Some things are just destined to come back and bite you in the ass.Sheepdogs on acid. Wolves in sheep's clothing. Fans of The Frames. Those things, those people.
You can now also add smart-alec Discotheque columns to that list. Eighteen or so months ago, back when it was sunny, we looked around and could see that there was a change in the air. You could sniff it.
Remember that summer? It was the summer when everyone oohed and aahed over The Thrills. Remember them? No? Wow, you're a fickle lot. Ever considered becoming music hacks? But most of all, it was the summer when we spotted a new musical movement coming over the hills. After years of hoary old rockers, sweating and grunting and coughing and spluttering, we could see there was a change on the horizon.
It was the invasion of the Coldplays and their fellow sensitive souls. Never backward in coming forward when it comes to spotting trends and applying stupid names to them, we mumbled something about Mum Rock and, once 700 carefully-chosen words had been printed, promptly forgot about the whole thing. Eighteen months on, there are now enough Mum Rockers doing the rounds to soundtrack a whole series of Desperate Housewives, plus such lucrative spin-offs as Shocking Housewives, Awful Housewives and Shocking Awful Housewives. Eighteen months on, it's time to do something drastic before all this sensitivity gives us an ugly rash.
The rise and rise of Snow Patrol and Keane (especially those smug, eminently slappable brats Keane) was just the beginning, the froth on top of the coffee-cup. The year is but a pup and that Athlete album is making great strides towards ubiquity with the kind of promotional campaign usually reserved for by-elections. Feeder, it seems, have also tuned down their usual pub-rock pitter-patter to show their soft, sensitive side to the world.
This is before the new Coldplay album arrives and really puts the (Mum Rock) cat amongst the (Mum Rock) pigeons. And we're already shuddering at the thought of how many copies the next David Gray album will shift at Tesco and Dunnes Stores, the HMV and Virgin Megastore of Mum Rock respectively.
You can bet record companies are just dying to manipulate this natural, holistic and wholesome wave. The race to ensure there's a new Damien Rice-style singer-songwriter for everyone in the audience will lead to a worldwide shortage of acoustic guitars and where will we be then? Probably back where we started, waiting for the next trend to come along.
Usually in pop, trends such as Mum Rock enjoy their couple of days in the sun and then scuttle away to be replaced by the next trend on the conveyor belt. If they don't go away of their own accord, just give them a gentle shove. You build 'em up so you can knock 'em down again. It's a grind, but someone has to do it.
But Mum Rock shows worrying signs of overstaying its welcome. Your Snow Patrols and Keanes look like hanging around forever. Their big albums from last year are still selling, even as both outfits furrow brows, scratch heads and think deeply sensitive thoughts about what the hell they're going to write about for the next album. Of course, we brought all of this on ourselves. It was stupid, really, to encourage them and then think they would disappear of their own accord.
Those of us who have survived other musical waves (Romo, anyone?) still carry the scars and unsellable second-hand CDs of previous campaigns. We don't want a repeat of that. Time, then, to take a stand on the nearest hill and shout at them to stop. Are you with us or against us?
