Pop ate itself

Ironic, then, in view of all those posteriors, that 2001 was the year where we finally saw the back of the manufactured pop phenomenon. Hear’Say didn’t even make good gossip; the feculent, if perfectly groomed, corpse of the boy/girl band monster finally began to give off its rightful stench; and a second (granted, compulsively watchable) series of Big Brother – and several million inferior idiot siblings – brought the realisation that no, actually, it isn’t that big a deal to be Almost Famous. Consequently, the best description of our reaction to RTE’s Popstars is that we are agog with indifference.

And anyway, Bachelor’s Walk proved what we’ve known for years and what so many in this country didn’t dare imagine: that people who believe in the sloppy recycling of other people’s ideas, are the weakest link. Goodbye.

Maybe (exaggerated) reports of the death of celebrity, then, were why we were so in need of heroes this year, so ripe for the hype (hiya Strokes, how’re you doin’? Did Max’s Kansas City get that rather good demo tape of yours yet?) But who needs other people’s ideas, other people’s money, other people’s permission?

Notwithstanding fears of bio-terrorism at year’s end, there must have been something in the water this year, for in music, in pop culture, in society – independence, in thought and execution, was the flag and everyone was waving. Hundreds of feet of great homegrown pop videos; new comics and ‘zines cramming every shop shelf and ISDN line; record-boxes full of excellent home-produced music – most of which were touched by the fuck-em-and-do-it-yourself spirit, if not in actuality the hand, of Steve Albini, and all to the greater good.

A big romance got bigger, as David Kitt morphed before our eyes from being merely one of the best new songwriting talents of recent memory into a surreal, intelligent, world-class noise. And of course The Frames lost a guitarist and gained a planet, sorting international press and distribution without money or connections, getting positive reviews from untouchable media monolith Rolling Stone, and playing landmark gigs approximately every twenty minutes – the Olympia, the Castle, Brittas Bay, and that one in Tower Records that half of Dublin stood and listened to in Wicklow Street.

2001: a new-space odyssey, when a triumvirate of fresh shelters fed the music-hungry: the Ambassador (the Olympia’s tomboy sister), the Shelter (a cosy, jewel-toned bijou) – and, for afters, Thomas House (looks like 1972, sounds like next week, feels like your front room). Gigs of 2001, in a year of plenty: Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy lovingly, pornographically, creeping us out in the Shelter, Tindersticks dying slowly and burning with a still pure light in the Olympia, Sparklehorse gorgeously timestretching in the Ambassador, Gil Scott-Heron demonstrating the meaning of ‘a life in art’ in the Savoy, the Handsome Family keeping it weird for the kids in Whelan’s, U2 re-finding their old magic in loss at Slane, and the White Stripes re-proving that the kids are alright at Witnness.