While it was hardly a heavy hitting album at the time that was dominating the charts, the resulting impact on the changing music scene was what truly made it a seminal release, with exciting new bands (and a bundle of lower regarded copycats) following in their wake as London became exciting again, as the usual barriers between artist and fan were being demolished, thanks in part to Internet forums, but mainly down to ramshackle guerrilla gigs and secret parties anywhere from back room bars to bedrooms.
So it is surprising that there are few higher profile artists involved in NME's covermount, what we have instead are presumably a smattering of hot new acts that the magazine are currently touting as the next big thing, but having outgrown NME's trendsetting attempts and penchant for lists I haven't actually heard of that many of them.
Sadly, what should have been a unique homage to a defining moment of British music history is rather more miss than hit, with most acts paying extended lip service to the lovingly held memory of the Libs and sounding like just another bad cover version lifted straight from soundcloud, kicking off with Peace surgically attaching baggy vibes in an awkward manner and progressively getting worse.
Spector and The Milk add something new to proceedings by transplanting the spirit of Albion into far more diverse host bodies, but the female truncating of Boys In The Band by Stealing Sheep, although brave, just doesn't work well for me, and as for Mystery Jets and The Charlatan's Tim Burgess, well, they frankly didn't try very hard and should have known better, delivering rather uninspiring knock-offs each.
thankfully, they did stay true to the albums brevity, and after 37 minutes that could have been better spent listening to the original or scouring the internet for rare Babyshambles demos, it is all over, phew.
Posted via DraftCraft app
