Quit wining, why don't you?

So apparently Sir Liam Donaldson is an idiot. Because despite all the evidence to the contrary - France, Italy, in fact, pretty much the whole of Europe - parents are being advised not to let their children drink alcohol before they're 18 (when they can get it themselves) as such behaviour will lead to binge drinking and alcoholism. The BBC paraphrases it as

letting children taste alcohol to ready them for adulthood was "misguided".

and goes on to say

Sir Liam described the idea of a glass of watered-down wine for a child as a "middle-class obsession"

before the real punchline of

"The science is clear - drinking, particularly at a young age, a lack of parental supervision, exposing children to drink-fuelled events and failing to engage with them as they grow up are the root causes from which our country's serious alcohol problem has developed."

Now if we are to believe this as reported, what Sir Liam is doing is taking clearly Britain-centric evidence and treating it in isolation, which is, quite frankly, idiocy. Of the four factors he identifies above, 2 are patently more serious than the other 2. Across Europe, certainly France, Italy, Spain and other sensible cultures, children are allowed to drink and 'exposed' to parties on a regular basis, with little to no ill effect. It is the lack of parental supervision or engagement and discussion which are the problems here, much as with our apparent sex epidemic (not that I'm saying parents should supervise their children's sex lives).

To put it in perhaps oversimplified logical terms, if you look at the global scale, most children who drink and are exposed to alcohol do not grow up to be alcoholics or binge drinkers. So you have to look at the other factors which make the UK different to sensible drinking societies, which are, as mentioned, mostly parental ones. Parents need to talk to their kids about alcohol, what it is and what it can do.

But kids won't listen to parents who they don't respect, parents who have no authority over them. So part of the problem is the parenting problem - many parents in the UK cannot reach their children. They cannot pass on all the blame for this, although there are mitigating circumstances in the case of alcohol - the UK has a binge drinking culture. But such reasoning leads to a chicken and egg argument: which came first, the binge drinking culture, or the lack of parental control?

By examining the apparent scientific evidence in isolation, Sir Donaldson is looking only at short term solutions and short term results. He makes no real effort to examine the cause or root of the problem, instead applying a band-aid to the still gaping wound. It is not enough to say "This is how Britain is, let's deal with it." Rather he should say "This is how Britain ought to be, let's make it happen." Idealistic perhaps, but reminiscent of a George Bernard Shaw quotation which inspired (and later eulogised) a great man:

Some men see things as they are and ask why. I dream dreams that never were and ask why not?

After all, I drank from an early age, and I turned out all right... Now, where did I leave that Scotch...?

Rage Against What You Don't Understand

To follow up on my previous article, I want to talk about the anti-X-Factor campaigns this Christmas. The most prominent of these is probably the Rage For Christmas No. 1 Campaign, an attempt to propel what is, admittedly, an absolute 'choon' in Killing In The Name Of to the top spot on December 25. This campaign is a prime example of how a mostly mature and deeply political set of lyrics - "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" - can be easily co-opted for the most banal and childish purposes. Despite my general disdain for the NME, I will expand on some of the very good points made by Luke Lewis in his blog about the holes in this campaign , primarily these:

RATM are already a world famous band with their fair share of corporate affiliation. Anyone else remember their time with the WWF, now WWE? Furthermore, they are a Sony act so Simon Cowell, whose label Syco is a Sony subsidiary, probably benefits from their popularity anyway. Even if he doesn't, the idea that this is somehow a drive for independent music is firmly quashed by putting money in the coffers of a major label. Some people are attempting to get around this by claiming that Rage are donating the proceeds to charity, but I can find absolutely no record of this online. The closest I have found is that the Facebook group encourages people to also donate to Shelter, a worthy cause, but hardly cutting off the money supply chain to Sony.

As I and Luke both mentioned, Killing In The Name is a song about racism, murder, fear, hatred, authoritarian government and police brutality, all far more serious issues than X-Factor's dominance over the music industry. That this song was chosen for the campagin belies not just an ignorance of their Sony affiliations, the kind of band RATM are and how the music industry works, but also an unhealthy disrespect for the original subject matter.

The Christmas no. 1 is rarely a thing of much import. In his blog reply to Luke, the horrifically misguided Tim Chester, restoring my high disregard for the NME, can pluck only 5 examples from the last 60 odd years to support his counterclaim, one of which is the Beatles I Want To Hold Your Hand, surely one of the worst lyrics ever written by any famous band, let alone one so influential. He also ignores 4 other good songs in that time frame - Moon River, Return To Sender, Green Green Grass Of Home and Hello Goodbye - and the many and various novelty records such as Ernie The Fastest Milkman In The West, Bob The Builder, Renee and Renato and regular Cliff Richard entries. The point being that even if Joe's version of the Climb were not a good song in its own right, and far superior to Miley's version (which it thankfully is, so I can finally listen to that song without having to hear her pathetic whiny voice), there is no great Christmas tradition being broken here. Just like any week in the charts, sometimes there are good songs, sometimes not. Far more important is which songs stand the test of time: the list of Christmas no. 2s has many classic Christmas tunes - Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End), All I Want For Christmas Is You, Last Christmas, Fairytale of New York - and general good tunes which have lasted.

Which brings me on to my next point. The charts are ephemeral. Consistent radio play over time is far more important. There have been a bunch of great songs released under the X-Factor banner - Bad Boys, Everbody In Love, Bleeding Love, Leona's cover of Run and this year's charity single (You Are Not Alone) to name a few. Bleeding Love is the only one of these even remotely old enough to make the case, but the fact that it is still played regularly on radio shows it to be a good, or at least popular song. In my opinion, only the good winners from X-Factor and other talent shows survive. When's the last time you heard from Leon Jackson, Shayne Ward, Steve Brookstein or Michelle McManus? They were all shit, and so they've all fallen by the wayside. As a friend of mine pointed out, shows like this are a giant A&R meeting with a significant buying section of the British public. But it is only a portion, it is not the majority, and it does not wield ultimate control. Sadly, some people feel disenfranchised by the show, or feel they have better/different taste than than those people who do vote, but that doesn't invalidate what's being achieved. Saying you don't like something because it's from X-Factor is absurd - if it's a good song (which the Climb is), it's a good song, regardless of its source. Art and the artist are always linked, but never the same.

I think there is a problem with people misinterpreting what the X-Factor should be about, as I said in the previous post, but I genuinely think if there were a good Christmas song contender and the X-Factor song weren't very good, the better song would win. Last year, Alexandra's Hallelujah was up against Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah - both versions are bad, neither a patch on the original Leonard Cohen live take. 2007, Katie Melua raining on Eva Cassidy's parade with the Wonderful World duet lost out to the utterly awful Leon Jackson version of When You Believe. 2006, Leona's Moment Like This rightfully beat out the turgid piece of shit that is Take That's Patience (which marked their disastrous reformation). 2005, the lyrically suspect and morally reprehensible JCB song lost out to Shayne Ward's ghastly That's My Goal.

So recent form very much shows that X-Factor shit beats non X-Factor shit, and that good songs beat bad songs. But 2004 had 2 good songs - Ronan Keating's duet Yusuf Islam (previously Cat Stevens) on Father and Song vs. the Band Aid 20 cover of Do They Know It's Christmas - and charity won out. 2003 was again a good double header, and although I personally prefer the Darkness with Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End), I don't begrudge Michael Andrews and Gary Jules with Mad World. 2002, 2001 and so on - the results speak for themselves. The last time a great song was stuck in the number 2 spot by a shit song was over 20 years ago, in 1987, when the Pogues' Fairytale of New York lost out to the Pet Shop Boys' unabahsed mauling of the Elvis classic Always On My Mind.

In the end, opposing X-Factor on principle is ridiculous because, as I said in the previous post, there's nothing wrong with the principle of X-Factor, only, arguably, things wrong with its execution. I don't mind people paying money for Killing In The Name, because it's a great song. But they should do it for the right reasons.

An unexpected top 10

So I've been working on my application to study songwriting at Belmont, and one of the questions is about your favourite songwriters. I thought I'd poke through my iPod and see which songwriters crop up the most. The results were interesting:

Blink 182 – 106
George Michael – 46
Beatles – 33
Jack Johnson – 31
John Mayer – 31
Queen – 30
Craig David – 29
Will Smith – 27
Muse – 27
RHCP – 25

The presence of Blink 182, George Michael and John Mayer is no surprise to me. Chances are I will list them as my three primary influences. Queen and RHCP were a big part of my teenage years, and still influence my glam rock and funk rock leanings respectively. My love of RnB and rap is neatly surmised in Craig David and Will Smith, though Eminem, the Neptunes and various others almost made it on the list. Jack Johnson makes sense, even if I don't see him as a big influence stylistically, because there is some similarity of style with my acoustic stuff.

What I was surprised by was how high on the list the Beatles are. Many of you may know my opinions on the Beatles, but for those that don't, here's a quick summary: they're overrated, not in their impact, obviously, but in their quality. They were good songwriters, but were prone to awful lyrics, especially early on (I Wanna Hold Your Hand, for example). I don't like Lennon or McCartney's voice, or what I know of them as people. The only one who seems to have been a tolerable human being was George Harrison.

I especially dislike many of the arrangements, which are frequently twee or don't suit the song, for which George Martin is often to blame. Sometimes the arrangements are perfect - Back In The USSR is a simple surf rock song with a simple surf rock arrangement; there's an uncomplicated but majestic brilliance in the string quartet of Eleanor Rigby; the casual cool evoked by the stunning drum pattern of Come Together borders on the iconic. I don't think my reaction against them is based on their popularity, although some small part of it might be. Ultimately, I appreciate them as songwriters, if not as a band (interestingly, I recently came to the same conclusion about ABBA).

There were lots of bands who affect my writing I was surprised to see not on there. Oasis, for example, have had a massive influence on me, as well as a lot of 80s, funk and pop rock - Alanis Morisette, Bryan Adams, Crowded House, David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Bon Jovi, Santana etc., not to mention modern stuff, obviously disadvantaged by fewer albums - Goo Goo Dolls, The Darkness, The Kooks, Orson, The Killers, Kaiser Chiefs, Incubus, Keane, Lenny Kravitz, U2, Rooney. There's not a lot of old school stuff or a single musical theatre writer in there, like Cole Porter, Andrew Lloyd Webber or Stephen Schwarz (although he just misses out). Jazz is not represented, no Joe Sample, Jamie Cullum, Dave Koz... I deliberately left out neo-classical soundtrack music, otherwise Howard Shore, Hans Zimmer and John Williams would dominate.

I suppose it's the nature of a top 10 list, and obviously, I've only included songwriters, so there are other singers and performers missing. But still, my tastes are quite varied while the list is quite narrow, and if you'd ask me to guess beforehand, I'd have definitely got it wrong. Anyway, feel free to contribute your own top 10 lists.