In a recent interview with Shortlist, Paul Weller claimed that the constant amount of reformations is liable to “hurt new bands because nobody’s looking out for anything new.” And the main question you could ask is, just what are people looking out for?
Black Sabbath are the latest band to confirm a reunion, publicising that they’ll play the second headline slot at Download Festival next year whilst also announcing a world tour is on the cards. The declaration comes as no particular shock given the increasingly popular trend amongst more mature bands to jump on the old beaten wagon.
Stevie Nicks has also discussed the onset of a Fleetwood Mac tour once she has finished on the road with her solo project, promoting the album ‘In Your Dreams‘. Manchester rockers The Stone Roses are decidedly going to “shake up the world” with their reformation next year, as they announced recently at a press conference. Pulp, Blur and Suede have already carried out similar decisions.
We seem to have hit another Generation X type scenario, where the music that people have access to lacks the excitement required to define the moment, and instead dampens the fires of inspiration for anyone looking to latch onto a voice. Meanwhile, the older bands squeeze their way back into skinny jeans and in some cases Lycra, leaving everybody literally listening to the music that their parents were into. And Kurt Cobain had built up such a backlash against all this.
In an interview earlier this year with the Live4ever Ezine, Alan McGee, co-founder of Creation Records, declared quite bluntly that, “I don’t like music anymore. To be honest, it bores the shit out of me – people in bands bore me.” Which could possibly be a result of the fewer fresh and interesting bands breaking through into the mainstream. But the truth of it is that there are bands out there with something new to say, who are doing it for themselves again, forming their own labels – it’s just that they remain underground whilst yet another venerable group announces their reform.
One example of innovators with dreams to combine the values of Warhol’s Factory with the ethos of Sonic Youth’s first ten years of existence comes from central England, where independent label La Nouvelle Mode fuses art, film and a high degree of quality music in such a way that aims to get people excited about new music again. Setting up their own tours and releasing their own records within a network and complete with launch events is very much a part of their essence.
In 2006 (before the reform trend) Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore commented on the position of the industry then, deciding that musicians were facing a positive future. “It’s the end of the record label thing. Everyone can have their own personal identity label. Having access to those big mega bucks though is a little more difficult without the corporations behind you – know one knows what’s really going on.”
His prediction may unfold yet. And by the looks of how the focus is currently directed toward reformations, perhaps the current artists on major labels will suffer a loss, and eventually it’ll be the small independent labels that push through again as they have done when new music has run dry before.
It’s most likely just a matter of time before everyone gets bored of the music they’ve been exposed to from birth and reach out for something else.
