Don’t touch my jellyfish!
This nugget of information was posted on 02/01/09 at 4:11 pm by Simon and is filed under News & press.
Just how selfish are music fans? I was flicking through the pages of one of the more sensible music mag’s that adorn the walls of the newsagents of this land when I alighted upon a readers letter. Within this letter were the complaints of an ‘Avid Elbow fan’. I paraphrase his argument thus ‘I’ve liked elbow for ages and now ‘cause the BBC used one of their songs the gigs are full of people who only know the end bit of On a day like this’. I see his point but the alternative was Guy Garvey and friends getting dropped if this one hadn’t gone big. And after 17 years,  three albums with universal good reviews and galactically disappointing sales, I think they were due a break.
This issue was brought in to sharp focus for me when one or two Christmases ago, my favourite single by my favourite band was covered as part of  a double A side by a bunch of  musical lightweights. The Band was McFly and the single was Transylvania/Baby’s comin’ back.
In the early nineties when the parent album for baby’s comin’ back, Bellybutton by Jellyfish  was scraping around the lower reaches of the Gallup album charts and I was singing along to its glorious melodies I wanted nothing more than the whole world to discover the secret. Why didn’t everyone love this seminal pop record? On first hearing McFlys’ version,  my first instinct was of wanting people to love Baby’s comin’ back, find out it’s a cover, discover Jellyfish for themselves, and buy both their albums to force a reunion show.
But that’s not how I feel at all. I’d miss bumping into the other 38 people who bought both albums. It’s my secret and I don’t want you to know about it. So when the avalanche of record sales failed to materialize I was delighted. No reunion, secret safe.
I wonder if they needed the money.
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January 15th, 2009 at 10:46 am
It’s all music snobery, and it always happens once a band finally start appealing to the masses…people like the “avid Elbow fan” you mention seem to think that unless you listened to them from day one you have no right to just because you like one song.
I must admit that i’ve never been a massive fan of Elbow but i did go see them at the Academy in October. I’m still not a massive fan but when the mood takes me i will listen to them and I’m fairly sure Elbow don’t mind that!
3 friends of mine are in a band that released a song a few years ago and no one liked it then they rereleased it and it was massive and they are one of the biggest bands around now. As far as i know they have never asked anyone who didn’t like them all those years ago not to buy their records!