“It’s just music isn’t it? The good, the bad, the soul shrivellingly shite,” our blog brother Andy Von Pip from The Von Pip Musical Express recently tweeted us in a discussion on genres. He’s right of course, but where every tune and band lies on that spectrum is THE BIG DEBATE. Some of us will define the good by a certain type of sound or noise, others by the melody or lack of it or by something which we’re familiar with or something that we’re not. One man’s meat is another man’s poison etc etc. We all have our prejudices, even the best critics.
It’s probably why at Breaking More Waves there’s been an internal dilemma going on over the last 24 hours since the Blog Sound of 2014 poll results were announced. For the very first time in the poll's three year history there are two winners, carrying exactly the same number of votes. On one hand the wistful dark alt-folk sounds of Marika Hackman. On the other the smoky come to bed music of Banks. Two very different artists who from the various poll announcement posts we saw seemed to be loved and loathed in equal measure by the voting bloggers. Camp Marika or Camp Banks. Lines were being drawn and it appeared from our window of the world nobody was prepared to straddle them.
Except us at Breaking More Waves.
We like Marika Hackman. We like Banks. All the arguments that thave been put forward about blandness, corporate vs indie, originality etc we can sympathise with and understand, but the bottom line is we love far more music than we hate. Call us non-discerning if you will, that’s fine. It’s why at Breaking More Waves a night with our music collection will find us absorbed and consumed with the likes of Aphex Twin to Abba, from Chic to The Clash or from Lorde to Lennon (John of course). Our dilemma is should we hate more like it seems that many of our blog peer group do. Our answer is no. We like to straddle genre's now and then. Variety is the spice of life etc and other clichés.
Which brings us neatly (albeit via a lengthy journey) to When 5AM. They’re the kind of act that Camp Marika will (probably) hate. Yet despite being happy to spend time in that camp, we like this one as well.
As you can probably tell from the name, Worcester based 3 piece When 5AM do music that is late night and earthy. It’s house music, but house music that possesses a soft seductiveness. Listen to the delicate piano twinkles and smooth production on Get In Love, a track from their free to download (via Bandcamp) 7 tracker and you’ll see what we mean. Both blissful and euphoric it’s a bit of a beauty. There’s something about the groove, the warmth, the ecstacy-laden sheer damn sexiness of the sound that tickles our ears very nicely.
The good, the bad and the soul shrivellingly shite. You make your own decisions, but if you love music that moulds and shapes your feelings, puts you in a trance, takes you somewhere and makes even the most overcast of days seem OK (and fancy a bit of a dance) then Get In Love and When 5AM might just be your thing.
When 5AM - Get In Love
Here’s a song we mentioned a few days ago which went public today and has already been picked up by a number of blogs leading to over 1000 plays on Soundcloud in its first few hours on line - not bad for a virtually unknown band who had about 2000 plays in several months before that with a previous song. It's also just sneaked onto the Hype Machine charts so expect that play count to continue upwards.
Swim is lusher and smoother than previous track I Want / You Want which we introduced the Brighton five-piece with in December (that song has now mysteriously been taken off line). Swim sounds like it’s been influenced by hanging out in the sun by the bars under the arches on the beach last summer in their home town; it’s certainly a song to get the factor 30 sun screen out for because it’s blazing with hooky guitar riffs, bright synthy heart punchers and even a little bit of funkiness. It's a hot indie groove for a cold January.
Recorded with James Earp (Bipolar Sunshine, Nina Nesbitt) Swim has been described by Fickle Friends lead singer Natti as following the idea that “people get mixed-up in confusion and sometime feels like they're drowning.” You can purchase it on the new Killing Moon and Ally McCrae compilation New Moons Vol 1 which also features the much blogged here south coast singer Laurel who Fickle Friends will be supporting at the Barfly in Camden next week on the 9th. If you live in London why not make that your first gig of the year?
Fickle Friends - Swim
The votes are all in and today we can reveal that Banks (pictured left) and Marika Hackman (pictured right) are the joint winners of the third UK Blog Sound of 2014 poll, a poll voted for by 59 UK based music bloggers.
Marika Hackman is a British solo musician who writes haunting and captivating songs that feature her ethereal vocals and instrumentation that has been pigeonholed as folk but often offers much more. She was the 8th most blogged artist by UK based Hype Machine listed bloggers in 2013.
Marika Hackman - Cinnamon (Acoustic)
Banks is an American musician who makes sultry modern sounding electronic R & B influenced pop. She was the 9th most blogged artist by UK based Hype Machine listed bloggers in 2013 and also features on the BBC Sound of 2014 poll, a list that the Blog Sound of 2014 was designed to compliment.
Banks - Waiting Game
It’s the first time in the polls three year history that the most voted for artists have had an equal number of votes.
The voting for the UK Blog Sound of 2014 was closer than ever with singer songwriter Sivu finishing as runner up, just one single vote behind the two winners.
This year 139 different acts received at least 1 vote from the participating blogs, the vast majority of the 139 receiving just 1 solitary vote. Of the 15 acts on the BBC Sound of list 7 of them failed to secure a single vote from UK Blog Sound voters for the UK Blog Sound poll.
What Can We Can Conclude From This Years Voting?
In terms of popularity, on one hand some UK bloggers have a commonality of taste with the BBC Sound Of voters, with Banks coming joint first on the Blog Sound poll and featuring on the BBC’s long list. 8 of the acts on the BBC Sound of long list also received votes on the Blog Sound poll, although only 3 of them (Banks, George Ezra and Royal Blood) got enough to feature on the Blog Sound poll long list. It will be interesting to see if the popularity of Banks with UK bloggers is repeated by the BBC voters and if she features in the top 5 of the BBC list. On the other hand Marika Hackman and Sivu are nowhere to be found on the BBC long list, but are evidently both popular with certain sectors of UK bloggers.
With Banks being one of the winners it also continues a tradition of UK bloggers voting high for American artists, with Friends topping the poll 2 years ago and Haim winning it in 2013.
And so to 2014....
We look forward to seeing what all of the Blog Sound 2014 nominated artists deliver this year (you can see the full long list here) except for Mt Wolf who sadly in a strange turn of events announced they were splitting up the day after being named as one of the Blog Sound nominees! The curse of the Blog Sound list? We hope not, but credit to Mt Wolf for mentioning the Blog Sound poll in their split statement (and a thumbs down to the NME who removed the line about the Blog Sound poll in the feature they ran on the Mt Wolf split when quoting their statement - we'd love to know why).
Here’s more music from Marika Hackman (performing a song she recorded with runner up Sivu) and a remix of another track by Banks, the UK Blog Sound of 2014 winners.
Marika Hackman (featuring Sivu) - Skin
Banks - Change (Dream Koala Remix)
For a full list of voting blogs see here.
Happy New Year. Here are 20 things we want to happen to music and the internet in 2014:
1. The diarrhoea of sh*t demos will lessen. New artists will stop uploading the first thing they’ve recorded to the internet without first exercising some degree of quality control. Bands / singers / musicians and wannabe rock / pop stars - remember that putting any old crap on line is the equivalent of shooting yourselves with your own gun. Your name will be forever associated with that first song and in this day and age of hyper fast turnover and smaller windows of opportunity, sadly people are less likely to give you a second chance.
2. The tired format of X-Factor will be scrapped.
3. More people will stop just sitting around listening to music on the internet and actually get out there and watch live bands (not just big arena shows but small club and pub shows) and (importantly) be prepared to pay for it.
4. Being ahead of the curve will become less important in the world of new music blogging, but it will still be a little bit important. We wrote more about 'firsties' here. Everything we wrote in that article we still believe in.
5. Channel 4 will start a new ‘edgy’ youth / after the pub Friday night TV show that will be ridiculously rubbish in places but will feature great live music performances (think The Tube meets The Word). We want to see things like this energy and this oddness (from 7 minutes onwards) on the TV. There needs to be more TV performances that don't play safe (but in doing so not playing safe doesn't mean just taking of your clothes, which is becoming increasingly boring).
6. Bands will stop thinking that getting Facebook likes and You Tube views is as important as writing great songs.
7. Jai Paul will actually release an album. It will at least include track 2 of the stolen demos Bandcamp thing from 2013 and it will actually be worth the wait.
8. Music journalists will spend less time looking backwards and more time looking forwards. It’s the 20th anniversary of two of Britpop’s most important albums (Parklife and Definitely Maybe) in 2014. We love both records, they're important parts of music history, if you haven't listened to them you should. However, we don't need a multitude of 20 page retrospectives on 'the music that defined a generation' or such like to help sell back catalogue. The music industry's love of constantly looking into the past will ultimately sell it short in the future.
9. There will be more pretentious and colourful pop music and less homogenised average pop music. We’d rather see artists gloriously fail at trying to be brilliant than having success by doing what their media trainers tell them to do.
10. People (particularly music writers and dated sounding bands) will stop using the term ‘real music’ when writing negative articles against studio produced / electronic and pop music. If you don’t like the music that’s fine, but this ‘real music’ stuff is balls. Likewise the term honest music and the theory that music has to be 'authentic' for it to be good will finally be kicked into touch.
11. Chloe Howl and Charli XCX will become proper pop stars in the charts rather than just credible blog-pop acts. They will refer to point 9 above at all times.
12. Music websites will stop posting “XXXX artist reveals album artwork,” as hit baiting ‘news’ stories and lists such as '20 greatest guitar riffs in rock'. Oh hold on.....
13. More bands that meet the taste of Breaking More Waves will play our home city of Portsmouth, rather than us having the weekly school-night slog over to Brighton / London and back to see the bands we love. In 2013 we spent more money and time travelling to gigs than we actually did on tickets for shows and watching the shows themselves. That seems wrong.
14. When a new artist is launched with a mystery identity or a change of name, record labels / management and the artists themselves will ensure that before the launch they do a proper job of erasing information that they do not want the public to know. Not all music bloggers rely just on the PR machine and press release and will often do their own research. Independent blogs (who are often run by fans rather than music industry people) are entitled to publish any information they find when they think its relevant and labels / artists cannot expect us to not publish information that they have failed to remove. Yes, we want to work with and support labels and musicians, but we also value our independence of thought. Independent blogs are not slaves to the music industry. Even better let's forget this 'mystery artist' idea - its only something that (mostly) the industry and media care about. All the public want are good songs and performances - they don't care about potential future pop stars past non-careers in shit (or good) indie bands that never did anything.
15. That our 24 hour blogathon at the end of this month raises some cash for Cancer Relief. (And that you donate by clicking here). If every person that subscribed to our RSS feed donated a £2 we'd easily over achieve on our target.
16. Soundcloud will start charging a nominal upload fee (say £1) for each song hosted on it rather than its current free service. This would help cure point number 1.
17. Musicians will become celebrities because of the great music they make rather than any other reason.
18. The Mercury Music prize will get back to including some surprise / dark horse records on its list. More token jazz and folk that we've never heard of please.
19. There will be a 2nd Nicola Roberts album.
20. There will be Nicola Roberts live gigs and they will be A.M.A.Z.I.N.G
But if we can't have all of those we'll settle for just 19 and 20. Nicola are you listening / reading? Thanks.
.JPG)