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Album Review
by SashaS
3-3-2004
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| 'Decade': debut steps by favourites acts |
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Various: 'Decade: Ten Years Of Fierce Panda Records'
(Fierce Panda)
Fierce Panda: timely reminder of discoveries
Back in the day, it was the dawn of punk rock (or something) in the good old Blighty when independent labels started to spring like some GM mushrooms, the debate was - function of indie labels: competing with the biggies (they occasionally did) or be ‘scouts’ for the Big Five (although there were many more in those days)? Some twenty odd years later, Fierce Panda was founded by a journalist…
It is a decade down their road of releases and it is amazing how many bands they’ve given a break, only to see them bank success with a major player. From the label’s second EP - introducing Ash and Supergrass - in 1994, Fierce Panda has been showing an incredible knack for spotting talent and future headliners.
Placebo, Coldplay, Idlewild (now defunct) and The Music are some you’ll find on this thrilling collection and it is amazing how these four bands sound off their potential and demand taking notice at once. [It’s beside the point whether you like it or not, and we do NOT the latter, it can’t be denied that they had a clear musical visions.] The same goes for Six By Seven or Lo-Fi Allstars.
Of course there are some misses, such as Keane… It is pity that Allan McGee (Creation founder) used “bed-wetters’ music” to describe Coldplay’s stuff (he ain’t half wrong) but he should have waited for a much worse case - Keane, the current faves of the media. [Not as much as Franz Ferdinand though.]
A brave compilation like this simply demonstrates how creatively bankrupt we’ve become and there is nowhere to go but plunder and pillage the archives: from Hundred Reasons [hasn‘t the news of ‘death of nu metal/rap-rock’ filtered to Wales?] to Speedway who are nothing more than Altered Images fronted by Katarina Leskanich of … And The Waves who represented UK in a Eurovision Song Contest some years ago. Anyway, the Speedway’s debut album is so uninspiring that no Euro-licensee has set up its release. ‘Save Yourself’? Can’t do it even if you died for it!
Apology for this digression but when The Darkness are considered to be the Rock’s Saviours, the country needs a revolution against the f**king ignorance. Get this compilation and then search for Kaito and Electralane albums. The crap that NME, and other media, are selling you is just that - crap!
Fierce Panda’s ‘Decade’ shows that there is quality within the country’s budding singers and not only the ‘Pop Idol’ bunch on hopeless and their A&R dept are the stars of the rarest knack. Instead of BMG and Sony talking about a merger they should employ these guys to find them REAL talent and not that diabolical disser Simon Cowell. Wanna future? It started here!
Not perfect - even God f**ked it up, mush - but near enough. And, this slice of history costs less than a niner of quids.
8.9/10
SashaS
3-3-2004
‘Decade: Ten Years Of Fierce Panda Records’ is released 01 March 2004
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