The lack of great indie bands If you look at the fantastic bands that have lined British music over the years, they consist of double acts; Lennon and McCartney, Morrissey and Marr, Squire and Brown (or Reni and Mani, depending which way you look at it), Coxon and Albarn, Liam and Noel, Turner and Helders. Pick any of the bands I've mentioned in this piece though. The Vaccines have great melodies, some clever lyrics, but their guitarist is pretty uninspiring. Bloc Party have an excellent guitarist, but rarely hit the spot with a great melody. Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand is brilliant, as was Julian Casablancas, but they can't hold their bands together by themselves. Hard-Fi, the Enemy and Razorlight didn't have one member of a double-act. Do Vampire Weekend fire on all cylinders? What about Beady Eye? Ultimately, it comes down to opinion. If you disagree with much of that, then I guess you don't see a crisis in indie-rock at the moment. But for some of us, the biggest problem that's faced indie-rock in the past ten years or so has not so much been mediocrity, but a lack of brilliance on par with what's been before. We've seen a lot of talented bands, but anyone as good as the Smiths? Anyone that we'll tell our kids about, and their kids, or are we forever destined to hand Beatles records from generation to generation?
What do you think? What problems do you see facing indie? Do you utterly disagree with this pile of nonsense? Comment below!