'My Roots Will Keep Me Honest'

The group awaits the results on BGT

 This lyric is a line from the song Honest by Britain’s Got Talent finalists The Loveable Rogues.  After going to a PA and live performance of theirs recently, I’m a little bit concerned that like many reality TV musicians, they are at risk of being ruined, or at least losing credibility, by their management's actions. But I'm hoping that their 'roots will keep them honest', true to their musical style, and to be a credible and successful act… Let me explain:

 

 Yesterday evening I was in Bournemouth for the Olympic Torch evening celebration and happened to spot The Loveable Rogues having their picture taken with a fan. Sadly I didn't seize the moment & say hi to them, but after the Olympic Torch event had finished, I did some investigating and managed to find out via Twitter that they had a gig in Swanage that night.  Swanage is about an hour away from Bournemouth by car, and by this time it was a mad rush to get down there in time (in the end we needn’t have rushed so much. The venue's website said last entry at 10 & starting at 10 – so, we arrived just before 10 - but ended up waiting round for about an hour before they came on!)

The Loveable Rogues performing at Bar One, Swanage

Now, having been really looking forward to seeing the guys play live, I was disappointed by the gig itself.  Not by the boys but by what I imagine to be decisions taken by their management.  Firstly, the venue (a tiny little club in Swanage) didn't lend itself to their style of music.  The sound quality was quite poor and an acoustic band really needs to perform in a venue with good acoustics – funnily enough! – not a room that is best used for pumping out loud, bassy club music (not to mention the fact there was a pillar right in front of their performance space!  Luckily, I got a spot where this didn't obscure my view...)

Also, the "gig" actually turned out to be only about 5 minutes or so long as the group only performed 2 songs (the same two that audiences saw them perform on Britain’s Got Talent).  After the performance, audience members were given the chance to queue up to have their picture taken with the guys by a professional photographer, and then presumably had to pay an extortionate sum to get their hands on some form of print.  This leads me to believe that their management, or whoever, are simply out to make a quick buck out of them off the back of the BGT hype without giving them hope for any sort of longevity.

Another snap from the Swanage gig

The trouble is, for someone who's gone to a venue and paid £10 especially to see a band perform their songs (I think I'm speaking for others and not just myself), this is a massive anti-climax.  It's likely to make some people think those are the only two songs they have (I personally didn't think this was the case and have looked the guys up on YouTube and been proved right!).  It’s also likely to make some people less inclined to go and see them again, wondering what the point is if that’s all they’re going to get. 

 I’m hoping that maybe I’m just being cynical about it all and that The Loveable Rogues’ management aren’t going to end up ruining their credibility.  If they are, I hope the band’s ‘roots will keep them honest’ enough with themselves that they don’t allow this to happen.  I think they’re very talented and would like to see them do well and to hear a lot more of their music over the coming years.  Sadly, it seems to be symptomatic of modern Western society that everything’s about the money and the music itself doesn’t seem to matter to a lot of people. 

Seth Lakeman with his violi

The Loveable Rogues aren’t the only victims of abuse from management/record labels in the music world (I acknowledge that I am assuming their management are doing wrong by them; but I am aware that they could have made all the decisions themselves!).  Another example is Seth Lakeman, a folk singer I’ve recently started listening to.  I was checking out his music on iTunes and one person commented on his most recent album that he was glad Seth had parted company with his previous record label, who had tarnished his sound in an attempt to make him more radio-friendly.  Clearly Seth recognised the problem and did something about it.  Similarly, Elliot Minor, one of my favourite bands, parted with the producers of their first album and went back to doing their own production for the second album, because they hadn’t been happy with what the other producers had done.  I like these examples because they show that it is possible to break free from situations like these, stay true to oneself and be successful regardless!

Elliot Minor

I’d be interested to hear about other examples of this sort of thing and to find out what other people think of my views on The Loveable Rogues Situation, so please do leave comments!  Thanks for reading.









Links:

The Loveable Rogues perform Honest:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snexs-1mfzk

 

That's Not Real To Me

The song this post’s title comes from is Real To Me by good old Brian McFadden!  I’ll be talking all about how so much of what we see in the media in today’s society isn’t real, and the difficulties that we face in distinguishing what is real and what isn’t.

What inspired me to write this post is something I saw on TV on Sunday.  I caught the second episode of Superstar, Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s latest reality talent show, in which he searches for a ‘Jesus’; someone to play the lead role in Jesus Christ Superstar.  To my surprise, Jonathan Ansell (or ‘the blond one out of G4’) appeared on the show.  He’d got through to the boot-camp-style training stage of the show but was sadly sent home at that point.  Anyway, there ended up being a bit of an uproar on Twitter where Jonathan received a lot of stick for being ‘arrogant’, as a result of him being edited to be portrayed in such a light on the show. 

 

Now, back in the day I was a MASSIVE G4 fan (and proud, might I add!) and have followed Jon’s solo career to certain extent since they disbanded.  As a result, I’ve met him quite a few times at gigs and happen to know that he is actually a really lovely guy and has a huge amount of time and respect for his fans.  But 10 minutes on TV showing viewers a couple of moments that don’t paint him in a good light and bang!  A great number of people is left with an inaccurate, negative, but probably lasting impression of his personality.

On a brighter note, Ben Elton has written some quite entertaining novels that illustrate this propensity of reality TV producers to edit people in whichever way they like to make a more entertaining show (namely, Dead Famous and Chart Throb.  Dead Famous in particular is a good read, in my opinion).  Chart Throb basically takes the mick out of singing competitions like The X Factor.  In this story, the Simon Cowell-like producer of the show uses the powers of television editing to make some perfectly reasonable people seem like complete idiots.  For example, a sound-bite of “I’m not claiming I’m the next Elvis” would later be cut down to “I’m the next Elvis”, to make a humble individual seem perfectly arrogant.  Although it’s obviously a fiction book, I wouldn’t mind betting this is a fairly accurate, if slightly exaggerated, representation of how things work on these show in real life! 

As well as being damaging to individuals’ reputations, the media’s portrayal of certain things can also be damaging on a much wider scale to it’s consumers.  I’m talking particularly about media influence on body image, ideal self and self-esteem.  As you may have picked up on in previous posts, body image is something I feel really strongly about and there is a lot of work to be done by various parties to diminish the deep-set problem of poor body-image and self-esteem in modern Western society.  The media has a key role to play in this issue, with the use of airbrushing to create unrealistic ideals in appearance that real people can never hope to achieve, and for that matter shouldn’t hope to achieve!

An example of the images used in Media Smart's educational package

Fortunately, awareness of this problem seems to be on the up, and the Government’s Body Confidence Team has recently worked in conjunction with Media Smart to create an educational package which is designed to teach 11 year-olds about airbrushing and how to distinguish between what is and isn’t real; what images they should and shouldn’t aspire to be like.  What’s really great about this package is that it uses images of really famous people, like Britney Spears and Keira Knightly, and shows children how these people look before and after airbrushing.  This should help to give people the tools, from a young age, to view media images critically and learn how to avoid striving for unrealistic ideals in their appearance.  There is a lot of work still to do, but I think this is a great start.

I could go on about body image all day, but for now I’ll finish there.  Please do leave comments if you have any views on this, and please do come back for more on my views on body image in later posts.  As always, thanks for reading!