British overhype watering down good music journalism!

The British music media have always been extremely good at building up the hype surrounding upcomings bands....and then breaking it all down again once the band has reached a level where both the creative flood and public recognition start to wither.

This hype is sometimes justified and does have the very important function of making sure that some upcoming bands are handed a chance for the fasttrack to super stardom. However, often there just seems to be so much of a pattern in how the hype is constructed and blown out of proportion in the British media that it comes across rather calculated.

Take for example the worst of the lot - British music paper NME. And let's take an example: newcomer Arctic Monkeys. The band has just released its debut album 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' to immense praise from the critics. NME is hailing the band as nothing short of the saviours of British rock music (at least this year's saviours...). The last 3-4 months have been packed with media focus on the band and a paper like NME has spoken absolutely nothing negative about the phenomenon Arctic Monkeys. The album is given a 10/10 review and everything the band does is pure genius.

I'm sorry NME, but something just stinks here. I know that hype is most often more interesting than realism but every now and then it just gets too much. Yes, the Arctic Monkeys make quite good music, but no, they are really not that special and contribute little to an already well-developed and covered music scene.

But I guess you need your heroes to keep finding your jobs interesting enough... But what happened to all the other saviours? I mean, where are

- Starsailor
- Travis
- The Libertines
- Pete Doherty

now?

These artists were all at one time hailed as something quite incredible and turned out to be just one of the bunch. And relatively ordinary.

Hype is good when it's justified. In the UK, most often it is not and it has simply watered down the concept for me. So the next time NME hypes a band, they will have to scream REALLY LOUD for me to pay attention or even care...

Le Mec