Let's finally say 'Fuck Off' to self perscribed Retro

Do you ever feel like you're living in reverse, or in a remake of an old film? We live in an age of permanent denial. It's an age of... what? What is it that will define us? Well, I sincerely hope isn't apathy, blissful ignorance and an incredible lust for hyper-reality. It's become increasingly difficult to view music videos or band photos and guess when, in what year or decade, they were produced. I ask you, why listen to a current artist attempting to emulate a specific sound of the past when you can just go and listen to the bands of the past? It's because some poor fools can't let the past be the past. They slouch around wishing it was like it was in the old days, or, if they happen to be younger, feel alienated from the world around them. They see the freedom that once was and seek out music representative of this. The Music Industry is more than happy to respond. Welcome to the world of google-search shopping, databases and advertisements that know you better than your own mother. And if you've got an original idea, there's probably already a niche market and a demographic for it. Enough is enough! I want to feel alive in the unpredictable 'now', in my own god-damn decade and part of my own generation. I refuse to be constantly nostalgic of eras long gone that I didn't grow up in.

In The Guardian today, a live review written by Kitty Empire of a budding pop starlett called La Roux brought all this to my attention. More than often The Guardian is guilty of fanning the flames of hype. Before a music scene has the chance to achieve maturity or greatness the newspaper is all over it like a walrus in a swimming pool. I can't say I've read anything from Ms Empire that exceeds empty drivel. This review, however, topped it. In the opening paragraph she tries to describe the music to the reader but with no success "[La Roux] cites early Eurythmics as guiding lights. She borrows shamelessly from Prince's 'When Doves Cry'". It's boring, and what's worse, completely uninformative. Later on Kitty meanders about appearence, as all morons do, to convay at least something to us. "La Roux's other touchstone is her hair [...] It is a hairdo that speaks a thousand words". So why didn't the hairdo write the article then? At this point, I'd filed La Roux under forget-and-move-on.

In Kitty Empire's own words "the 20-year-old La Roux is perhaps the most obsessed with a decade she is too young to remember". She's not alone in this regard. Like Lily Allen and Adele, these over privilaged, born-into-fame-spawns write music like they live on the moon, looking down on the earth through their hazy telescope. Never thought I'd say it but even Kate Nash is better than this. These icons are given the 'voice of a generation' garland, but they are false prophets.

Instead, give us a new form of Bob Dylan, a down and out, someone who makes mistakes, an everyman with understanding and wisdom. That's the kind of Retro For Recession we need. Not, to quote Kitty, "an Eighties revival so vivid it classes as a re-run". Haven't we already seen plenty of eighties comebacks? If not, someone should tell Sissor Sisters, Interpol or Late of the Pier. I'm sure these artists, and many others, would like to know they'd been screwed. Are we going to be spinning our wheels for eternity? Maybe, because all this has happened before, over and over and over again.