July 24, 2004

Here are not the facts you requested

Alexis Petridis might be more convincing if he didn't have a habit of twisting the facts to fit his argument. In a recent article chronicling a minor new "British invasion" of the US pop charts, he documents at great length the recent successes of a number of UK artists on American shores (including, intriguingly, Mis-teeq, who apparently needed the green light from Carson Daly before they could land a deal here) before concluding on the wry, pessimistic note -- how quintessentially British can you get? -- that despite these blips, significant cultural hurdles remain.

Andy Pemberton, "English-born editor of US music magazine Blender," writes Petridis, "has reservations about talk of a new British invasion. Too many factors are ranged against UK artists, he says, from the sheer size of the country to the power wielded by 'gatekeepers' such as MTV and radio conglomerate Clear Channel, both of which are obsessed with music fitting demographics rather than breaking boundaries. And, he adds, there are some things that Americans are just never going to get. 'I played the Streets album to the managing editor of Blender amid much trumpeting and enthusiasm. It's had fantastic reviews over here, critics love it. He just said, "I can't understand a word this guy is saying", and that was pretty much the end of that.'"

Except, of course, that two months before Petridis published his piece, Blender had already run a four-star review of A Grand Don't Come for Free, written by none other than Petritis' Guardian colleague Dorian Lynskey. So what was pretty much the end of what, now?

Posted by philip at July 24, 2004 08:29 PM
Comments

You can generally count on each Petridis article featuring one fact or new interview. But he used to be quite good when he wrote for Mixmag, in the days when that magazine used to run 'tings.

Posted by: Derek Walmsley at July 26, 2004 04:40 AM

mis-teeq are the best british band of the past couple of years!

Posted by: stelfox at July 27, 2004 10:01 AM

if you had to suffer Petridis' waffle on a weekly basis (in The Guardian here in England) you'd just switch off at the mere mention of the man's name. Much misguided commentary seemingly conjured out of nowhere, morphed into tidy, coherent pieces that leave broadsheet editors salivating and readers slightly deluded.

He writes in a sheltered journo tone - like one of those people who've never contemplated anything as lowly as actually, um, PARTICIPATING.

Posted by: kontent at July 30, 2004 02:23 PM
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