The oft-empty portion of my heart that just wants to watch awards shows every hour of every day makes too many of my days meaningless and my nights lonely. If only I could relocate to England, where there’s an award programme for every man, woman and child. Today’s set of nominations are from the Q Awards, to be presented Oct. 6, and let’s just say the Fleet Foxes should invest in some nice suits for the occasion.
Many people find it hard to tell the great from the godawful when it comes to 21st-century mainstream rock. To help figure out which is which, here’s “Corporate Rock Still Sells,” where Al “GovernmentNames” Shipley examines what’s good, bad, and ugly in the world of rock and roll. This time around, he holds a few recent blog-rock darlings up to the harsh light of commercial rock radio, and judges their potential for success:
Grrrl-rock standard-bearer Carrie Brownstein took to her blog to discuss a phenomena she witnessed at a Fleet Foxes show: the “strangely beautiful” phenomenon of bromance, “where mostly straight men show up to shows in small packs, high-fiving during songs, raising glasses at the band in a show of brotherly love, and shouting ‘I love you!’ toward the stage.” She asks the readers to comment with “bromantic” shows they’ve attended; while the Hold Steady seems to be the consensus pick as far as which band is inspires the most male-on-male admiration, most of the bands mentioned are linked by shared roots in ’70s rock. As a result, I’ve noticed at least two distinct types of “bromance”: for lack of a better nomenclature, I’ll call one folk/country bromance (exemplified, in Brownstein’s post, by the Fleet Foxes crowd) and the other bar-band bromance (seen among Hold Steady fans). This oft-overlooked distinction is important to understanding the phenomenon.
