Spector - What You Wanted
On December 5th the BBC announced the nominees for the BBC Sound of 2012, with the final shortlisted five being announced in early January. The Gizzle will be reviewing each of the fifteen longlisted nominees leading up to the final announcement.
Spector are this year's Vaccines - an incredibly generic indie band who inexplicably seem to be heaped with praise. They're also, being primarily a guitar band, in the minority. And it's easy to see why.
The tagline on the band's website is "Nothing you haven't seen before". Well that says it all. Frontman Fred Macpherson alone is like a smorgasbord of recent indie vocalists - from Brandon Flowers (The Killers) to Harry McVeigh (White Lies) and Alex Kapranos (Franz Ferdinand) amongst others. There's a definite glumness to the vocal, matched by the lazy guitar playing. The catchy chorus, with its sing-along feel, is very reminiscent of The Killers and there's a sprinkling of Pulp in there too. If this was 2003, then maybe this would sound fresh. Macpherson has even stated in an NME interview he wanted to write music for his fifteen year old self. That's all well and good, but what about adding a new twist? Unfortunately, it's nearly 2012 and the music industry has been saturated with trash like this for the last decade. There's no need for more.
Yes, it's not necessarily a bad song. And yes, with the diminishing of guitar music in the charts we should be celebrating a new, up-and-coming band. But it's hard to get behind something so wholeheartedly dull.
Listen: What You Wanted was released back in September, with an album to follow next year.
Watch: Spector will be touring the UK in February.
Labels: Music
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