The New… T.Rex

‘Dandy Xtreme’ is the new ‘The Dandy’. Starburst are the new Opal Fruits. But what about music? Which bands are rising up to take over the musical direction, style, and tone of previous, classic bands who have since split up or retired? In this occasional series, we look at new bands who are proudly continuing the musical traditions started previously by other acts.


The Old...

T.Rex

T.Rex were a band in the 1960s/1070s from England. Although founded by Mark Bolan as a folk act, under the influence of band-member Steve Peregrin Took (seriously) the band started to go a little wonkier with their music, turning poppier and rockier at the same time, and inadvertently inventing glam rock in the process.

It all started for the band with some glitter, as all good stories of triumph should. Scheduled to perform on Top Of The Pops, Bolan was made-up with glitter under his eyes. This glittery figure with wild hair and a guitar quickly wound up the general public and everyone (this is hyperbole, isn’t it?) started mimicking the look. Realising they were onto something, the band members all started to take on the look, and by the mid 70’s the band were on a roll. It helped that alongside their wild image, the band-members could put together a darned decent song, however. Their music, which before attracted hippies with their baroque songs of wizards and whatever, was slowly edged out in favour of more sexualised tracks and groovier guitar stuff. Electric guitars followed.

Alongside Gary Glitter, Roxy Music, and David Bowie, T.Rex formed an army of powerful glam rock acts that swept Britain and Europe, and eventually America. Founded on funky/fuzzy sounding guitars and tracks founded on the principle that people should want to dance and sing along – resulting in simple, rhythmic chants making up the majority of T.Rex choruses – glam rock was all about marrying the pop with image. Bolan and Took were at the heart of everything, living up wild lives filled with drugs, drink, and dolly-birds (couldn’t think of a better ‘d’ word to describe women). It was this that led the band to their eventual collapse through exhaustion. Nobody could keep up with Bolan.

And that included Bolan himself. In 1977 he was killed in a car crash in the early morning, less than a mile away from his house. The band were no more, but they left behind a legacy that has touched bands from The New York Dolls right through to Goldfrapp.



The New...

Of Montreal

At least I’m still giving myself these little challenges. Pitching Of Montreal to you as the new T.Rex is not dissimilar to pouring burning sand into my eyes and screaming “the birds! The birds are back! Warn Hitchcock!” It’s not really going to achieve anything.

Of Montreal, despite the name, are Americans. The number of people in the band tends to wax and wane as time goes on, with only Kevin Barnes, the main singer and lyricist, staying around for long periods of time. They tend to make extremely poppy, psychedelic songs with heavy use of synthesiser, and throw all manner of instruments into their songs at unexpected points to surprise the listener. Highly experimental, they currently spend most of their time pushing the boundaries of pop and glam-rock together. They’re a long way from the restrained madness of T.Rex.

If you look at the career paths of both bands, though, you can start to see a similar narrative thread forming. Both band started off by making folk-rock songs which featured an acoustic guitar and none of the glitz or glamour that both bands are known for. These slower, quieter songs were designed to showcase aspirational and irreverent takes on traditional love songs, with Of Montreal giving us songs like “Tim I Wish You Were Born A Girl” on their first album, Cherry Peel. Kevin Barnes, erstwhile bandleader of the group (in the same way Conor Oberst is the ‘leader’ of Bright Eyes) then moved off into a world of glam rock, and these influences settled into his music quickly. The music got louder, fuzzier, leant more heavily on psychedelia, and got better. As they’ve gone on, the band have quickened the pace and started stampeding towards the charts – haven’t been picked up yet, but they certainly can’t be too far away. When new album ‘Skeleton Lamping’ comes out later this year, you can look out for all the hallmarks of the band as they now stand: electric guitars, singalong choruses, and lots and lots of handclaps.

You can even hear similarities between Bolan’s voice and Barnes’ hushed vocals. Neither singer ever attempted to wrestle away attention from the music with hi-somersaulting vocal tics or weirdness, instead letting the musicians do all the work while they slided in over the top and quietly stole the show without anyone noticing. If you pick up an Of Montreal album, Kevin Barnes is the star of the show without ever really showing up. And, of course, with the glam style comes a certain image you have to send out. This is Of Montreal:

Can’t argue with that.

The New... Fleetwood Mac

Cif is the new Jif. Simon Pegg is the new James Doohan. But what about music? Which bands are rising up to take over the musical direction, style, and tone of previous, classic bands who have since split up or retired? In this occasional series, we look at new bands who are proudly continuing the musical traditions started previously by other acts.


The Old…

Fleetwood Mac

A slightly bluesy, slightly country band from America, Fleetwood Mac was made into a proper band by the arrival of Stevie Nicks to the fold. Whilst the band was filled with different people who did the singing, it was Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie who gave us all the best musical moments. Both have strong, deep voices that can rise and fall in a heartbeat, whilst possessing so much character you have to stand back from the speakers to take it all in. The entire character of the band is what makes them stand out so strongly amongst all the other bands from the 70’s

They moved from slightly conventional sounding music to more and more experimental stuff as they went on as a band, due in no small part to their heavy drug lifestyles. But whenever they started wandering off in odd musical directions, like the title track of their album “Tusk”, the band always offset the weirdness with pop songs that instantly sounded like classics as soon as you heard them. It seemed like the band could effortlessly crack out pop songs for as long as they wanted, which not many other band s have ever managed to achieve. Of course, with Fleetwood Mac having this ability, they then chose to try and rebel against it by making songs that deliberately only work on album.

Their albums gained as a result. Their music sounds decent on a singles collection, but you can hear on their best-of the songs slowly growing more and more typical, more obvious, more thrown out. They stopped paying attention to making songs that worked as snappy singles, and instead focused on making their albums cohesive and raw and experimental. There is a wealth of material out there for anyone who wants to try out Fleetwood Mac, and if you do go out there and try it after only knowing the singles, you’re going to be surprised by the depth and variety to their music.

Fleetwood Mac are easily one of the best bands to come out of America. It was uniquely American style of music that has yet to be equalled by any band: hazy, country music with a twang and easy-going charm. No matter the subject of their songs, there is a feel-good factor at work with Fleetwood Mac that instantaneously warms you to them. While the men play the guitars, the women sing their songs, and everyone goes home happy. They were a tremendous band, and even now their music is captivating.



The New…

Rilo Kiley

This LA-based band have big shoes to step into, but are more than capable of tapdancing in them. Again, the music centres around a female voice: this time the charged power of Jenny Lewis, a tiny redhead with enough power in her singing to charm a village of ferocious cavemen. Jenny Lewis is the powerhouse that drives Rilo Kiley forward with their music, and although they started out with a slightly indistinct country-indie rock sound, their music has developed at a speed of knots over the years. In a reversal of Fleetwood Mac’s musical direction, Rilo Kiley started out experimentally. Their first two albums veer all over the musical map, from powerhouse rock to gentle country sounds.

After those, though, the band started to fight their own internal conflict, in the shape of a breakup. Just like with the Mac, the bandmates of Rilo Kiley were dating. Jenny was dating Blake Sennett, in this case, the also quite short guitarist of the band. They split up after the second album was made, and their fighting led the other members of the band to worry about their future. They pulled together, though, and continued on in a stronger shape than ever. The band concentrated more on making their music accessible, so that third album “More Adventurous” sounded just like… a Fleetwood Mac album. An offcut of country music based around the full, rounded sound of Lewis’s voice, the album resoundingly sounds like the sort of music Fleetwood Mac would have started making if their creative peak had lasted longer.

The twang is distinctively there in the music, the songs have the same low-key, laid-back charm that Fleetwood Mac specialised in, and with Jenny Lewis the band certainly have a frontwoman capable of the charisma that Stevie Nicks, for example, possesses. Yet the band continued on past this, forming a more poppy edge in the fourth album that reminds you of a Fleetwood Mac best-of album. The music on Under The Blacklight was one pop song after another, of which more than half had a resounding feel of ‘instant classic. The soft, smooth sounds of ‘Give A Little Love’, for example, is the best song Fleetwood Mac never wrote. A great band with a constantly adapting sound, Rilo Kiley have the grassroots Californication that any good country band has, but at the same time polishes it and tries to change it into something else entirely. If there is one band capable of taking over the void left in music after Fleetwood Mac died down as a collective, it is Rilo Kiley.