gotwit?

Swings and Roundabouts

In truly predictable fashion, the internet backlash against last year’s X-Factor headline grabbers Jedward upon delivering the video for their latest single, a cover of Blink-182’s ‘All the Small Things’, has begun.

If you’re not well versed in X Factor-ology, the Irish twins single handedly brought the maligned Saturday night talent show into a whole new realm of obscure ‘what on earth won’t Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh do to boost ratings’ scenes, and delivered (arguably accidentally) some of the finest entertainment ITV has managed in years. Bouncing around without talent in dance, rhythm nor pitch, they swanned through to the later stages of the competition with notoriety, and gathered admirers and haters in equal measures.

No surprise then, that this two headed, birth-defect child of the latest generation of cowell/walsh-ite pop music provoked disdain upon tackling not the already-diabolically substanceless likes of Britney Spears, Vanilla Ice and Ricky Martin, but one of the founding fathers of a large part of the current supposed antiphony of ‘made for market talent show karaoke’.

Before the recorded single or video had reached the public ear, Facebook groups mimicking the “Battle of Britain” seen at  Christmas between the actual winner of 2009’s X Factor, Joe McElderry, and long standing rebellious alternawangst rap-rock Rage Against the Machine had sprung to life to combat the evil overlords of pop once more.

For all the plus points of that campaign - the donations to charity, the open-air free show in Hyde Park and the frankly staggering 500,000 copies shifted, present were the things that sometimes make the ‘alternative music scene’ a big hypocritical, arrogant embarrassment;

The condescending elitism shown by fans of ‘alternative rock’ towards pop music is flabbergastingly dull and ignorant sometimes, though I agree Simon Cowell and the X Factor contestants should not get to have a Christmas Number One by default and that a reminder to them that they can’t just have their way is not a bad thing - some people genuinely love pop music and hate rock music, and surely that’s something not to be berated for by those who are the self-professed ‘open-minded’?

Even worse here than a soundalike rehash by some slightly alien looking twins intent on some sort of global takeover is the indication that a form of music originally gaining popularity because it was fun, and an alternative to both the self-important, father-hating, morose, angry metal AND the churned out pop of the time has lost it’s sense of humour.

Though Jedward cannot and do not claim to be bonafide artistes, it’s infinitely more maddening to see that the newer generation of pop punk fans seemingly can’t see Blink for what they are - three guys who just did what they wanted and made what are essentially sped up simple pop songs with guitars. They didn’t sell out, they got where they wanted to be doing what they want, and propped themselves up with toilet humour where their live show let them down. Despite rafts and rafts of great bands springing from that big bang of pop-punk that are supposed ‘legitimate artists’, the transition of the pop-punk scene from being the subject of much elitist prickery and not giving a shit, to being the perpetrator of the same thing is a little disheartening, if not disappointingly predictable.

Some of the comments on the Jedward YouTube video read like they were written by the crazed moron N-Dubz fans who had text messages instead of English lessons at school, and if there’s any real death in the “spirit of pop-punk” evident, then it’s on display in the new generation of kids who listen to it, not with the next generation of unabashed pop taking on a song well-loved across the board.