The last decade should have belonged to Patrick Wolf and British Sea Power - and in a way it did - Part 1.
By Graham Chalmers It is an era which seems to grow increasingly complex with every passing year and yet, looking back to the start of the Noughties, the overwhelming desire in musical culture was for simplicity. If, by the end of the decade a whole host of bands and solo acts were once again concerned with complexity, it's not to belittle their significance to say this unexpected mix of artiness and pop often struggled, and still does, to connect with the broader public. It says more for the times that such acts exist and have an audience at all. The following article seeks to explain how the music changed and why and what it meant and means, how the manly growls of 2000 turned into the falsettos of 2009, the garage room guitars into perky synths. It will also show how much-hailed 'man of the decade' Jack White's direct legacy turned out to be a dead end, while his indirect one helped o...
