I’ve mentioned on PJ before that for the majority of my music loving life I pretty much split my time between ‘pop’ (whatever that means) & ‘rock’ (ditto).
By rock, really I mean alternative, indie, & lots of British stuff from about 1990- 2005. Then, for a lot of reasons (both personal & really stagnation of ‘the scene’) I started to lose the plot with my love of rock.
One of the real last gasps of that whole time in my life was The Enemy (primarily this song & album). It really does feel like the whole end of an era, not just personally but really in music. By this time (2007) the working class Oasis (i.e. Beatles) inspired aesthetic of the whole rock & roll dream was just tired & felt sonically played out. It also just seemed that the changes in the record industry & what the kids wanted to listen had pushed that whole idea in margins. This was futrher evidenced by the lack of inspiration in the bands & carried over to its death in charts. Once upon a time you could expect at least a handful of rock tracks to find an audience in the top 40. By the end of the 2000’s that was becoming more & more of an anomaly.
I've read many think pieces & watched YouTube videos where musicologists try to nail down 'why rock isn't in the charts anymore' or is kinda irrelevant to major scope of musical pop culture the days. I don't have all the answers but I think the genre's inherent misogyny*, the cycle of inherent hype around very moderate male talent, & just overall lack of exciting new sound (i.e. too much reliance on the same old guitar, drum, bass, sound of forever in a world where pop/hip hop/electronic music were being much more experimental) are a few factors that did them in. Of course, just having good songs helps, too... and the shift from an album orientated cd release strategy to the streaming world surely caused some troubles.
The Enemy captured the best moments of the last 30+ years of British rock with their debut album. There was Clash, some Jam, some Oasis, Manic Street Preachers, etc… but it felt vital & almost like an agent call-to-action to try and save the shambles of their beloved genre.
Still, amidst that urgency the brimming sadness of ‘defeat’ reared its head. This is especially prevalent to me in the album version of the song that includes the almost ‘Taps’-esqe sounding horn section that introduces ‘We’ll Live And Die In These Towns’.
The whole song is a triumph, but such a Pyrrhic victory in many ways.
*(I contend woman have producing much of the best rock music for well over a decade but the industry just doesn't care enough to their own detriment.)
