Review:

on 2011-05-17 CharlesMartel Said:

One of the most notable phenomena in print media over the last few years has been the rise of the free newspaper. Hundreds of copies of these are placed in racks at railway stations, tube stations and bus stations every morning, and commuters on their way to work can usually be seen reading these giveaways. So prevalent have they become that I suspect that they pose as big a threat to the traditional national daily newspaper as the internet. But what I find really odd about these things is that, occasionally, the newspaper itself contains a free giveaway.

Now, a giveaway from a giveaway, that is a novel idea. What exactly do they hope to achieve by this? Normally, a giveaway is a marketing tool to induce you to buy something in order to get the giveaway. As a result, I have several CD's I picked up free with various newspapers. But in the case of a free newspaper, that doesn't really work, so you are still left with the conundrum of why they are giving this away in the first place.

I suppose one reason I have spent so much time talking about the marketing strategy behind this is because I really don't want to talk about this CD much at all. In fact, to be honest, there isn't that much I can really say about it. It is a compilation of the so-called London scene of the time forming a giveaway CD put out with the free London edition of the newspaper Metro. It was meant to showcase some of the up and coming London talent but in truth it picked some of those less likely to in many ways. There is some dreadful stuff here. The worst examples are the hip-hop tracks and is this hip-hop at its worst. Sarf Lundun accents on hip hop tracks just make it sound like a complete and total joke, in the same way that the kids who ape the bling and guns culture of American kids dont realise they are a sick parody of something inherently sick in itself. Thankfully, we are spared any Lady Sovereign and the rest of the chav rap which calls itself grime.

Most of the music on here never made it anywhere and are, frankly, not likely to either. The main reason for this collective failure to make any impression on the wider music scene seems to be that the album consists of bands who, for the most part, were following trends not setting them. When the trend died, so did the band. There is some silly kiddie powerpop - Bowling for Soup (actually that should be Bowling for Shit in my view) - lame and without any feeling at all. The best of what is admittedly a bad bunch is some of the more mellow stuff. The Royksopp track stands out here, though my favourite is the track by Wilt which is a bit more up-tempo. Finally, there are a couple of techno dance tracks which are listenable background music but little else. Oddly enough, the only artist who many people are likely to have heard of features as a singing credit on the track by Sarf Lundun hip-hoppers, Blak Twang. Yes, if you want to know the roots of the person responsible for singing that dreadful piece of mindless faux-R&B blather "American Boy" that infected the airwaves in 2009, then look no further for Estelle's debut appearance than here.

If the mood is right and I do not require to think of anything in particular, I can just about listen to this - sometimes - provided I am quick on the fast forward button. Better still, I can hear it on iPod, but be cautious of that shuffle, lest some of the crap on here emerge from the depths and bite you before you can skip forward.
Rating: 3/10