Brandon Flowers: Thom Yorke Should Go Back To Writing 'Pop Songs'

[_skitzo_]

Sometimes in the music world peoples ego's are a lot larger then they should be, case in point.

The Killers singer Brandon Flowers has told Radioheadâ€s Thom Yorke to go back to writing “pop songsâ€�.
Flowers has been unimpressed by Yorkeâ€s move into more experimental music in past years, because he thinks heâ€s wasting his gift for writing popular songs.

He tells The Observer, “He should feel grateful that's he's (been) given the gift to write pop songs - which he needs to write again!�

Flowers, who is currently promoting his bandâ€s second album Samâ€s Town, has also laughed off worries from the Pet Shop Boyâ€s Neil Tennant that he himself is moving away from his pop roots.

Tennant expressed concern Flowers†new facial hair signals “I mean than pop�, but the frontman dismisses the notion.

He explains, “I've never been able to grow a moustache before! I'm upset that Neil doesn't like it. I do feel like we're definitely still pop. And we've never been ashamed of that. This is just a phase.�

You know...I'm not a fan of the killers, but I know enough about them to say they arent even in the same level as Radiohead. Then again who are The Killers anyway?

[oldengineer]

Why does Radiohead need to impress The Killers?

...Don't get me wrong I like The Killers but they ain't no Radiohead!

[Parris]

Throwing my hat into the ring a lot later than perhaps it warrants, but when the hell did Thom Yorke ever churn out easily digestible poptastic ditties? As far as I remember Mr. Yorke has been quite the oddball of the music industry and frankly dragged his audience kicking and screaming along with him rather than pandered to them? So at some stage in their career they became 'popular' and sold a huge load of albums (witness OK Computer) but that is having achieved an audience, not discovered the winning formula of pop music.

For what it's worth I would rather that some experimental material was produced, regardless of commercial success in order to actually challenge peoples notions of what music actually is.

A bit of Dead Can Dance or Brian Eno, or perhaps some Peter Gabriel to blow the cobwebs away does wonders! The production value of all 3 are utterly amazing. Sounds where you just never expected them.

[oldengineer]

Originally Posted by Parris

Throwing my hat into the ring a lot later than perhaps it warrants, but when the hell did Thom Yorke ever churn out easily digestible poptastic ditties? As far as I remember Mr. Yorke has been quite the oddball of the music industry and frankly dragged his audience kicking and screaming along with him rather than pandered to them? So at some stage in their career they became 'popular' and sold a huge load of albums (witness OK Computer) but that is having achieved an audience, not discovered the winning formula of pop music.

For what it's worth I would rather that some experimental material was produced, regardless of commercial success in order to actually challenge peoples notions of what music actually is.

A bit of Dead Can Dance or Brian Eno, or perhaps some Peter Gabriel to blow the cobwebs away does wonders! The production value of all 3 are utterly amazing. Sounds where you just never expected them.

Music!

One thing people will never agree on, thats for sure.

Anyway the point was Thom has never written 'pop songs'!!!!

...Thus Mr Flowers was talking rubbish in this particular case.

Using your quote Parris "challenge peoples notions of what music actually is"...this is something that Radiohead achieved with many tracks such as 'Creep' or 'Karma Police', for instance.

Big statement you may think but valid.

For music to 'challenge' someone it has to enter thier soul. You can't control this, it either happens or it doesn't, tracks off of 'Fake Plastic Tree's' and even up to 'O.K Computer' had this effect.

The 'challenge' doesn't have to be a big 'bells and whistles' message to the world, it can be very deep and very personal.

Using your example of Peter Gabriel is a good one, when he did a duet with Kate Bush many years ago it made the hairs on my arm stand up!

...In the 'extreme' this happened when Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue did 'Where the Wild Roses grow'...it touched the soul, it created the 'challenge', it made the impossible seem possible.

Bearing in mind that I'm a child of the 60's and that I was raised on the Rolling Stones (my mum saw them in concert before they were properly famous!) and the Beatles my interest in music is unstoppable.

...My 'forte' being music from Scotland and Manchester.

Scotland and Manchester have given birth to more challenging music than the rest of the world combined!

[Parris]

Fred, I totally agree, but can I also add Bristol & Leeds to your map of British musical importance? Often ignored, but certainly incredibly influential. Manchester & Glasgow truly are hot beds of musical cool. One of the best groups to ever come out of the UK must be The Stone Roses, but they were only a small part of what Manchester managed to give to the World at that time - please, just don't say Inspiral Carpets!

Scottish music should be my forte, but living in Glasgow I am more than aware of the the importance of Strathclyde region in particular. I struggle to think of many bands other than perhaps the Soup Dragons (Dundee) and The Shamen (Dundee) and The Rezillos (formally the Revillos) and Goodbye Mr McKenzie (both from Edinburgh) from other Scottish regions that have managed to capture the imagination.

Start listing Scottish groups and you end up realising that the vast majority of them come from within a 20mile radius of my front door. The reason being that frankly the support, clubs and venues in the West are much better than anywhere else.

I realise the point was that Thom has never produced Pop music, I was arguing the same point as you.