Suede `incredibly happy' with latest album

Sunday, January 26, 2003

Suede is Brett Anderson to most people, so much so that even a British edition of Rockopedia did not bother to include pictures of other members of the group in its Suede section.
But aside from Anderson, Suede has Simon Gilbert the machine-gun drummer, six-foot six-inch cool bassist Mat Osman, glam guitarist Richard Oakes and whizzkid, guitarist/keyboardist Alex Lee.
The Jakarta Post had the opportunity to do a face-to-face interview with Gilbert and Lee a day prior to their show on Thursday. Below is an excerpt of the interview.
The Jakarta Post (JP): I really like your new album. Are you happy with the outcome?
Simon Gilbert (SG): Incredibly happy, yeah, definitely. I mean, that's why it took so long to put it all together. The first time we recorded it we were unhappy with it. So then we went back into the whole game. We just wanted it right, otherwise we wouldn't have released it.
JP: Was that the only reason it took almost three years to come up with this album? No internal problems, like drugs, for instance?
SG: No, not so about. I mean, the drug thing was almost four years ago. That was before we started working on this album. We don't do that anymore. It's just because we wanted the material in the album to be right. It does take quite a long time to write songs and record them.
Alex Lee (AL): From the outside, it seems quite like an effortless thing for a band just to write songs and record them. But it's not. If you care to see the whole process, we wanted to do things perfectly. We had to think about the lyrics, the right sounds, the best way to do it. Three years at the end is not that long to make an album.
JP: But, you know, three years is like a life cycle for a boyband.
SG: Yeah (laughs), but they don't even write their own songs.
AL: And they don't make their own music.
JP: What do you think about boybands and all that stuff?
SG: I don't know, but it depends on who you're talking about. If you're talking about the Backstreet Boys, they're pretty good at what they're doing.
AL: I mean, there's always been manufactured pop right from the very beginning.
JP: Back to your new album, it isn't selling as well as previous ones.
SG: Well, not yet. In Britain maybe not, but we don't really know about in other parts of the world. In Germany and here for example.
AL: And you have to remember as well that when, say, Head Music came out in, what, 1999? The Internet wasn't as prolific in terms of selling, people downloading music for free, piracy ... all that kind of stuff. Although it sounds like an excuse for people in the music industry to make, but the Internet really makes a difference. Hardcore fans are buying the record in the first couple of weeks. But many people check it out first on the Internet, and if they don't like it they won't buy it.
JP: How's the British music scene right now?
SG: Pretty much the same pop, manufactured thing. There's this TV show where people audition to become a star. It is a horrible, horrible thing. But it sells loads of records as people watch the show and buy the records.
JP: What about new bands? Are there any new acts that you like? Like Coldplay, for instance?
SG: (hesitates) Coldplay's OK. I like The Vines, The Flaming Lips.
JP: What about American bands?
AL: I think the American scene right now is quite teen-oriented at the moment. And they really like dark, loud stuff that parents would really hate (laughs). I think it's quite healthy. For a long time it was a bit dull, wasn't it? With Bon Jovi and all. It's quite good at the moment. Bands like Slipknot is quite good.
JP: About the drug problem, how did you quit?
SG: I've got to be honest, I've never been addicted to drugs. But yeah, when you're a rock band you're surrounded by that kind of stuff. And of course you occasionally take it.
But I've never have a problem with drugs. You know, Brett had this problem with drugs and he decided to quit. And he's a lot healthier to work with the band.
JP: To quote Brett's statement in (British) Q magazine recently: "90s music wouldn't have been the same without Suede." What do you think is Suede's most important contribution?
SG: I can't say. We're not journalists or critics, we don't see the whole big picture. We don't really think about that, really. Just try to move on.
AL: Because I wasn't in the band at that time, I think the impact was that the band was the first British guitar band to emerge after a long period of manufactured pop in the 1980s. It kinda broke the mold. The same time as what Nirvana did.
JP: Who was your biggest influence?
SG: Punk rock, like Sex Pistol, and also The Beatles. When I was four years old I always wanted to be Paul McCartney, I don't know why in hindsight (laughs).
AL: It's really hard to separate one thing from one another. When I was a kid I listened to Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys...

Labels: music

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Asian idols F4 a disappointment in concert

Sunday, January 12, 2003
Hera Diani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The voices veered off tune whenever the lip-synching stopped. The dance moves were unsmooth, the series of costumes ridiculous and communication with the audience was limited to "I love yous" and "Thank yous".
However, Taiwan boyband F4 is not to blame for many of the failings that left one wondering whether the two shows here this weekend actually qualified as proper music concerts (a laser show, dancers and screens spread across the venue do not compensate for a lack of a good voice and a stage act).
Blame the record company, Sony Music, for handing the boys a three-album deal even though the foursome are not singers and dancers.
Jerry Yan, Vic Zhou, Vanness Wu and Ken Zhu were just four young actors in their early 20s who skyrocketed to stardom after Meteor Garden, the TV series they star in, became an Asia-wide phenomenon.
Even their acting is mediocre, although as a soap opera Meteor Garden, the second season of which began last November, is surprisingly enjoyable and well made.
Blame the industry for constantly accommodating bubble-gum pop groups who rely on their looks -- in this case long fluffy hair and great bodies.
And you can probably blame the local audiences, who were willing to swallow the garbage and even paid Rp 200,000 to Rp 2 million for the pleasure.
Amazingly, nearly 70,000 people packed the humongous Jakarta Fairground in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, for the first of the shows on Friday night. Everyone was so hysterical and devoted to the group that if F4 asked them to protest against the One China Policy, they probably would have gone out and started painting posters.
We had Puan Maharani, daughter of President Megawati Soekarnoputri, in the audience, along with a retinue of presidential security guards.
We also had 16-year-old Mariati, who came all the way from Bekasi and was at the venue at 11 a.m., almost nine hours before the show, because "I'm afraid to be late".
A mother brought her family all the way from a village in Central Java, only to pass out half-way through the concert from fatigue, though she still had a smile of satisfaction on her face.
In that sense, it was indeed phenomenal that a pop group could attract such a massive audience, most of whom could not understand a word the band was singing, being in Mandarin.
Regarding this phenomena, some experts have concluded that F4 represents the "rise of Asia", with Asians growing tired of Western idols.
It is sad, though, that the rise of Asia has to be so superficial. F4, and the public relations machine and all the hype surrounding them, is really only a copy of all the Western boybands that have come before.
This was succinctly summed up when Vanness Wu danced and sang Like I Love You, a song by Justin Timberlake, a member of American boyband 'NSync.
Unfortunately, he could not even sing it right.

Labels: music

Posted by hera at 3:04 AM | Permalinks | Comments