Hostile Takeover
Right, now I’m not some kind of highbrow, popular culture-shunning snob (although I realise by saying this it automatically seems like denial, “Honest guv, I definitely didn’t lock those children in the cellar… Oh, you hadn’t mentioned any children… Er.”) but there are some things that should intrinsically be kept separate. I love, say, Super Noodles and I also think that Jack Kerouac is pretty great but if you tried to advertise the calorific student staple by showing a man, obliterated on crystal meth driving down an American highway greedily guzzling some Mild Curry flavoured carbs then, well, it just wouldn’t work. The two things simply don’t fit. Super Noodles are not suddenly going to become the food of choice for disturbed, drug-addled literary genii, you’re just going to get a lot of bemused letters on Points Of View.
This is a lesson that needs to be reiterated to TV programmers and advertising types - no matter how many Sleater-Kinney songs you subtly play in the background of generic blonde #3′s hair salon in Doctors it won’t make you ‘edgy’ or ‘cool’, it’ll just pass most people by and make those who actually care weep a little into their cuppa.
The worst culprit for this is Hollyoaks. I love Hollyoaks, I am not ashamed, but I love it in the same way that I love America’s Next Top Model or Paris Hilton’s New BFF – i.e. with absolutely no depth of feeling or emotion whatsoever. They’re vapid, glossy slabs of escapism that allow you to take a half hour out from the stresses of Real Life and stare at pointless, shiny things like a glorified magpie. What I don’t enjoy, then, is hearing a selection of songs that mean a great deal being wantonly thrown around these gaping vats of shallowness as though they too have no significance when THEY CLEARLY BLOODY DO. Sorry. It just hits a nerve.
At what point Mr. Hollyoaks Producer decided that Los Campesinos!, purveyors of the most socially awkward, bitter slices of indie-pop around, would be a suitable accompaniment for Cindy and Mindy getting a spray tan I do not know but with every misplaced lyric a little bit of me dies inside. Ditto for adverts (Dancing On Ice soundtracked by Slow Club? Brilliant!) and, to a lesser extent, shop sound systems (thank you dearly Topshop, I’ve always wondered what was missing when sat swooning over the torturous musings of Perfume Genius - turns out the answer was overpriced Henry Holland tights with houses on).
I understand the logic, kind of, but, dear Lord, is nothing sacred? Soon we’ll have to sit through Jordan and [insert current husband here] pointlessly yapping to the strains of Belle & Sebastian and XXX porn with The xx. And no one needs that.
