The View - 'Face For The Radio'
The world of modern song contains a fine and noble tradition, which was started way back in the '60s by the Kinks - the 'little thumbnail character sketch' song. Usually it's some indie band having a pop at businessmen who wear suits (and sometimes they like to pretend that the suit hides a fetish for ladies underwear, a stab at social comment which possible worked the first time, but maybe not so much since then). Anyway, there's loads of them. All you have to do to make one of your own is think about someone you don't like, list all the things about them that you'd most like to have a sneer at, make the ends of your sentences rhyme and you're done.
The thing which seems to have been lost a bit, over the years, is the idea that these songs should be an affectionate swipe, rather than a total character assassination. And this is the very thing which the View are bringing back. Their last single, 'The Don', despite being a flint-eyed stab at people who've lost their youth to that fancy book learning, contained a great big musical hug for the swotty brainiac the song is about.
Same thing happens here. After a verse or two of gently strummed acoustics, and pretty call-and-response harmonies, mocking a deluded show-off with all the potential in the world but nothing to show for it, there's this lovely little apologetic middle-8, where the sneering suddenly stops and a meek Kyle croons "I've nothing against you, I've love in my heart, you're really a nice lad, I've known it from the start".
Which changes the song from being an ignorant rant about people you don't like enough to get to know properly, to being strong words of advice from one friend to another. Which is much nicer.
Kyle (whose name I keep typing Kylie, which says a lot about the devastating effect of repetitive actions on the muscles in the human body) has a terrible habit of playing this song FAR too fast when in front of a crowd. The evidence is all over if you don't believe me. And yet, even at a ridiculous gallop, there doesn't seem to be a damn thing they can do to spoil the innocent tumbledown joy which cascades from the song like puddle-water off a wet dog.
And not even the slightest whisper of a hint that the man in their sights enjoys wearing stockings and suspenders. We're EVOLVING, people!
PS: There's a REALLY cute bit in the video, just before the song starts properly, where someone cracks a joke about the band using the same three chords for their new song, and Kyle smiles. Who knew the dirty-trousered little touselhead had such a beautiful grin, eh?
Download: Out now
CD Released: June 25th
(Fraser McAlpine)
Comments
indie music rocks n so do the view i mean come one the lead singer hottie
ily jess
face for the radio..hmm, is this song written for you, fraser?? :P
[Yes. Only when they originally wrote it, it was called 'Too Handsome To Live'. I went into hiding shortly afterwards, they changed the lyrics and the rest, as they say, is biology - Fraser]
ahh i see, so they had a brief moment of insanity then realised what they had done :P as for your spell in hiding, come on man pull yourself together, mcfly fans arent that scary!
[Yes. They. Are. - Fraser]
aww, ok erm, well, think before you play with fire in the future!....as been as youve ALREADY played with the fire perhaps seeing a doctor should be advised, youre clearly not quite over the ordeal..will you ever be fully over it? only time will tell :S
you would never imagine it you know, (occassionally and seemingly) cute little 12 years olds capable of reducing a grown man to a quivering wreck, theres definately problems with the children of today!
this is frankly and awful song. sorry to those who adore it, its a nice ballad - but its the exact same chords as Radiohead's Fake Plastic Trees, very much like Same Jeans having the exact same melody as Brimful of Asha. horridly unoriginal, lazy and amateur songwriting - and it doesn't help that they're a bunch of jumped up arrogant fools, who go on about there own greatness in a way that would make Johnny Borrell green with envy.
to quote them in the NME, when asked what they were bringing to the NME indie Rock tour that the other bands weren't, Kyle Said: "We're the only band playing stuff thats nothing like the stuff out there already". HELLO? idiots.
this song is absolutly horrible, as was same jeans and as is everything else they have done, and they are really not good live too.
same-y
ugh