also felt wherever bands decide that they must make a Grand Statement, sacrificing humour and humanity in the process, a sadly common disease in modern indie rock.

1. Oasis

I was originally going to be somewhat glib about this, but I feel I have to tread carefully here as I think this is a point that needs making. Oasis were unashamedly careerist, and are I think largely responsible for the way that, in the eyes of the music press, the public and musicians themselves, ‘ambition’ refers to your career rather then to your art. You may love Oasis and argue back that this is not a sin in itself, especially as you feel that they wrote some great tunes, but I’d like to point out the huge musical debt that all of their songs owe to previously written material. You already know that Cigarettes and Alcohol is Bang A Gong, that Hello steals directly from Garry Glitter and Don’t Look Back In Anger is Imagine via Felt’s New Day Dawning, and so on and so on, so I won’t labour the point. You could also point out that Oasis are not the first band, or indeed musician, to directly plagiarise tunes, but the combination of Oasis’ blind arrogance and lust for fame leaves an unpleasant aftertaste. Certainly, in their wake there are legions of bands that opt simply to cop ideas rather then innovate, leading us to the paltry state that much of indie rock is in today. Basically, the message is, you can get by on swagger and bluster alone, which just isn’t healthy. And, interestingly enough, the crushing lack of subtlety and bland clichés that characterize Oasis’ ballads helped to pave the way for the worst excesses of Coldplay and their ilk. Though they would surely balk at the suggestion, Oasis and Coldplay share much in common: Oasis prioritise popularity over innovation, which again I admit isn’t a sin in itself but ultimately leads to musical stagnation. I don’t have a problem with Oasis existing – I loathe them but I can ignore them – I have a problem with Oasis being such a musical touchstone for a generation of music fans. Best record since Definitely Maybe doesn’t cut it for me – to aspire to follow that record is to create a record free of innovation, daring and originality, some of the qualities that drive my passion for music. Piss off and get a job.