The Backlash...

As mentioned in a previous post, MCR have yet again been painted as the leaders of the "Emo" cult.
Rags such as The Daily Mail (summer 06 anyone?), The Sun and others have blamed the influence of the band for Hannah's suicide. She was 13 and hung herself.

In retaliation to the smear campaign against the band, fansite Whatthefrank.co.uk have arranged a quiet protest to be held in London, urging kids to wear slogans such as 'MCR saved my life''MCR saves lives' and positive lyrics from the bands songs.

Now, excuse me if I'm wrong on this, but leading a quiet march through London is not exactly expelling the CULT idea of the tory rags. This has the potential to backfire really badly on everyone.

Instead of just marching to defend one band, who themselves don't claim to be emo, why not make the protest about the IGNORANCE and INTOLERANCE people have towards kids that do dress up in black and feel misunderstood? It should be about opening peoples eyes to the fact that none of the bands that are labelled "emo" especially MCR condone self harm nor do they encourage suicide. They do, in fact, rally against it in thier songs and attitudes.

I approached the organisers with this view and recieved this reply:

"We're sticking to our guns on the MCR front but we will be changing
the main page of the site to illustrate our cause better, over the
next few days."

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy...I'll keep you posted on what happens next.

Bits and Pieces

A lot has been happening in musicville.

1) My Chemical Romance ended off thier two year tour with an outstanding set at New York's Madison Square Garden. Reviews and photos can be found on LiveJournal.com in the MCR TourDiary community.

2) Wentz and Simpson finally tied the knot. Congratulations to the pair.

3) Give It A Name 08 kicked off festival season here in the UK with not much of a bang. A little pop that not even Alkaline Trio could salvage. Most fingers point to the terrible sound guys. Just was not up to scratch.

4) Another teen suicide blamed on emo. Really people! Ignorance has never been so tragic.

5) The Eavis's are still battling to get tickets to Glastonbury sold out. The scene is divided on the whole Jay-Z headlining vs crappy weather debate as the reason to the fest ticket sales doing so poorly. I've never wanted to go, so I'm not sayin anything.

6) Reviews forthcoming:

Give It A Name 08
Vampire Weekend @ Electric Ballroom
Flykiller @ 229

2007 According to iTunes

iTunes has listed thier best sellers for 2007. These include singles, albums and tv shows.

The Top 10 Singles:

1. Grace Kelly - Mika
2. Umbrella - Rihanna feat Jay Z
3. How to save a life - The Fray
4. Ruby - Kaiser Chiefs
5. Hey There Delilah - Plain White Ts
6. Stronger - Kanye West
7. Foiundations - Kate Nash
8. Bleeding Love - Leona Lewis
9. About You Now - Sugababes
10. Shine - Take That

Top 10 Albums:

1. Back to Black - Amy Winehouse (despite being released early 2006)
2. Life in Cartoon - Mika
3. Favourite Worst Nightmare - Arctic Monkeys
4. Version - Mark Ronson
5. Hand Built Robots - Newton Faulkner
6. Beautiful world - Take That
7. Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace - Foo Fighters
8. Yours Truly, Angry Mob - Kaiser Chiefs
9. Eyes Open - Snow Patrol
10. Shock Value - Timbaland

Looking at the list shows me one thing: The general public are lazy about liking new music and prefer songs to grow on them. And that they have no taste - Really people, Mark Ronson???? Newton Faulkner????

And from the newsdesk...

Punknews.org directed my attention to this little article. Apparently, major label EMI is planning a serious shopping spree. Due to the slumping music industry worldwide, they are restructuring the company and plan to spend up to $200M on acquiring successful indie labels, as well as indie artisit management companies, promoters, and touring companies.

This begs the question...will teh sucessful indies be bought out by the majors waving large amounts of cash, or will they stick to thier indie roots and carry on a la Rough Trade? Its a double edged sword because EMI can give the indies much needed global support and distribution but what will they want in return?

A lot of the changes will go into limiting actual cds for store distribution in exchange for more online sales as well as ploughing through MySpace for new talent. What ever happened to good old go-out-to-a-gig-and-watch-the-band method???