(A fairly desperate attempt to restore some reviews of actual current and forthcoming singles to NYLPM begins…)
CORNERSHOP – “Lessons Learned From Rocky I to Rocky III”
A sub-circle of pop hell is surely reserved for songwriters who write songs about the iniquities of ‘the biz’ and the dire state of pop – yes indeed it is full of liars whores crooks and thieves but talking shop about it on record rarely makes for compelling listening. The results tend to be either grotesquely patronising (XTC: “The young today are mistakes”; Gorky’s “Young Girls And Happy Endings”), self-righteous (Pink complaining that her record company tried to – shudder – market her) or just bizarre (Eminem: “radio won’t even play my jam”).
So respect I suppose to Cornershop for making a biz-based single which avoids these traps and bounces along rather winningly. For a start they’ve recognised that the problem right now is in the album, not the single charts – “We’re bored of this soft rock shit” has to be about Dido and the ‘Phonics. “TSB Rock School – the overblown supershit” I mean surely! Oh alright, I’m projecting – and by being the hundredth indie band lately to throw their song together round a Stones riff C-Shop aren’t immune to charges of same-old-same-old. There is a kind of formula at work – shambolic rock fun, cheesy backing vox, Tjinder’s shrugged-off singing, and 70s/80s pop cult references any time the lyric flags. It’s got less heart and more punch than “Brimful Of Asha”, though, and I like it in a noncommittal way.