The "I'm so full of prejudices and sweeping generalizations" post.

 Pukkelpop 2009

 

Sweeping generalizations I firmly believe in:

 1. People that holiday in the same city/resort/hotel/village or island year after year after year after year are not real people. They are  simplistic robots that the Government has created in order to make us feel better about being so boring. Let me explain. In a rare moment of clarity back in 2005 the Bush administration decided to introduce these robots amongst the humans. The reason was that suicide numbers in the U.S had reached an all-time high. More and more people, polls revealed, committed suicide because they considered their lives to be extremely boring. Not only were their jobs miserable but they didn't even have fun on their holidays! Thus, the Robots that Holiday Every Year in the Same Place (RHEYSP) were invented. Suddenly people thought: "it's not that bad! At least I'm not as boring as them!". So things went back to normal. There is proof of this. People that spend every holiday on, say, Ibiza lack some sort of fundamental brain function that scientists call "curiosity". Now this "curiosity" is a quintessentially human trait so of course this proves once and for all that these freaks are non-human. But seriously now, I don't understand it. You can take the pathetic sum of money you worked all year to make or that your parents worked all year to make and you can either a) do something boring, unoriginal, stupid,  repetitive and unchallenging or b) do something different, eye-opening, horizon-widening and intellectually challenging. It's like if someone told you - "look, if you buy this magical banana (which will cost you the same as or less than an ordinary banana) you will become instantly happier, more knowledgeable, you will be richer as a human being, you will have more experiences, you will stimulate your imagination and brain, you will learn a ton of new things without even trying and you will have many wonderful memories." And you're like "no thanks, I'll have the ordinary banana instead, you know, the one I always get. I just know it better and trust it more. I like how it always has the same sticker that says Chiquita." What???! It makes no sense! Seriously, have you stopped to consider the fact that you are committing brainicide? Same place every year, same people, same sand, same water, same club, same cigarettes, same TV channels, same language, same boredom, same music, same radio station, same sun, same friends, same same. Going to the same island for the 4th year in a row is about as interesting and entertaining as watching grass grow. No no no no no, wait, you know what? That's a shitty comparison, I apologize to all grass-watchers. At least with grass there's the unwavering certainty that at least if you watch long enough something will be different. No, going to the same island for the 4th year in a row is more like container-ship watching. Or Feng-Shui. Or discus throwing. Or repeatedly drawing little triangles onto a piece of paper until you've covered the whole surface only so you can then wipe your ass with it. Over and over. For the rest of your life. Yeah, that's more like it.

2. All festival-goers suck. Especially festival-goers that think they're being funny and for some reason also think the rest of the world thinks they're being funny so they repeat the same joke ad nauseam just in case you didn't get it the first time (you didn't). Especially festival-goers that piss on any single object having the misfortune to be vertically positioned - including your tent, the place you buy food from and your leg. Especially festival-goers that burn your tent with cigarettes and squirt what one can only hope is water in your face from plastic guns. Especially festival-goers that don't attend said festival for the bands but just so they can have what underdeveloped Vogons and mentally challenged apes would deem "fun". To be fair, all these people mentioned only comprise about...oh, 90% of all festival-goers, but just to be safe I propose the whole lot of them be castrated (and tube-tied respectively!). YES! In fact, I already have a plan. We'll have a dozen hundred surgeons ready on the spot. We can tell festival-goers to gather at the Marquee for a "Surprise Act", à la Pukkelpop 2009, right? They'll probably have wasted their last two (2) remaining neurons on trying to figure out whether they'll be seeing Katy Perry or The Rasmus next so they won't even understand what's going on - my God! The genius of it! One minute they're staring obtusely at the sign that says "If you have already had a vasectomy, please walk away now" and the next WHAM. No more babies for you, Scottie. Preventing the Stupid-gene from polluting future generations just like that - imagine! It'll be cruel, sadistic, horrifically bloody, epically sick, environmentally-safe and so much fun!

3. Anyone that watches MTV nowadays is a complete and utter moron. Now I need to explain myself properly here because this is highly debatable. I'm not saying people are morons, just because they choose to watch tasteless crap. I am saying they will eventually become morons if they continue to watch the shows for a prolonged period of time. You can only do it for too long before you start hearing screaming voices in your head. If you insist on doing it, be prepared. Expect nausea, dizziness, paralyzing headaches, an overpowering urge to throw plates at the wall, kick your dog and possibly kill small innocent children with big red sledgehammers. Your brain cells will also start dying a slow and agonizing death and you will find you are only able to communicate in tweets, text messages (sorry, I mean, txt mssgs) and loud unexpected bursts of "NEEEEXT!". If you don't believe me and want to experience the effects of this global disease for yourself, just watch one of the millions of reality shows on offer these days at what used to once be a music channel: e.g. Date My Mom, Made, A Shot at Love With Tilla Tequila, That's Amore, From a G. to a Gentleman (or was it From a Gangsta to a G?), The Money and the Power, Next, Room Raiders, Sweet Sixteen, etc.

 

4. Any person who uses the word "morality" in a sentence is a twat.

 

5. Despite what Cosmo might tell you, sweaty men are not "sexy" - they are disgusting humanoids oozing filth, chloride and water from their pores and should surely put effort into avoiding human contact rather than happily trying to rub against you in buses or at gigs.

  

At this point I must stop my complaining and stereotyping unfortunately because the new Mew (newmewnewmewnewmew. Haha. Must be all the MTV-watching. Sorry.)  album has gone and put me in a good mood. Ugh. Hate it when that happens.

Here, you have some, too:

 

Mew - Silas, the Magic Car

Mew - Hawaii 

LHNA is back!

Ciao and welcome back dear reader!! Buon Natale e Buon Anno! (Why does everyone that visits a foreign country feel compelled to use the few words they learned during their stay when they return? No idea.) Anyway - Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and we hope you had a lovely time and enjoyed the holidays! As you probably know, if you are one of our regulars, LHNA spent their holidays in Venice and Milan, sightseeing on vaporetti, making videos on ships with bunny masks (see picture above; don't ask further questions), opening champagne bottles outside shoe stores and doing their best to avoid firecrakers. Parenthesis - really, those people for whom NYE is just an excuse to hang around crowded places with their "mates" so they can throw firecrackers AT people, snigger when they yelp and jump and enjoy the fact that they're SCARING them: you're a teenage deliquent, fuck you, you're more sickening than that James Blunt video with those freaky technicolor bimbos - parenthesis closed. Phew, that was a lot of hatred I had stored for them there. Don't let this nonsensical intro stop you from relishing our comeback, I really AM getting closer to saying something music-related.

THE DARK SIDE: During our stay I a) watched more MTV than I probably ever have since I was twelve, and b) listened to more bad music than I probably have since...well, my mother's womb possibly. I'm thinking those two are probably related. The reason I indulged in such masochism is this: MTV Italy happens to be the only channel there that occasionally has something in English. The experience was certainly eye-opening. Realizations: Hype Machine world is definitely not MTV world. Coldplay have a lot to answer for. Emo is still alive in Italy. I miss good old Britney. There was a time when MTV music awards didn't make me cringe. And people sure listen to a lot of crap.

Top 10 horrors I had to witness on MTV:
1) Katy Perry hosting (and performing at) the MTV Europe Music Awards. Practically the most untalented, brainless, unfunny, revolting, sleazy without even being hot, manufactured bimbo to come out of the music industry after Paris Hilton. I liked Paris more, for the record.
2) James Blunt's video for 'Love Love Love'. I was truly shocked. I really didn't think a song or video could be more horrific than "Beautiful". And I don't mean this in a trying-to-be-funny way. This video really makes me scared about the world we live in.
3) Speaking of things that make me scared about the world, there was this Italian ad for ringtones.... I won't even go into it because you won't know what I'm talking about, but believe me, vomit-inducing, scary shit.
4) This. Id est, Estonian singer Kerli Koiv's "Walking On Air". Song lyrics: There's a little creepy house in a little creepy place/ Little creepy town in a little creepy world/ Little creepy girl with her little creepy face/ Saying funny things that you have never heard/ She has a little creepy cat and a little creepy bat/ Little rocking chair and an old blue hat/ That little creepy girl oh she loves to sing/ She has a little gift an amazing thing/With her little funny eyes of hazel/ With her little funny old blue hat/She will go and set the world on fire/ No one ever thought she could do that
5) Are we human or are we dancer? Enough nonsense. Please.
6) A 30-minute interview with Tokyo Hotel. Because they're one of those bands it's considered ok to hate, I'm not gonna go on about it. I really do wish teenagers these days had slightly smarter people to look up to, though.
7) New Oasis song/video. So boring that I'd rather watch another 30 minutes of Tokyo Hotel saying nonsense into the camera than listen to the whole song. On the other hand, we did have tons of fun trying to find other such thought-provoking lyrics as "Love is a time machine up on the silver screen". (You know... love is a rabbit chewing grandma's knickers; love is a blue fat alien dancing in your brain; love is a cucumber in a wheelchair etc.) Deep stuff... deep stuff.
8) Kanye West live at the EMAs. Thank God Estelle saved his American boy's ass by coming onstage and singing with him, because Love Lockdown was simply horrifying. Some people should be told that they can't sing, no matter how big they are. Oh yeah, someone should notify the manager of the Ting Tings that their sales are decreasing with every live appearance as well.
9) A two-hour documentary about Britney Spears' life. I really like the girl and feel sorry for her, and actually thought her first album was good pop music (too bad she didn't actually write any of it). But, my God, she depresses the hell out of me. Hearing her answer questions about her life was painful; hearing her trying to justify herself just made me want to step into the TV and give the girl a damn hug. MTV!! Did you really need to air this depressing stuff on Christmas Eve????
10) Coldplay wannabes polluting the music scene. The same Coldplayish guitar riffs every other song, same Chris Martin-inspired (French revolution and all that) jackets every other video. Yawn.

THE BRIGHT SIDE: Yes, as you can guess from the picture above, it's about the much-advertised "Pitchfork500", which kept LHNA good company during the holidays. I don't care if you think that Pitchfork was good 5 (or more) years ago and now it's crap - this really is a must-read. I haven't agreed much with PF lately myself, I don't think every Animal Collective album is genius and I think Vampire Weekend are boring. But the fact is all best-songs-ever lists I've seen always have three things in common: They include about a thousand songs from the usual suspects (Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Radiohead etc.). They generally stick to the philosophy that Older Is Better, suggesting that musically not much happened since Nirvana. (The 2000s are practically absent from most tops - and we are, after all, only one year away from entering a new decade) And, of course, a last great problem is that there really isn't that much variety. Where's twee in all these anthologies? The most you'll get is a mention of The Vaselines or Belle & Sebastian. Where's fabricated mainstream pop in the last two decades? Or has there really been nothing good after Madonna or Prince? Also, doesn't at least one Of Montreal song deserve to be on EVERY FUCKING LIST there is? Now say what you will about PF, but this book has all these things. There's twee and there's pop and there's Of Montreal. There's Eminem, there's My Bloody Valentine, and there's Minor Threat and there's Bright Eyes. And yes, there's Radiohead, Bowie and The Rolling Stones, but there's also Kylie and Justin. And there's also Modest Mouse. And there's also The Decemberists. And for that you should read this.

Sorry! If we kept them up or re-linked them we'd risk losing our blog! The only reason we were able to repost it is because Firefox remembered our history, otherwise we would have lost the entire post (see our post on the subject) .