The Pop Idol Syndrome

"I bet that you look good on the dance floor. I don't know if you're looking for romance or what, don't know what you're looking for. Well, I bet that you look good on the dance floor, dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984."

The Arctic Monkeys are a mildly amusing novelty act. No more, no less. They are not the saviours of British rock, they do not write working class poetry, and they should not be compared to the likes of The Jam, Blur, or even The Smiths. I loathe Morrissey and the whole Smiths phenomenon, but they clearly captured something that spoke to a lot of people in a time when such a thing was still possible. Now? It's all marketing exercises. The Arctic Monkeys are so clearly and obviously the creation of somebody far smarter than the four gobshites who make up the band that it's almost embarrassing to have to sit and watch transparent hype translate into sales. Here's the formula: Take one ready-to-explode scene revival, add media hype, made-to-measure indie swagger, and an audience so gullible they'd listen to three fat blokes having a farting contest if you told them it was the next big thing, stir, and serve to a nation so starved of good music that a twat shouting about robots to less chords than Sid Vicious ever learned can find himself doing that shouting on the CD holding the record for the largest first week sales of a debut album in UK history.

"In terms of sheer impact," said a spokesdrone for HMV, "we haven't seen anything quite like this since The Beatles."

Come now, there have been hundreds of overhyped, overrated pop bands since The Beatles (Sorry, Jammie). That's not what's important here. What's important is that The Arctic Monkeys somehow rode that wave higher and further than anybody has in a long time. Why is that?

I like to think of it as the Pop Idol syndrome. The music industry, like anybody else in the business of selling us culture, runs in cycles. Fashion is all important. Now, I'd argue that we're not currently in that part of the cycle that celebrates all that is plastic, squeaky, and immaculately-coiffed. Britney married a bum and squeezed out a psychiatrist's dream baby, Christina's making a jazz album, Justin's acting, and the the rest of them have vanished the way they usually do when we all get a wee bit cynical and fed up. They will, of course, be back with new names and new faces when we've had enough of being cynical and want fat singalong choruses and stupid dancing back in our lives.

I think finding out it's all a big marketing scam, that the boy bands and girl bands and teen idols are tools big corporations use to sell you shit you'll hardly use and don't need is getting a bit like finding out there's no Santa. Being the bearer of such knowledge no longer means you are possessed with searing insight. No, all it means now is that you watch TV and use the internet. In theory, this should promote a healthy level of cynicism as regards what we watch/listen to/surf, yet for a dizzying variety of reasons, it doesn't.

As I pointed out a long time before American Dreamz (Jesus Christ, is there actually anything out there with a worse title?) bombed, more people vote for the contestants on shows like Pop Idol than in most elections. These shows are, of course, an offshoot of the explosion in reality TV, a phenomenon that is (sadly) proving to have some serious legs. It makes sense, when you think about it. We've become cynical enough that we'll no longer put up with plastic primadonnas being forced down our throats, and this has instilled in us a sort of cultural affinity with underdogs. Thus the original heroes of reality TV, back when the boom was just beginning, were the antithesis of the pop stars we were just getting tired of at the time. They were not especially beautiful or glamorous or mysterious. They were not owned by faceless record and film companies. No, we watched them on TV every day. We saw their triumphs and their tragedies, their laughter and their tears. They were ours.

Fast forward a few years and of course that formula has been watered down and bastardised about a million times over. It's still popular, though, and it's still immensely marketable. Popular shows like Lost owe a lot to the reality TV model, and some of the most intelligent and perceptive people I know are absolutely riveted by the current series of American Idol. Everyody has a favourite, the one they want to win. Everybody adopts a contestant. And once you have an investment, no matter how trivial, you've been hooked. Simon Cowell is, as we speak, reeling you in.

But that adoption aspect intrigues me and reminds me of my teenage years, specifically that point where my tastes crossed over from pop into alternative. One of the great things about being into the independent scene is that you can discover new acts your friends have never heard. Catch them early enough (as I did bands like Radiohead and Ash), and you can watch their careers blossom from those first demos and EPs and gigs in dingy basement clubs all the way to platinum selling albums and worldwide success. The sense of adoption is the same, to the point where fame for the 'adopted' act can become a source of resentment for the fan. I can still clearly remember a girl at school being absolutely horrified that I owned both Suede and Manic Street Preachers cassettes.

"I can't believe people like you are getting into them," she whined. People like me, in this case, being everybody that wasn't her. I know this because I have since had occasion to feel the same way. I think a lot of people have. If you've ever had occasion to say, "It's not their first album," in an exasperated tone of voice, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Which brings me nicely back to The Arctic Monkeys, the DIY revival, and the internet revolution. The Monkeys, it's safe to say, would not have happened without the rapid and continued growth in cable internet use. They would not have happened without the advent of MP3 and the plummeting prices of the technology used to record and upload digital music files. They would not have happened if a buzz had never sprung up around a scene that has already dissolved due to oversaturation. And they sure as fuck wouldn't have happened without a massive assist from the media and particularly a British music press far more concerned with turning profits than promoting quality music (shame on you, NME). Above and beyond all that, though, They would not have happened without the sense of ownership that comes with feeling you're one of the first to discover band x, to nurture them and watch them grow like some kind of hairy northern pokemon with dubious personal hygiene.

In the end, it's not viva la revolution and let's bring down the record companies, It's just the same marketing tool that sells Pop Idol, the celebrity magazines, and all those daytime chat shows. Strip away all the marketing bullshit and the hype, and The Arctic Monkeys are a mildly amusing novelty act. No more, no less.

A little perspective, please.