While the critical acclaim for PT Anderson’s There Will Be Blood may focus on Daniel Day-Lewis’ studiedly epic performance as oiligarch Daniel Plainview, or Johnny Greenwood’s remarkable, discomfiting soundtrack, much of the film’s cultural resonance may lie in its timely reminder for modern audiences, particularly outside the US, of the harsh nature of frontier life in the early American South and West - and its echoes in modern American politics. At the beginning of the film - loosely based on Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil! - Plainview is a desperate, determined loner, literally scratching for silver at the bottom of a hand-dug mine in the Californian desert. With his discovery of oil, Plainview quickly develops a thriving business and a reputation as a giant of his field.

Not a word is spoken in the film until oil is discovered; immediately afterwards, we jump forward several years to hear Plainview, now a successful oil merchant, addressing a meeting of villagers as he makes his case why they should grant him the license to drill their recently-discovered bounty. Contrasting his own background as a genuine “oil man” to speculators seeking to work as middle-men, he extols the values of the small, closely-run business:

I do my own drilling and the men that work for me, work for me and they are men I know. I make it my business to be there and see to their work. I don’t lose my tools in the hole and spend months fishing for them; I don’t botch the cementing off and let water in the hole and ruin the whole lease. I’m a family man- I run a family business. This is my son and my partner, H.W. Plainview.

As I heard this speech I found it naggingly familiar, but couldn’t place it. Then I remembered: this style - this combination of simple language with small-town values - is the language of the modern American conservative movement, and the language of President George W. Bush. The emphasis on hard work over big ideas; the use of “family” as a catch-all codeword for wholesomeness and authenticity; the contrasting of narrow competence against untrustworthy intelligence, are all hallmarks of Bush’s often mangled, but highly effective speaking style. And, like modern conservatism, Plainview’s vision of honest business needs a bogey man to appear really attractive. It’s not enough for Plainview to claim to be honest; he must be more honest, more simple, more genuine, than the ill-defined other.

Out of all men that beg for a chance to drill your lots, maybe one in twenty will be oilmen; the rest will be speculators-men trying to get between you and the oilmen-to get some of the money that ought by rights come to you. Even if you find one that has money, and means to drill, he’ll maybe known nothing about drilling and he’ll have to hire out the job on contract, and then you’re depending on a contractor that’s trying to rush the job through so he can get another contract just as quick as he can. That is the way this works.

This almost-victim mentality is vital to the conservative movement of the last 30 years. Those opposed to it are always out-of-touch moneymen, suspicious characters from immoral cities, brains with no heart. It’s a world-view with a constant undercurrent of mistrust and fear. Most people who will say they want to help you good, ordinary people, Plainview is saying, are dishonest. Corrupt. Only a few good, simple men will listen to you. Only a few share your values. And I am one of them. It’s an echo of Ronald Reagan’s quip that “government is not the answer to the problem, it is the problem”; to Karl Rove’s carefully-constructed coalition of “values voters”. Bush’s down-home simplicity -his astonishing promise on 9/11 to “catch them folks that did this” - stands in marked contrast to the slick ways and fancy words of the untrustworthy Washington elite.

The point, of course, is that Plainview’s vision is a lie. The speech, the first words we hear him utter, is a carefully prepared set-piece speech masquerading as stumbling, homespun wisdom. Far from knowing and valuing his workmen, he works them in 12-hour shifts with minimal supervision, leading to tragic, avoidable accidents. Even his status as a family man, vital to his appeal, is a lie: H.W. is really the son of one of Plainview’s workmen, killed in an accident at work. Plainview keeps him around at least in part to shore up his public face as a committed family man, rather than a driven loner, and by the end of the film their relationship has totally broken down.

As the film progresses, the lies accrue. Tipped off to the presence of oil in the town of Little Boston, Plainview goes to great lengths to hide it from the locals in the hope of buying their arid land at knock-down prices. When word gets out, he promises the earth to the villagers - irrigation, roads, funding for their church - with no intention of paying them their fair share. And his simple frontiersman persona disappears as he builds himself a gothic mansion with his new fortune.

If you’ve been paying any attention for the last eight years, you’ll be getting the similarities. Bush’s family-man values are designed to mask a youth of drug-taking, alcoholism and womanising. For all his trumpeting of simple frontier values, he’s a child of incredible privilege. The child of a president, he campaigned in 2000, astonishingly, as a Washington outsider. A man who grew up in immense wealth, who was helped to power by the nation’s richest people and has executed that power frequently for their benefit, built his electoral appeal by endlessly evoking the image of the dirt-poor, simple frontiersman.

It’s often pointed out that it’s hard for us, in the static, ancient states of Europe, to identify with the American cult of the frontier: its rugged individualism, its disdain for intellectuals, its hostility towards government. But There Will Be Blood serves as a valuable reminder that those standing up and eulogising the simple frontier life have usually been selling something in a bid to escape it. Bush’s simple-family-guy persona has its real roots not in the genuine rhythms and manners of life in the American South and West, but in the carefully constructed performance of the oil salesman. Like Plainview, Bush is an oil man through and through; and, like Plainview, he doesn’t let the truth get in the way of a sale.

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Album of the Year: The National, Boxer

In a year when American guitar bands continued to stand head-and-shoulders above most of their British rivals, Ohio’s The National provided a urbane, mature, and deliciously dark counterpoint to the psych-folk of artists like Spoon and Iron & Wine. Taut and fiercely intelligent, Boxer captures, instead of turning away from, the brooding anxiety that has stalked American culture in recent years. Matt Berninger’s rich voice achieves an impressive emotional impact without a shred of affectation.

Listen to “Mistaken for Strangers”
Download audio file (the%20national-mistaken%20for%20strangers.mp3)

Runner-up: Jamie T, Panic Prevention

Damp squib of the year: Live Earth

Let’s face it, it always sounded a bit rum. Gigantic concerts for poverty sound illogical at first, but if they raise masses of money - or even if they influence the debate - they ultimately make sense. Gigantic concerts to stop climate change just sound wrong. Yes, if it builds awareness, it’s worth the jet flights, the lighting, the fireworks, the car journeys made by the thousands in the audience. But only a genuinely passionate, political event - at least as much so as Live8 - could have made all the excess seem justified. In the end, it was anything but. From the UK concerts being hosted by Chris Moyles - a man who probably thinks climate change is for girls - to David Gray and Damien Rice’s baffling decision to sing “Que Sera Sera”, a song that seemed to encapsulate the very complacency the concert was supposed to shake us out of - the event was vacuous and soulless from the start. Without an actually-great moment along the lines of Kanye West’s appearance at the Concert for Diana, it just felt like being stuck inside one of those green adverts full of smiling children that oil companies make.

Runner-up: Playstation 3

I-don’t-see-what-all-the-fuss-is-about phenomenon of the year: Heroes

My brother loves it. Critics like it. People who liked Lost before it got all silly like it. It’s slick mainstream sci-fi, what’s not to like? And yet, I hate it. I hate the cliched Japanese character and his absurdly wide face. I hate the uptight politician’s ludicrously square chin, the central-casting blandness of the actors playing

minor characters. The villains in Lost, as baffling as the mythology has become, remain genuinely discomforting. Malcolm McDowell spewing stock evil-genius stuff about the Survival of the Strong? The pretty, evil one eating people’s brains, for god’s sake? I just don’t get it.

Funky new web thingy of the year: Tumblr

As anyone who monitors my ever-declining rate of posts to this website can tell you, it isn’t easy finding time for regular full-length blogging. And how often do you have something really new to say, anyway? More often you just want to share something cool you’ve seen on your travels around the web. Enter Tumblr: simple, in many ways quite limiting software with one killer feature: predefined templates making it one-click simple to share audio, video or photos. The result? A lot fewer posts here, maybe, but a whole new avalanche of web-highlights shared over on my “tumblelog,” Ravindr.

Love-it-or-hate-it-you-can’t-ignore-it innovation of the year: Facebook applications

2007 was, of course, when the rest of the world finally joined me and a handful of US student friends on Facebook. No sooner had they piled in that these blasted applications came along. Suddenly I was being thrown cows and zombie-zapped by people I hadn’t seen for years. This is, obviously, rubbish. And yet, buried underneath the mile-high pile of crap that has built up since applications were allowed in the Spring, are some real gems: iLike, despite its ridiculous Apple-lite name, is great for adding songs to messages and wall posts; What I’m Listening To finally puts all that last.fm information where you need it; and apps like My Blogs, Flickr Gallery and del.icio.us let you use your profile as a hub for all your web 2.0 shreds of personality spread across the web. There are plenty more needed, instant messaging being a priority, but having hundreds of companies working on the task must be better than having just one. Now, if only someone would ask me what sort of pirate I am.

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Ava-gab example: “Sivva-giv ovva-gorn ivva-gis
avva-ga favva-gat cavva-gow.”

Translation: “Siobhan is a fat cow.”

-Popbitch, April 2002

Rumour has it that Siobhan left the band by saying she was just off for a pee, and never returning. She denies the rumour, but it’s certainly better than that bloody story about Robbie Williams asking if he could keep the apple.

Now that Sugababes, dominated by horrendous former Atomic Kitten Heidi Range, have become bland R’n'B sultresses, Mutya has also sodded off. Siobhan claim she and Mutya are now friends, and focusses her public criticisms towards Buchanan. But it hardly seems like a bloody coincidence that her second stab at the charts (a first album in 2003 failed to break the top 100) clashes with Mutya’s first, does it?

Anyway, the fight is on. Mutya’s effort, “Real Girl,” is a catchy, but faintly bland slice of pop-soul, heavily dependent on a killer sample, a modified “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over.”

Siobhan, on the other hand, has strayed further from her pop roots. “Don’t Give It Up” combines low-key electro backing with unashamedly Kate Bush-aping vocals.

Round 1: Song

For raw melody, Mutya has a clear advantage. But the song’s so dependent on the sample that you find yourself longing for the original. It’s perfectly serviceable but entirely forgettable, disappointing for a former Sugababe. It doe.s have one exciting moment, however - when the intro bursts of sample threaten, for a second, to turn into Paul Mcartney’s “Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time.” Now that would have been interesting.

On first hearing, Siobhan’s effort seems like a pretentious, tuneless misfire. Repeat listens are rewarded, however, as the song’s floaty-light shape becomes more clear. It’s so rare nowadays to hear a slice of pop that doesn’t get progressively less interesting on repeat hears, it’s hard not to admire Siobhan’s stab at avant-garde. Nevertheless, it’s hard not to feel the array of interesting noises and vocal instrumentation would have been enhanced by an actual bloody chorus.

Verdict: Round 1 - Buena

Round 2: Video

If Mutya’s single betrays a certain lack of musical ambition, the video makes her look downright lazy. Lounging around a bed looking at photos! Dancing with friends! Coquettishly displaying shoulders! Excuse me while I doze off. Worst of all, it’s so utterly fraudulent. Mutya is 21, with a two-year-old daughter. But here’s, she’s portraying a 14-year-old girl’s fantasy of grown-up life: stylish drinks in mysteriously uncrowded cocktail bars, a ludicrously large swanky flat. At least in the video for “Smile,” Lily Allen’s bedroom moping took place in a space that actually resembled a teenage girl’s bedroom. Veering from breakdancing one moment, to slinky dresses in a georgian townhouse the next, Mutya’s “real world” seems anything but: a split-personality stab at grown-up style.

Siobhan, too, has clearly lost all interest in the real world. But at least she’s got the guts to embrace it, to dive into fantasy and give us some proper weirdness. It’s a shame then that, like the song, the video to “Don’t Give It Up” lacks a proper core beneath the camera-film-advert imagery. Siobhan waves pretty fabric in desert! Siobhan writhes in ruined building! Siobhan looks slutty in cheap cafe! What does it all mean? Bugger all, one suspects, unfortunately.

Verdict: Round 2 - Donaghy

Round 3: Image & Personality

Let’s assume, for the sake of fairness, that the bullying rumouts surrounding Siobhan’s departure from Sugababes are exaggerations, and that the two really are friends. Even so, it’s hard to feel good about Mutya, morals-wise. Always the group’s most woodenly stern-faced member, she obtained a sudden enthusiasm for dance when required to grind, hotpant-clad, like just another R’n'B ho in the video for the band’s (admittedly magnificent) “Push The Button.” Steely ambition is all very well, but to throw away years of hard-won credibility in a last-gasp attempt to break America seems a bit cheap (although, in fairness, Mutya can’t match stage-school product Range’s frightening ‘pick me, Nigel’ hair-tussling). Noting the breezy plainness of her first single, and the numbing blandness of her duet with George Michael, and it’s clear Mutya’s ambitious, determined, and probably destined for success - but entirely lacking the independence and personality that seemed to shine from the Sugababes in the early days.

With her embrace of art-indie stylings, Siobhan has drifted far further than Mutya from her former band in terms of music and visuals. But in spirit, she seems more in tune with what we loved the ‘babes for: confidence and kookiness. While Mutya launches her live solo career at Ronnie Scott’s, the standard record-industry bid for “serious artist” status, Siobhan is performing at Popjustice Live, suggesting a capability for irony not apparent in her video. She even DJs at Trannyshack! Nevertheless, there’s a certain heaviness of touch to Siobhan’s solo image that seems downright depressing in one so young.

Verdict: Round 2 - Donaghy

What made Sugababes special was their combination of three rare factors: the street-savvy confidence of urban British youth, the fizzing energy of the best pop, and the creative ambition and lyrical sophistication of late-90’s indie and hip-hop. At best, Mutya retains a little of the first category, and she’s clearly striving for the second; we must hope the slick stylings of R’n'B don’t get in the way. Her duet with Groove Armada, and rumours of work with Justin Timberlake and Amy Winehouse, suggest things could get much more interesting.

With her 80’s art-goth fixation (her myspace profile influences include Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil), “interesting” is clearly what Siobhan’s determined to be. But she shouldn’t stray too far from her pop roots, even if it means admitting she may need a little help on the songwriting front. We don’t need a Kate Bush wannabe, not while the original is still going so marvellously strong; but a sophisticated, intelligent young singer offering decent poetic imagery and exciting soundscapes would could find a huge market in a music scene starving for ideas after the bleak years of commercial dance.

You can make your own mind up, and vote for your favourite ex-Sugababe below. Mutya will inevitably win the commercial battle. I think I do prefer Siobhan, for all her pretension; give her a good melody, and I think she could really do something. But here’s a thought. Why should the former ‘babes be fighting amongst themselves? It’s Keisha Buchanan, with her pair of bland replacements, who really deserves a chart kicking. Let’s get Mutya and Siobhan together, mix up some interesting sounds, and pit that against Sugababes’ next bland slice of electro-soul. Now that would be a chart battle worth tuning into Scott Mills for.

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You can’t show it on a screen, but the print version had a nifty mirror effect on the TV screen. Whether the grey-eyed executives picking up a copy at their local CVS feel like they’re reinventing the internet remains to be seen, but either way, user-generated content (UGC - not to be confused with the cinema chain) had well and truly arrived on the cultural map. As well as its Time cover, it had its coffee-shop friendly bible: Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail, describing how a top-down model of media dominated by large producers was about to be supplemented - and usurped - by a near-endless supply of independent content. The difference, of course, was money. Letting people upload videos from their mobile phones had always seemed like a good idea. But not necessarily one with a lot of money to be paid. The moment Google dropped $1.65bn into Chad Hurley and Steve Chen’s laps, that changed.

Now, no sooner has an internet trend reached cultural penetration, then traditional media begins hamfistedly to try to get in on it. Web 2.0 was to prove no different. Quickly, fevered speculation began about how best to bring UGC to TV. Never mind the fact that this had been happening ever since the popularisation of video cameras - think You’ve Been Framed! - now a new generation of UGC-TV cropped up, led in the UK by Trouble Homegrown, an offshoot of the teen cable channel.

Now Britain’s first entire channel focussed on, if not quite dedicated to, UGC, has launched. Named - slightly craply - Current TV, it’s been onscreen less than a month, and I just discovered it tonight lurking on Virgin Media channel 155 (it’s also on Sky 229). At first glance, it’s predictable YouTubeTV - a succession of three-to-five minute films, many made by viewers, strung together by pretty, dumb, mildly trendy young hosts. And it makes no attempt its internet-me-too roots, even calling its mini-shows “pods.”¹

But watch a few minutes of Current TV, and it’s clear this is a little more than bedroom video on the big screen. First of all, the quality - if not creatively, than at least in ambition and production values - of the content. In one hour, I saw a brief documentary about Glasgow’s “neds,” another comparing Iraqi opnions of the American occupation, and another on an American community gym, all slickly edited and complete with graphics. And the filmmakers weren’t all the 14-yr-old boys every user-centred website depends on. The “pod” showing when i first stumbled upon the channel featured a stocky, goateed man in sunglasses and a beanie hat doing martial arts on the beach. “Hang on,” I thought, “that looks like The Edge.” Of course, all goateed men in shades and beanie hats tend to look like The Edge. But, as it turns out, The Edge it was - in a four-pod day-in-the-life documentary made by bandmate Bono. Now, Bono hasn’t always been selective in his embrace of new media forms - think the ill-fated plans for a Zoo TV cable channel in the early 90’s. Nevertheless, it’s a big step up from films of people falling over drunk.

But it’s not just the production values that makes Current TV surprisingly impressive. It boasts something that’s inreasingly rare in mainstream new media: ideals. Current seem serious about political and news content, with an army of so-called “vanguard journalists” delivering quick-fire images and commentary from inside everything from China’s prostitution industry to African mineworking conditions. And the user-generated content, too, has real political bite. The aforementioned pod on Iraqi views of the occupation (made by Iraqi independent media group Iraq Eye) delivered more of an Iraqi perspective on the occupation in three minutes than I’ve seen in the mainstream news in the last year, while a brief introduction to the growing Nigerian film industry was a classic example of the kind of broader coverage of Africa - more than just starvation, war and misery - that many have been crying for more of in mainstream media.

It was clear that Current wasn’t just a low-budget startup. The tip-off came in the credits of Bono’s film: “thanks to Joel Hyatt and ‘Big’ Al Gore.”

Al Gore?

It turns out (praise be, Wikipedia!) that Current TV is, in fact, the invention of the world’s favourite loser himself. I do recall, after the 2000 election, Gore rumbling about the need for an independent new cable channel to challenge the conservative domination of the news media. It turns out Current is an evolved version of that idea. It also turns out it’s been onscreen over 18 months in the US. Think about that for a second - the pod-based format was invented before YouTube even launched. Far from a quick cash-in, Current seems to be the true TV equivalent of web 2.0, drawn from the same ideas but independently developed. What’s more, it trumps it on ideals. Gore’s plan from the beginning was to give space to independent voices. The YouTube founders just wanted somewhere to put videos to show to their friends.

Of course, ideals and TV are a difficult mix. This Nation article recounts the evolution of the concept - from a well-meaning grassroots network to the slick MTV-with-brains we see now. Being the Nation, of course, it goes way over the top.

“Less and less they’re trying to run a company with a social mission,” says Orville Schell, dean of the Berkeley School of Journalism and a member of Current’s board of directors. “They want something that’s new and interesting and economically viable.”

Interesting! Economically viable! The fascists! Current’s three-minute format certainly doesn’t allow for in-depth, nuanced reporting, and the previews of saw of “vanguard journalism” certainly privileged get-it-on-camera correspondence to proper reporting. But while I’m a huge fan of big-’n'-balanced documentary, it’s not the only way to expand the horizons of the traditional media. Rather than “MoveOn.org in prime time” - which, let’s be honest, sounds horrendous - Current has the potential to offer something much more powerful: a TV analogue to the blogosphere. The messages may be quick and simple, but they will hopefully come from a bewildering range of sources - providing a forum for, as Current put it, “any story that traditional news media won’t touch because it’s too big, too small, or too something.” The high standards required by TV transmission, as well as the quasi-democratic selection process (pods uploaded to the website are voted on by users, but it’s not clear how much influence this has on selection), will inevitably silence some voices. But given the number of 9/11 conspiracy movies on YouTube, it’s hard not to think, “good.”²

Current TV isn’t going to change the world, and it isn’t going to infiltrate everyday life to the staggering extent of YouTube. But perhaps that’s not the point. What it is is the first new TV channel I’ve seen in years that’s genuinely different. Isn’t that reason enough to be excited?

Current TV: www.current.com and www.uk.current.com; Sky 229; Virgin Media 155

1. You have to really think about this to see just how horrible it is. The “pod” in iPod means, essentially, what the word pod means - a small, cute vessel. For all the overuse of the suffix since - and I say this as the proud owner of a knackered Korean “GoGoPod” MP3 player - that sense has generally, until now, been retained. But if you apply the word to content, as Current have done, it becomes totally meaningless.
2. They will, of course, also face a host of potential problems over political evenhandedness or otherwise. Do they show the well-produced pod in favour of Palestinian terrorism? What about the one expressing sympathy with al-Qaeda?

Hat tip: Josh

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Soon, a seemingly endless parade of lucky nobodies filled our screens. They made it any way they could: flirting on Big Brother, masturbating pigs, marrying stars – or better still, sleeping with stars who were already married. They got drunk, got dumped, and got divorced. They were snapped with lines up their nose and their pants round their ankles. And we lapped it up, every last column inch of it.

But the humiliation of Jade Goody was the beginning of the end. Our girl next door, who had won over the nation just five years before, was undone by the very things we’d grown fond of: her stupidity, her insecurity, and her big, loud mouth. Now, the tragic, sordid death of Anna Nicole Smith, just months after the birth of her daughter, has slammed the final nail into the diamante-encrusted Versace coffin. This joke isn’t funny any more.

Celebrity culture was the creation of a society that was peaceful, prosperous – and bored. After 9/11, in the midst of a bloody and seemingly never-ending war, a bunch of gobby boys and girls having sex and falling over doesn’t seem so entertaining any more.

Don’t get me wrong. When the first reality TV stars came along, they were like a breath of fresh air. Chubby, shy, skint, with crap clothes, they were just like us. It seemed like ordinary people deserved to be famous too.

But sooner or later, fame reveals your true nature. Like stars, ordinary people, aren’t always funny or loveable. We’re often boring, plain, and stupid, and sometimes racist and nasty. But unlike the stars, we don’t have talent or looks to hide behind. Hold us up to the glare of the spotlight, and we just look dirty.

So bye-bye, kiss-n-tell culture. It’s time to start celebrating real star quality – from the beauty of Penelope Cruz to the raw talent of Forest Whitaker. Fame is a precious thing, and we control who gets it. Let’s use that power a bit more wisely in future.

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This Christmas, 2006, I am boycotting “Fairytale of New York.”

I told you you’d be shocked. Allow me to make myself very clear: I take this action not through boredom, sickness or dislike of said heart-of-gold drunken yuletide anthem. Quite the opposite. I’m doing this because I like it far too much to see it meet the fate of every other Christmas song: overplayed, irritating, redolent of tired, forced fun.

I remember when “Fairytale” first came out. The first time I heard it, I hated it. I was eight, for heaven’s sake; I wanted synths, beats, and preferably a little mini-rap for the middle eight. I really wasn’t ready for MacGowan’s lazily anguished snarl, or MacColl’s lilt for that matter. And yet, after my first listen, something stayed with me. By the next day I’d listened to it several times, learned the words, and put it on a tape I was making for a friend (along, if I remember correctly, with “Pump Up The Volume” by M/A/R/R/S, which must imply something).

For a long time, “Fairytale” remained, if not a secret passion, at least a pretty cliquey one. In the oh-so-ironic 90s, unashamed party ‘classics’ like Slade’s “Merry Christmas Everybody!” went down better than dark old “Fairytale.” I heard that it was kept from video appearances on Christmas Top of the Pops specials by the word “faggot,” but I’ve no idea if that’s true. Certainly, it was a badge of honour to admire the song over the array of Christmas crap out there. This, after all, was the decade when the coveted slot of Christmas number one was competed for almost entirely by novelty acts - from Mr. Blobby to Bob the Builder. I’m not saying that liking “Fairytale” made you some sort of musical guru, but it was a marker of discrimination. Like Radiohead, nobody who was really interested in music would dismiss it, and nobody who was basically more interested in football could really enjoy it.

I remember exactly when I realised that things had started to change: when, in 2000, I heard that likeable-but-dull Irish warbler Ronan Keating* was recording the song as a B-side to his single “The Way You Make Me Feel” - not, regrettably, a Michael Jackson cover, but a cliche with lyrics so mind-meltingly clichéd I’ve often wondered if they were the product of some drunken songwriter dare. Although I’ve never heard Keating’s actual version (with Clannad harp-n-vocalist** Maire Brennan), just the news of its existence made me sad to my core. The one genuinely meaningful Christmas record - the only one that portrays the contrived optimism of the festival in its true context, the misery and bitterness of winter - softened, made saccharine, safe, granny-friendly. Never mind that it’s about an elderly, drug-addicted couple whose dreams have been crushed into dust. It’s about Christmas! Let’s turn the violins up in the mix!

Then, even as Ronan’s cover was bothering the charts - and the ears of Radio 2 listeners - Kirsty MacColl died. Amidst the heartfelt (and well-deserved) tributes that flooded in from fans who’d long loved Kirsty for her tragic sensibility, unique voice, and sometimes biting wit, there were many who talked as if all she’d ever done was “Fairytale” (I’m talking about you, Duncan Connors). From that moment, the song began a quick ascent towards national treasure status. It topped a VH1 poll of the greatest Christmas song in 2004, and has done so every year since. When a colleague in my office recently started a poll on a popular gay networking website about the best Christmas song, it shot to the top. It’s just been re-released for the second time, and is currently at no. 10 in the charts. There are 64 versions of the song on YouTube, ranging from the official video (starring, incredibly, Matt Dillon) to a version by the parents of someone called Sam.

Perhaps I should be happy to see such a great song so popular. But I’m not. “Fairytale” was an aquired taste for a reason: it’s dark. It’s difficult; it contains a vision of Christmas that isn’t dominated by food and things.

He’s an alcoholic shambles, who spends Christmas Eve in a police station. She’s a bedridden junkie. The only hope on the horizon comes from his recent gambling victory (”Got on a lucky one / Came in eighteen to one / I’ve got a feeling / This year’s for me and you”). We all know he’s going to piss it away; that his cheerful Christmas optimism (”I can see a better time / when all our dreams come true”) is a grotesque annual ritual. And the song’s final verse, while it initially seems to bring resolution, in fact offers the protagonists only a weary resignation:

I could have been someone
(Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you)
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Can’t make it all alone
I’ve built my dreams around you

In the end, their complete dependence on each other is all that holds them together: their dreams may be dead, but they huddle, shivering, warming themselves over the ashes.

This is an odd candidate for a feel-good Christmas anthem. And yet, in the words of one EMI staffer,

Fairytale Of New York is an adult answer to Jingle Bells. It’s difficult to remember a Christmas party without a drunken singalong with The Pogues.

Is it too elitist to suspect the millions of people who round off every Christmas party with a “drunken singalong” haven’t fully appreciated the dark bitterness of the story? And of course, there’s the depressing irony of watching drunk people imitate MacGowan’s alcoholic drawl.

And the Pogues aren’t helping, cheerfully performing the song with any passing female singer, not to mention Shane’s mum. And, of course, re-releasing the song any time they’re short of beer money. Think I’m being harsh? Note that Warner encouraged the single’s current re-release “because a whole new generation of fans have heard Shane through his association with Kate Moss and Pete Doherty.”

Now look, I’m not unrealistic. I understand that when fine things become hugely popular, a little of their meaning is inevitably lost; and to stand in the way of it is not only Canute-style arrogance, but pretty close to snobbishness. But that doesn’t mean I have to enjoy it, and it doesn’t mean I have to take part. Hence, the boycott. Before I’ve heard it once too many; before it conjures up images, not of postwar Manhattan with its dazzling lights and freezing tenements, but of work colleagues puking on my shoes; before I learn to associate it with that heady mix of plastic packaging, junk food, cheap wine and lazy nostalgia that is Christmas for childless adults. Before I see it on a bloody advert for holidays in New York, I’m having this Christmas without “Fairytale.”

It hasn’t been easy so far. It was mercifully forgotten at the work Christmas party, but when we had people round for an early festive dinner on Sunday, I had to smilingly ignore several requests. Several times, when Christmas shopping on Saturday, I felt myself bolting a shop without my planned purchases when I sensed the festive soundtrack CD was drifting Pogues-wards. Just today, a colleague put it on on his computer towards the end of the day, minus headphones, so the whole office could enjoy it crackling out of tinny, tiny speakers. I quickly stuck in my earphones and shoved on anything else.

I don’t, to be honest, know how much longer I can last. But I’m going to keep trying. “Fairytale” is a disarming, mature, evocative story, a real adult Christmas song, not to mention one of the most eloquent ever portrayals by an Anglo-Irish writer of the Irish-American urban immigrant experience. It deserves better than to be a drunken singalong, an afterthought, “even better than Slade.”

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A couple of days ago I went to see the Michael Clark Company’s mmm…. at the Barbican. Michael Clark is endlessly referred to as a “former enfant terrible of dance,” because his shows in the 1980’s used to have overtones of sex, and frequently nudity. And I was aware that Leigh designed many costumes for Clark in the 80’s, and even appeared on stage in a couple of shows.

mmm… is a two-part show, like its predecessor at the Barbican O. Both feature a first half set to punk music and second halves set to the music of Igor Stravinsky - Apollo for O, The Rite of Spring for mmm… . I’d never heard The Rite of Spring before, although endless repetition of the story of its riot-inducing premiere had given it almost legendary status in my head. And I was genuinely astonished by the jerking discordancy of it. But Clark, showing a contrariness that has stood him in good stead over the years, took the opportunity to spin a warm tale full of love and humour.

As much as I enjoyed the dance, though, I enjoyed the costumes more. A succession of simple bodystockings mingled with orange leather skirts and furry purple muffs - but far from the tacky campery that may conjure up, the results were thrilling. From the opening costumes - black lycra bodystockings with the sleeves and upper torsos replaced by cut-off white t-shirts - every costume teemed with internal contradictions. In the second half, several dancers wore beige bodystockings with green leaf patters on the chest. Doesn’t sound like much, but the effect was to achieve a sense of pastoral simplicity without interfering with the cleanly modern lines of the general look of the piece - a sort of modernist Puck image.

Then Michael Clark came on, dressed as a toilet.

OK, not dressed as a toilet. But in a costume that incorporated a toilet seat. In a horizontal orientation, around his neck, so that his head appeared to be rising out of a toilet. And the lycra of the outfit, skin-tight around the waist and legs, rose out to the rim of the seat, essentially making Clark a toilet on legs.

Hmmm, I thought to myself. I sniff a bit of Bowery.

And I was right! In fact, several of the costumes from the show were Bowery’s. The show was revived from its original incarnation from 1992, to which Bowery contributed (O premiered in 1994, just before Leigh’s death, and I don’t remember seeing anything in the revival that smacked of his style - but then, I didn’t know about him then). Both the toilet-thing, and a large white faceless blob-creature that ran around earlier, were, I’m sure, Bowery designs (it turns out Bowery “played” the blob-creature in the original).

Once the show was over and I delved into the programme, the connections started to become clear. There Leigh was, credited with “original costumes.” The show’s main costumes credit, however, went to Clark and to Stevie Stewart. Stewart, it turns out, was one-half of Bodymap, the highly influential 80’s fashion house that created most of Clark’s costumes and whose defining characteristic was the figure-hugging lycra the show featured. The other half of Bodymap, David Holah, was Clark’s lover for some time in the 80’s; apparently, they lived in a council flat in Camden, a jarring of that strange time, post-punk, when the country’s most creative individuals neither started, nor became, rich. That Holah’s name no longer appears anywhere near Clark’s work is, presumably, an indicator of some huge schism at some point in the past. A site that appears to belong to Holah does feature a page on Clark, which oddly shares its text with Clark’s entry in Wikipedia. Thanks to the magic of Wikipedia, it’s impossible if the entry has copied the site, or the other way round.

So we have some sort of complex costume-triangle: Boy meets boy, boy and female friend design costumes for boy, boy and boy split up, female friend remains involved in costume making, when not dressing West End productions of Wilde. But the Rock Family Trees-style connections don’t end there. Jane, the dance aficionado with whom I attended the performance, mentioned how much she liked the show’s lighting. I looked at the programme: “Lighting by Charles Atlas.” Why was that name familiar? Jane looked through the programme and exclaimed, “look at this!” Atlas, it said, was a filmmaker and longstanding collaborator of Clark. He had also made a feature film - 2003’s The Legend of Leigh Bowery.

Talk about full circle! Quite unknowingly, without having thought about Leigh for a few weeks, I’d come to see a show featuring his costumes, lit by the man who made the very film which properly introduced me to him. As if that wasn’t enough, I exited the theatre and saw a poster featuring Anthony Hegarty of Anthony and the Johnsons. A fan, I picked up a leaflet to see when they were playing. It turned out that very week, the following Saturday - today - they were playing a gig at the Barbican indeed, they’re probably playing as I write this). But this was no normal gig - the band were to soundtrack a moving backdrop, live video of dancing women processed and edited by - go on, guess - Charles Atlas.

What’s it called when, quite unintentionally, you find yourself drawn to people who have long been drawn to each other? It’s a wonderful feeling, whatever it is. We’re so aware of “scenes” now - every time a handful of creative people get together, it’s labelled, considered and is old hat within months. It becomes impossible to consider the individual without considering the wider movement they’re perceived to be part of. How many people can honestly say they discovered Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin separately, and liked them both, before any sense developed of the “young british artists”? Now, we like a person or their art, and we are told they’re part of something larger, and we get into that too. It’s easy to forget that to really feel synergy or identity with a movement means to be drawn to the individuals before you even realise there is a movement - because the very thing that draws you to each individual is that thing which draws them together. Just as I came to realise that Leigh was at the forefront of much of what I found most exciting about urban British culture of the 1980’s and early 90’s, now I’m beginning to realise that many other artists whose work I’ve sensed the same colour and energy and wit in also sensed it in each other, and indeed, helped foster it in each other.

I wish this story ended with me attending the Anthony/Atlas gig, but it was totally sold out. However, the upcoming Charles Atlas season at Tate Modern should give me a chance to explore some more.

UPDATE: It turns out tonight’s gig isn’t Atlas’ first collaboration with Anthony and the Johnsons. He made the video (below) for “You Are My Sister”, the third single from their debut album I Am A Bird Now. The Song features Boy George, a friend of Anthony’s and the creator of Taboo, the musical about Leigh. The web grows ever more tangled.

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And yet, I’ve always had a sense that the really exciting parts of clubworld have eluded me. When I was giving it the full Pulp, in 1995 and ‘96, I sometimes found myself daydreaming enviously about the ideas and images streaming out of the club scene. While Britpop prized world-weary cynicism, dance seemed hugely idealistic, even cod-spiritual - always aiming for that transcendent moment on the dancefloor, or at sunrise in Ibiza. While indie had vague undertones of violence, dance was quite literally “loved up.” And while Britpop was obsessed with the ordinary - songs about making the tea, millionaire musicians pointedly being photographed playing pool and getting into fights - dance seemed full of fantasy, of performance, of costume. Looking back now, Keith Flint’s “Firestarter” costume seems like a poor imitation of American punk. But in the drabness of 1996, with football taking over the nation, the simple fact of a man in eyeliner on Top of the Pops seemed viscerally exciting.

And as I became aware of the history of New York’s club scene, first with Studio 54 and later with Michael Alig and the club kids, clubland just seemed more thrilling, challenging, and expressive - particularly as I was just realising the contradictions between lad culture and my homosexuality. The fact that the club kids scene ended with Alig’s conviction for murder only made it more fascinating.

As time went on, my occasional forays into clubworld always came tinged with a sense of disappointment that I hadn’t found this fantastical aspect of the scene. At Pacha, people spend a lot of money to look beautiful, but no-one could be seriously accused of expressing themselves. In recent years, I’ve let theatre fulfil my need for performance and costume as a means of escape and self-expression - and i’ve become more aware of the prevalence of such things on the gay scene, at nights like Duckie. Nevertheless, a defined performance seems dead compared to the images of fast-moving, young, androgynous clublife that still rattled around in my head.

Until I encountered Leigh Bowery.

I’d heard of Bowery, mostly as a character in Boy George’s musical Taboo and as the operator of the London club night of the same name. I also dimly remembered reading in around 1994 about Minty, the band/performance art collective Bowery spent what turned out to be his last months working with. I had a vague sense that he may have worn interesting clothes. I had no idea of just how he encapsulated everything I’d sought from nightlife, until I saw The Legend of Leigh Bowery. A nil-budget documentary by the amusingly-named Charles Atlas, Legend provides a compassionate peek at the fashion designer/club promoter/performance artist/queer icon. More importantly, it contains hundreds of pictures of his clothes.

There are too many incredible Bowery images to present more than a first impression here (plus, none of the best ones come up on a Google Image Search). But the spattering here should give you the general idea. Throughout the late 1980’s and early 90’s, Bowery was the dark heart of the club scene.

It’s important to emphasise that: he wore these clothes in clubs. Despite the label “fashion designer,” he never expressed any interest in designing for anyone else but himself, and though towards the end of his career he made moves towards performance art, it remained heavily club-based. Mostly, though, he just got dressed up to go out.

And go out he did. Sometimes unable to drink or piss for hours because of the mask and fake vagina he often wore; sometimes in excruciating pain, and usually fuelled by nothing more than a few vodkas; he would go out and dance for hours and hours. And by dance, I don’t mean anything remotely composed or prepared. My favourite image of the film is of Bowery, fully gimp-masked, waving his hands out in front of him like an ecstatic zombie, and spinning wildly around. Given his considerable bulk, that must have been scary to see (and I suppose his transcendence of his size is another aspect of what attracts me to him. It takes a unique type of body confidence to use a corset to turn your belly into a pair of breasts).That lack of drugtaking is very important. For what’s so striking about Bowery is his seriousness - purely from the testimony of his friends, it’s clear he thought carefully about his outfits, and endured considerable discomfort to wear them. Contrast that to the New York scene, where extremes of costume and behaviour were always inseparably tied up with extremes of drug use. Not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with that. But I found myself more attracted to Bowery’s thoughtful, deliberate creativity - he never collapsed into self-parody or self-destructiveness. And his intense, lumbering maleness, which contrasts so effectively with the androgyny of his costumes, is so much more complex and attractive than the New York kids’ adolescent queening.Had it just been for Bowery’s spectacular club career, I’d have found him fascinating and inspiring. But it turned out there was a whole other chapter of Bowery’s extraordinary story that resonated with me even more.The Hertfordshire Mercury is not a very good newspaper. With nothing to report except traffic alterations and the occasional robbery, it’s a thin read. But I always remember an article I read when I was about 12. It was an interview with an artist about his relationship with one of his regular models. He described how he “bends himself into incredible shapes for me.” It was accompanied by one of the portraits of the model, nude, sprawled across a chair, one foot cocked. The model was male, large, bald. I remember being transfixed by the portrait, and for the first time by the idea of the relationship between artist and model - that weird uneven intimacy, with the artist coolly analysing the model’s nude body and the model glimpsing the full passion of the artist’s inner thoughts. Contrasted with the staid, comic images in the popular imagination of models perched on stools in front of a class, this was intense and intoxicating. I’ve been slightly fascinated by the relationship between model and artist ever since.So when, towards the end of the film, Legend describes Leigh Bowery’s modelling for Lucien Freud, my ears pricked up. I’m a huge fan of Freud, and was interested at the thought of this king of costume baring himself for this most unfoolable of eyes. But I never expected what I saw - although those of you who know Bowery will no doubt have guessed. The sight of the first of the portraits shown in the film jolted me like an electric shock. It was, of course, the very painting I’d seen in the Mercury years ago.

The article had been an interview with Freud about the Bowery sitting. Leigh had me again. He’d been haunting me, like some nude Magwitch, for over 14 years.

Leigh died in 1994, just as I was beginning to become aware of the very scene he’d dominated. But even though I’ve only discovered him properly now, aged 26, I’ll always consider him one of my formative influences in life. He helped to inspire many of the aspects of the 90’s club scene that I was drawn to - and directly inspired my interest in the model-artist relationship, even though I didn’t know it was him. He was my Marc Bolan, my Bowie - my unknown teenage idol, the person who made my tiny smalltown world a little bigger, a little more diverse - even though I didn’t know his name.

Leigh Bowery, 1961-1994

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There were numerous reasons why this was a deeply unpleasant trend - the fact that people were basically paying to be walking adverts; the fact that any aesthetic considerations whatsoever seemed to go out the window; the fact that expensive designer wear became so much more visible, making it harder for those of us who couldn’t afford it. But looking back, what was really troubling was that it spelled the end of the slogan t-shirt.

Slogan t-shirts were one of the few positive things about 80’s fashion. The previous few years had destroyed the idea of fashion as the bland pursuit of beauty, first with punk’s violent rejection of the whole idea of beauty, and then with new romanticism’s embrace of fantasy and costume as its only sources. Political, straightforward and accessible, the slogan t-shirt was perfectly suited to the age. The supreme example was Katharine Hamnett’s “58% don’t want Pershing,” which the designer wore to a reception at Downing Street (Margaret Thatcher replied, “well, there’s no Pershing here, dear.”). Not that it was all politics: Hamnett was also responsible for the most commercially successful slogan T, “Frankie Say Relax,” released in support of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s controversial no. 1 single, and the equally iconic “choose life,” designed for Wham’s somewhat less controversial “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.”

But of course, it wasn’t all inventive and nicely typeset. Slogan t-shirts, like everything else in the 1980’s, were quickly commercialised to within an inch of their life - Harry Enfield sold thousands for his yuppie character Loadsamoney, and tourist favourites such as “my boyfriend went to London and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” quickly spread. And it was in the context of a backlash against such nonsense that the early 90’s label-fest began. After the firestorm of big hair, leather trousers and shoulder pads that has become our abiding memory of 80’s style, there was a desperate need for calmer, simpler ideas, a need skillfully met by Calvin Klein, who changed men’s underwear from elaborate silk boxers into slim, white or grey trunks. Klein new that if patterns couldn’t afford the opportunity for design, something else would have to mark his pants out as better, classier, than the others. He opted for an enormous logo on the waistband, helping push down trousers for over ten years, and inventing the logo as design hallmark. Although Klein kept his t-shirts plain, the principle had been established, and other designers quickly began emblazoning logos all over their products. By the mid-90’s, even Hamnett was selling clothes with nothing more printed on the chest than her own, simple logo.

Things finally began to break down in the late 1990’s. In the UK, it began with French Connection UK’s fcuk campaign. What started as an advertising trick became the visual motif of the whole line, with plain, too-short t-shirts fetching £70 purely on the back of whichever twist on the line they’d just come up with. Although it seemed to represent the zenith of the label, it also heralded its downfall - the need for constant new variations of the theme meant the slogan T was being reinvented by stealth.

At the same time, in the US, the corporate logo was being undermined by the growth of ironic retro culture. Alongside a mullet and trucker cap, Stussy or Nike labels just didn’t look right, and increasing concern about the ethical issues of international clothing brands helped reduce the logo’s appeal to the critical 18-25, white student market. The logo didn’t die, but it rapidly became ironic, with fictional and real bowling alleys, holiday resorts and clubs all providing a knowing take on corporate style.

The final push came with the anti-globalisation and anti-Iraq war movements, who brought back the slogan t-shirt in recognition of its ease of use and effectiveness in the media. In fact, it’s now easier to make than ever - the widespread availability of PCs and quality printers, and special paper, means anyone can make one.

Of course, the return of the slogan t-shirt also means the return of the shit, tourist version. Having spent the 90’s making imitation label gear (”Giorgio,” “Calvin Classics,” and so on), foreign manufacturers at the budget end of the market can once again shift units printing “funny” slogans on cheap tees. But after an entire decade out of the market, they’ve lost whatever little skill they had for a good slogan - with some truly dire results. So here, we celebrate some of my favourite crap t-shirt slogans. Please, if you see any corkers yourself, send them - better yet, get a photo if you can.

REAL TITS
FAKE TITS
Who cares?! They all taste the same!
_________
BACK TO BASICS
Reading
Writing
Wrestling!!
_________
You’re just jealous because the little voices are talking to me
_________
No car? No problem
No job? No problem
No credit card? No problem
Guess what….
NO DATE!!!

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Which got me thinking. As many of you will know, I went to university in Sheffield, and spent four mostly very happy years there. I loved the city, and I’ve always been pained by the tendency of those who don’t know it to write it off as a typical northern hellhole. While Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds have been rehabilitated in the public eye as they’ve been regenerated economically, Sheffield still seems to exist in some vague collective memory of the unpleasant 1980’s North. Weather maps, that handy barometer of city status, invariably show Leeds before Sheffield. If it wasn’t for The Full Monty, it’s easy to think people would forget the city exists at all.

And yet Sheffield boasts, amongst other things, one of the richest musical underground histories of any city. Beginning with the post-punk era, Sheffield bands have been consistently some of the most challenging and interesting, and often commercially successful: from the Human League, Heaven 17, ABC and Cabaret Voltaire in the early 80’s, to Pulp, the All-Seeing I and its offshoot Eye Monster and Moloko in the 90’s. Plus, as the home of Warp Records, Autechre and Gatecrasher, the city made a vital contribution to the club explosion of the 90’s, with Gatecrasher’s epic 24hr marathon - at which a couple of my braver friends did bar work - probably the dance scene’s most well-known Millenium Eve offering. Not to mention that one of the biggest-selling rock bands of the late 80’s, Def Leppard, and the band behind the fastest selling debut album of all time, the Arctic Monkeys, all hail from the city.

And yet, held up against Liverpool or Manchester, Sheffield is nowhere in public awareness. There are no bus tours, no elaborate BBC Easter programmes, no Mike Winterbottom films, to celebrate the scene (although there’s this reasonable documentary). How many of the bands mentioned above did you know were from the city? Indeed, the city’s attempt to recognise its and the rest of the country’s pop music acheivemetns - the National Centre for Popular Music - was a complete disaster, not in small part because the city’s people saw it as a bit silly. In Manchester, it would have had a chance.

So why this lacklustre performance, if not of the actual artists of the city, then of the idea of the city as a cultural centre? A quick listen to Hawley’s music offers an answer. Rooted in some imagined America, some time before punk and probably before the sixties, the album can’t honestly be said to represent any serious evocation of Sheffield life. And, thinking about it, the same goes for most Sheffield music. The Human League’s eyeliner-soaked energy-synth melancholy reflected the harsh landscape that created it, but sought a distant glamour with its gender-bending style. The Leppard never hid their determination to win an American audience with sounds they’d recognise. Even Pulp generally eschewed geographic specifics for a sort of universalist poor-geek solidarity (most in evidence on “Mis-Shapes”); their most obviously rooted lyrics are about London (”Mile End,” and “Common People”’s references to St. Martin’s College). While Joy Division/New Order confronted a range of apocalytic and fantasy images in their lyrics and videos, their essential misery always seemed to have seeped up from the streets of the then-beleaguered city. And the “Liverpool sound” is incredibly clearly defined, with the La’s and the Coral making no efforts to hide their debt to their Beatle forefathers.

The simple truth is there’s just not enough in Sheffield to build a mythology on. No crucial role in imperial trade; no guilt-ridden involvement in the slave trade, or proud part in abolition. A few closed-down steel factories, of course, but even the major battles of the 80’s industrial decline were fought elsewhere in Yorkshire. The empty building next to the old City Hall, that was built as the HQ of the National Union of Mineworkers but quickly abandoned, neatly summarises Sheffield’s sense of having not quite taken proper part in the industrial boom, and postindustrial decline, that drove British northern pop music for forty years or more.

Hawley’s one clear use of Sheffield detail makes the point. Coles Corner, the nominated album, is named after a meeting point in the city popular with lovers. I’ll admit to racking my brains when I heard this, as I’ll admit to not hearing of it when I was there. It turns out that it’s between two main commercial streets, and is so named because the Cole Brothers department store (the local face of John Lewis) used to be there. Now it’s a HSBC. As a point of collective memory go, it’s fairly mediocre. The Monkeys are discovering this now: in a recent interview on American radio, they blushingly batted away the interviewer’s attempts to pin down details of the “Sheffield scene.” Gatecrasher was referred to as “something our brothers told us about.” Attempts to build some sort of Madchester-style pop moment about Sheffield are doomed to fail when the live scene consists of the Leadmill, the University, and a few small pubs.

Sheffield is pulling itself up, of course, with the usual formula of designer clothes stores, lottery-funded musuems, and trendy branding. But its heart isn’t really in it. The much-heralded cultural industries quarter, designed to use the city’s creative heritage as a springboard for economic growth, was frankly a disaster. The pop museum now a student’s union, the area’s dominating business now is a Spearmint Rhino. Previous attempts at revitalisation, based around the city’s equally under-recognised sporting heritage, were equally doomed. Because Sheffield never found a really strong narrative of despair in the 1980’s, it naturally hasn’t embraced the narrative of rebirth that has captured Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds.

Instead, as always, Sheffield’s mind is on something else. Hawley’s Sinatra impersonation, like Phil Oakey’s eyeliner, shows the Sheffield spirit is still about escape and about fantasy: making something as mundane as a department store and turning it into romance. The Arctic Monkeys do boast a strong sense of place, and it’s lovely to hear the references to Hunter’s Bar and Rotherham in “Fake Tales of San Fransisco;” but let’s not start calling them anything as grand as a Sheffield Sound. The real spirit of Sheffield has one eye on the past, the future, the other side of the sea, wherever. Lying in the gutter and staring at the stars, I suppose. That’s what makes the city so invigorating. That, I think, is why I remember it so fondly: it’s a place that can’t help but encourage dreaming. That’s why it’s Hawley, and not the Monkeys, who really represents Sheffield in the Mercury shortlist. I wish him luck.

Richard Hawley website
Richard Hawley on Myspace
Listen to Richard Hawley
Watch “Cole’s Corner”:

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Yes, we live in an uber-digital age; yes, 3.3 billion text messages were sent in the UK in the last month. Everyone from U2 to the Pope has commented at length on the never-ending sea of media messages that buzz, pop and bleep over us from the moment we wake to the moment we sleep at night – and even in between.

So it takes skill and inspiration to make a comment on on this brave new world that makes an impact. Which makes the work of New York mix artist Christian Marclay even more impressive. His 2003 piece Video Quartet, recently granted a proper room in the rehanging of Tate Modern, makes for a startling evocation of media overload: startling not for its technical skill or apparently sage commentary, as with so many pieces on similar themes, but for its humour and humanity.

Consisting of four adjacent screens, each with an independent soundtrack, showing clips from various musical films and TV shows and televised concerts, the work doesn’t differ in form from other media-collage. Its effect, at first, seems simply like a mash-up mix CD with video; 2 Many DJs TV, almost. However, the piece’s ebbs and flows generate a remarkably strong emotional reaction. Four co-ordinated bursts of energy- frenetic jazz solos, gunshot percussion and the combined vocals of Louis Armstrong and Julie Andrews, for example – will give sudden way to moments of calm, with fingers on tables and lone voices maintaining the flow. Yet there is never silence, until the end of the 13-minute piece; with the coming of each lull in activity begins a crescendo which will usher in the next movement. It’s these moments – impossible to explain, to be honest – that give the piece its power.

Unlike the Technicolor ad-fest portrayed in the likes of Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, Minority Report, or Falk Richter’s Electronic City, our lives are not a constant stream of intrusive images and blaring noise. No, not even if you live in Manhattan, I’m informed. Rather, the pernicious influence of “always-on” comes not from its in-your-face brashness, but from its subtlety. It’s not the fifteen ringing mobile phones in the street that spoil your day; it’s the one that goes off in the gallery; the phone call when you’ve just got in the bath. It’s the squeeze placed on moments we used to reserve for quiet that makes technology an uncomfortable companion. The shifting pace of Video Quartet means that it mirrors our lives more truly than any frenetic Microsoft-advert speeded-up-video portrayal. But that trumpet, that hiss, that note, that sits quietly, but always getting louder, underneath every lull in the action, is what makes Video Quartet really relevant.

[ Video Quartet is at Tate Modern now]

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