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Buy Less, Listen More
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hello reader! Thought you’d have a read of my column, hmmm? Something to make you smile, something light and witty? That’s fine – we can do that – but wait! First, take a look at these pictures. That’s right, open the magazine on just about any page. What do you see? Lots of pretty photos!

Now, I don’t mean to be rude, but I couldn’t help but notice how… attractive the women in these photos are. Much more attractive than poor little you. And, while we’re being honest with each other, they’re also so much thinner than you (you’ve let yourself go a little bit. You have! I’m only telling you because I’m your friend! Remember that!) And they’re far better dressed – does your wardrobe contain anything quite so sexy, quite so glamorous? No. I thought not. Tell you what, why not read something. How about an interview with a woman who’s infinitely more successful that anyone you’ve ever met in you’re life, hmmm? She’s a businesswoman, a wife, a mother, a formula one racing car driver… did I mention that she’s working on a cure for cancer? Let’s be honest – you’re about as interesting as a dead slug in comparison. A bit of a failure.
Are you OK? What’s wrong? Feeling a little insecure, are we? A little bit inadequate? Oh dear! Listen, to make you feel better, why not turn to another page – that’s right, turn the page, dear… what do we have here? Just the thing! Some beauty products to stop you looking so bloody ugly (sorry! Didn’t mean to be rude! I’m you’re friend, remember?) And some clothes! Lots of lovely clothes! In fact, we’ve got pages and pages and pages of lovely products to fill that nagging hole at the core of your being. The more you buy, the less fat and ugly and miserably you’ll feel. Trust me! I’m your best friend! Really!”           
Sorry. Don’t know what came over me just then. It’s just that, one of things about writing for a women’s magazine is that you have to ask yourself how healthy these kinds of magazines are in general. Are women’s magazines really that bad? Do they really pretend to offer friendly advice while promoting low self esteem? Do they encourage impossible ideals, in comparison to which any normal woman is going to want to throw herself off a bridge? Or, on the contrary, do they promote positive role models? I’m not sure.            
Anyway, one of the things that does bother me, is just how much magazines nowadays increasingly resemble supermarket catalogues. You know those annoying, cheaply printed leaflets that block your postbox and show you just how cheaply you can buy twenty kilos of untura? Glossy magazines sometimes seem to be a little bit like that, except printed on nicer paper and with better photographs. Almost everything you find in magazines is only there because somebody, somewhere, has something to sell.
It’s not just the adverts. It’s not just the ‘advertorials’ (which have always seemed to me to be the creepiest kind of advertising that exists – it’s the magazine equivalent of having a friend who’s really desperate to get you to try one of those dodgy slimming products or join a cult). It’s also the interviews, the book pages, the music review pages. Everywhere you look, someone wants your money.            
So, as an antidote to all these sinister attempts to get you to buy things you don’t actually need, this month’s reviews will be based entirely around music you can get for free. One of the wonders of the internet is just how much music you can get hold in a entirely, 100% safe and legal manner. Because the music industry is run by people with all the intelligence of that grinning banjo-player in Deliverance, it’s taken a long time for them to realise that instead of trying to prosecute people who share music over the internet, they should be encouraging it. It’s a bit like trying to convince primitive people that electricity isn’t the work of the devil, and that cars don’t have tiny horses hidden under the bonnet – slowly, these painfully stupid people are coming to realise that by giving away music for free, bands become more popular and make money. The Arctic Monkey’s are a case in point – the fact that they were so eager to give away their music allowed them to become the hottest band at the moment, having scored huge chart success all over Europe. And so, some groups are doing all they can to give you not just songs, but full albums – 100% gratis.       
 
ALBUM OF THE MONTH goes to The Maccabees. Their debut album, entitled ‘Colour it in’ shows them living up to the hype that’s been surrounding them for a while now. If I were a real music journalist then I’d probably say something self-important, like ‘They’re like the London equivalent of Maxïmo Park or the Futureheads, playing post-libertines angular pop’. Anyway, all you need to know is that 1) they’re great, 2) they write songs about their local sports centre, and 3) you can listen to their ENTIRE album for free at www.bbc.co.uk/collective.           
Next up is the band The Crimea, again from London, and again with the obligatory inclusion of the word “The” in their title. The Crimea recently hit the headlines for being one of the first established acts to let you actually download their full album, for free, over the web. ‘Secrets of the Witching Hour’ is packed full of angst-ridden, radio-friendly rock anthems, and can be downloaded at www.thecrimea.net.            

Lastly, we have Harvey Danger from Seattle, USA, who’s third album, Little By Little... has been available for download for some time now at www.harveydanger.com. Enough words! Stop consuming! Get downloading!