‘EVERYTHING IS EVERYTHING’ – Geffen Records

by Rise Read

The phrase meaning ‘the current state of something’ – meaning whatever you want it to mean.  Which apparently interprets to appealing to anyone with the correct intelligence.

Or ‘Not a lot about nothing’.

Yet another reactive gimmick trying to show off their derivative skills and thinking that equals musical genius and new frontiers. Well, they’ve convinced some…but that is standard in the fickle music scene right now. They’ve even changed all their surnames to ‘Everything’. Wow. Now that’s commitment for you. Or even (oh my gosh, my head spins with such brilliance!) irony.

The funny thing is how, despite their efforts to distance themselves from Manchester’s (apparently) guitar oaf scene, they borrow exactly the same tactics and strategies from their nemesis, Liam Gallagher i.e. slagging off other bands, blatant arrogance and raging on about class. At least Liam was the first and said it from a true place.  If ‘Everything is Everything’ is so different, why do they need to assert it? Hoping all the nice, ‘interesting’, middle class kids with disposable incomes will relate.

But the sounds are not new, just reshuffled and repackaged like Kit Kat Orange or Kit Kat Caramel or whatever.  People still go out and buy it because it’s new.  But, after a while, you return to the staple which does the trick, proper solid songs which reflect real life not some half-formed idea.  Sounds which convey something are usually forged by the ‘philistines’ who, ironically, interpret emotions through structure and elegance far more exactly.  You don’t need a certain postcode to write good music.

‘Everything is Everything’ is exactly that – trying to be everything and ending up being nothing. But what people want is strong, new ideas not reformatted ones. We’ve had a couple of decades of that and we’re tired off.  Talking Heads was new and startling with a sardonic lyricist. Radiohead – bonkers with ideas and songs like meteorites.  But ‘Everything is Everything’ is household dust and a symptom of our fickle, papped out times.

But some hoover will doubtless suck it up.  Hope so.  I'm allergic to dust.