What side are you on? That’s the question British Sea Power are asking. It’s pretty valid I think. I mean wouldn’t you want to know if your new girlfriend prefers The Bravery over The Stooges? Do your friends line up at the Corporate behemoth Coffee(tm) chain or do they lovingly suck at the unholy black teat of the superior Italian Espresso Bar Zibetto in Midtown? Black Flag or Dirty Projectors? Actually watching a band play a set or thrusting your fucking phone in the air like a lemming? Bob Barker or Drew Carey? The Office UK or The Office US? In short, ROCK MUSIC OR NON-ROCK MUSIC?
Our troops in Brighton lay it out with more eloquence here:
Good or evil? It’s an important question. But – as shown by some CD sales charts and the results of Germany’s 1933 election – it’s not always a question entirely understood.
Our forthcoming album is called Do You Like Rock Music? We hope this record might help establish a light/dark index for this era. Good or bad? Better to ask: Rock Music or Non-Rock Music?
Some say rock music has long since replaced organised religion – introducing a devotional system for the secular age. Yes, probably. But within rock music there are many charlatans, many false preachers. We propose a new programme of enlightened mass observation – one where all that is good and bad in this world is systematically diagnosed as either Rock Music or Non-Rock Music.
With initial input from listeners to Radio 2’s Radcliffe and Maconie show and from the BSP website messageboard, we’ve compiled a preliminary list. Please see below.
The rules:
2 pts for successful Non-Rock Music nominations.
3 pts for a particularly good Rock Music/Non-Rock Music pairing. For example: Link Ray/Linkin Park; Richard Hell/Richard Littlejohn; Jimmy Saville jogging in Roundhay Park while smoking a cigar/Jimmy Saville under any other circumstances.
4 pts for the most elusive category – that which is simultaneously Rock Music and Non-Rock Music. So far, only Courtney Love has managed this.
* Avoid the schoolchild error of suggesting the too obvious. Identifying Razorlight as Non-Rock Music is like pointing out malaria is a dangerous disease.
* The members of British Sea Power will have final say on selections. Whoever runs up the most points will be officially garlanded with praise.
* Please note that it is, at all times, Rock Music and Non-Rock Music – not “rock/non-rock”, which is something Gene Simmons or Anthea Turner might say.
Check out the results and ensuing mayhemic comments here.
