About This Time 20 Years Ago... It's The Hits Of November-ish 2004!

The Hottest Hit On The Planet:

“Since U Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson

The alternative/mainstream divide is a fiction. A sham. A social construct. It doesn’t really exist.

Even if it wasn’t a social construct – even if it had, at one time, been a living, breathing, tangible, touchable, thing, it would have been annihilated by the thunderous voice-bombs of Kelly Clarkson the moment she dropped “Since U Been Gone” upon an unsuspecting planet.

Consider it:

A pop star. One created by the American Idol fame-machine no-less, collaborating with the guy behind a bunch of Britney, Backstreet Boys & N*Sync classics, scoring one of the definitive mainstream pop hits of the decade…

…By impersonating one of the definitive underground rock hits of the decade: “Maps” by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

It was as though the carefully curated coolness of hipster New York indie sleaze, garage-rock revival bands, and the cautiously conversative corporate mall-pop of middle America were one and the same thing!

Kelly Clarkson, in case you spent the 00s living under a rock – or listening exclusively to 00s rock – had been the winner of the first season of American Idol.

Back then, people really cared about American Idol.

Back then, the reality-show/talent quest route felt as though it might be a legitimate and reliable source of new pop mega-stars.

= Back then, the reality-show/talent quest route felt as though it might be a legitimate and reliable source of new pop mega-stars.Pop stars would now be elected via the democratic process.

Or at least by texting numbers on a Nokia.

The American public was invested in American Idol. The American public was invested in Kelly Clarkson. But Kelly would never have had the run of hits that she did, if she hadn’t possessed both the personality and the pair of lungs to break-out of the American Idol ghetto; the fate of so many other Idol winners, who would have one “coronation hit…” and then disappear.

The American Idol ghetto would not be Kelly Clarkson’s fate. Kelly Clarkson would have many hits, and “Since U Been Gone” is one of the reasons why.

Right at the other end of America from Kelly’s home-state of Texas, New York was going through one of its phases of being the coolest place on Earth. Every week, or so it felt, a cool new indie rock band would crawl out of Williamsburg or Lower Manhattan.

But of all those cool new indie rock bands, no band was cooler than The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Most of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs early stuff was obliterating party-rock noise, but there was one song that made people take a break from throwing themselves across the dancefloor. A song that just left them standing still, gaping in astonishment, feeling things they’d never felt before. That song was “Maps,” quite possibly the greatest song ever written, even if it doesn’t really have a chorus.

But before all that there was “Since U Been Gone.” Max Martin and He Who Must Not Be Named. (okay, I’ll name him once… Dr Luke) were fans of the fact that “Maps” was all build up and tension, but non-fans of the fact that it stubbornly refused to give the listener the pay-off of a great big tension-relieving chorus. So Max Martin and He Who Must Not Be Named decided to rewrite it with a Great Big Chorus.

This was a genius – if rather obvious – idea. After all, taking the sound of the underground and giving it a Great Big Chorus is what cross-over pop hits had been doing since the dawn-of-time.

Max and He Who Must Not Be Named wrote “Since U Been Gone” for P!nk, but she wasn’t interested, probably because she was between albums at the time. A pity, since she would have killed it.

They offered it to Hilary Duff, who had the sense to know she wouldn’t have killed it, since she couldn’t reach the big notes. It finally found its way to Kelly Clarkson.

Weirdly enough, despite Max and He Who Must Not Be Named basing the song on a noise-rock classic, their original version, the one they played for Kelly, did not actually rock. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Max may have been listening to New York indie-sleaze bands – and Max may have spent the 80s in a glam-metal band, an experience which, if his hair is any indication, he never quite got over – but he was still the guy who wrote songs for Britney, N*Sync and the Backstreet Boys. It was what he did. It was what he knew. It was Kelly’s idea – Kelly’s insistence – to give it some much-needed rock crunch.

There are only a few seconds of “Since U Been Gone” that genuinely sound like The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Effectively just the blurts of guitar-noise during the breakdown section. Maybe also the guitars on the intro, although really, that sounds more like The Strokes. Max was just grabbing indie-sleaze signifiers from all over the scene!

It was enough however, for Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ lead singer, Karen O, to feel that listening to the song – or even just being aware of its existence – was “like getting bitten by a poisonous varmint,” a word that you don’t hear anywhere near often enough these days.

Karen O was probably just upset that they’d come up with a bigger and more rockin’ chorus than she had.

That big rockin’ chorus – the whole song in fact – was the perfect excuse, the perfect soundtrack, for Kelly to f*ck some shit up in the video.

As it begins, Kelly is sitting around what we assume must be her apartment, a totally rational assumption, given that she looks totally at home. Even when she goes to the bathroom to check her hair, she looks as though she owns the place. Okay, sure, now she’s throwing toiletries over her shoulder, but sometimes that’s how you clean out your bathroom cabinet. Sure, she’s making a face at a jar of night cream… maybe it had gone off? Does night cream go off? I really wouldn’t know. Squirting toothpaste down the sink is a bit weird… but not as weird as having your own rock venue in the basement!

Because suddenly the chorus hits and Kelly is a rock star! With a rock band!! With rock fans going absolutely nuts!!! American Idol was NEVER like THIS!!!!

As the video continues it appears increasingly unlikely that Kelly is just cleaning up her apartment, perhaps in preparation for a rental inspection. She tears up a pillow and she jumps on the bed. She trashes a record collection, tips over a tower of CDs. She picks up a photo frame. Kelly’s photo is not in it. Instead it’s some blonde girl who looks perfectly nice and totally doesn’t deserve what’s coming to her. Kelly throws the photo frame through a surprisingly fragile glass table. Kelly scores herself a natty hat. Kelly struts out. Kelly’s boyfriend – for it was his apartment all along! – returns with his new blonde squeeze. They stand together, staring at the carnage. Shocked. Kelly smirks to herself. That’s what you call cathartic release. That’s what you call closure!

“Since U Been Gone” didn’t exactly change the world. I mean, it’s not as though Avril didn’t already exist. “Since U Been Gone” didn’t lead to additional Avrils. It did give Max Martin a new lease on hits however, a couple of which would also kind of rock: P!nk’s “U & Ur Hand” for example, or “So What.” The inexplicably-not-a-big-hit “4Ever” by The Veronicas. The glam-rock stomp of Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl.” Just think, without “Since U Been Gone,” Katy Perry may never have happened!

What “Since U Been Gone” did not do was open the pop charts to New York hipster bands, at least partially because that scene had already, well and truly, peaked. “Maps” itself was a year old. In the fast-moving world of pop music, it was practically retro. The time was ripe for an American Idol version. For a version guaranteed to go off at karaoke. For a version that would hit America right in the middle of its mall-pop/suburban mom/Sk8er Boi Venn Diagram. That hipsters and critics and hipster critics loved it as well was just a bonus. Even Karen O had to give Kelly the faint praise that she rocked it harder than, say, Ashlee Simpson would have done.

“Since U Been Gone” is a 10.

Meanwhile, in Cultural Appropriation Land… It’s

“What You Waiting For?” by Gwen Stefani

A couple of years after “What You Waiting For?” – and about two decades before Gwen Stefani claimed Japanese citizenship and/or ancestry – I visited Japan for the first time.

Those might seem like two random events, but they were almost certainly related.

There is a very good possibility that without Gwen I would never have paid homage to the birthplace of karaoke in Kobe, gazed in awe at the giant pile of paper-cranes sent to Hiroshima by school kids, attempted to track down the legendary snake-flavoured ice-cream of Ikebukuro, attended a sumo wrestling match, experienced the thrill of standing next to a sumo wrestler as he bought a subway ticket, just going about his day, bought copious amounts of beer from vending machines, slept in a capsule hotel, got weirded out by the sheer quantity of manga-porn in Akihabara, and – most relevant to this column’s subject matter – spent a ridiculous amount of time in Harajuku, trying to appropriate some style for myself. As is typical with these matters, I failed.

Now, I can’t credit Gwen Stefani for all of that. I was also visiting Yoko – my favourite friend at university, probably one of my favourite people ever, I should really give her a call – who had returned home to Tokyo to work 24 hours a day and live in a cramped little flat.

Another reason I can’t give Gwen Stefani all the credit, is because it’s difficult to separate my love of “What You Waiting For?” to from my first exposure to Fruits magazine.

Fruits was a street fashion magazine, consisting of virtually nothing but photos of freakily dressed youngsters hanging out in Harajuku; a Tokyo suburb where, ever since the 60s, kids who spent their weekdays wearing school uniforms and office-wear, would rebel against the conformity of Japanese society by dressing in outlandish outfits.

It may have all begun with the rockabilly dancers of nearby Yoyogi Park, who would meet up every Sunday, dressed like punk-rock Elvises, ready to dance all day. Decades later they can still be found. Quite possibly they are the very same dancers as in this video.

The fashion there looks pretty tame, but things got curiouser and curiouser – and kawaii-er and kawaii-er – as the 80s and 90s progressed, until by 1997 – when Fruits was born – the kids had created an aesthetic that was part-Japanese/part-an-assortment-of-random-Western-subcultures. There were Harajuku punks, Harajuku hippies, Harajuku goths… there was even a scene of “pastel goths”, which is basically goth-but-with-a-lot-of-pink. Some went for what was usually described as the Lolita look – although the influence seems to be closer to Alice In Wonderland – and sometimes… I just don’t know what they were aiming, what they were aiming, what they were aiming, what they were aiming, for…

In Harajuku, every weekend was Halloween!

Gwen discovered this kooky side of Japanese youth culture through her father, who worked for Yamaha and was constantly flying over the Pacific on business trips, returning home with stories for young Gwen about “women with coloured hair”. Years later Gwen toured Japan with No Doubt and found that the tales were true! That’s when she decided that she was Japanese, even though she very clearly wasn’t.

This is why, when it was time to record her debut album, Gwen put together four Japanese – well, three Japanese and one 4th generation Japanese-American – girls to be her backing dancers/imaginary best friends. Because Gwen was obsessed with Harajuku, she called them the Harajuku Girls.

She also called them Love, Angel, Music and Baby.

Or, to let Gwen tell it:

“So I had this idea that I would have a posse of girls — because I never got to hang with girls — and they would be Japanese, Harajuku girls, because those are the girls that I love.”

“Those are my homies. That’s where I would be if I had my dream come true, I could go live there and I could go hang out in Harajuku.”

Fair enough. If my Japanese wasn’t so rubbish, I probably would too.

I think this is why I took such umbrage to the Great Gwen-Pile-On of 2023. The one after Gwen repeatedly insisted “I’m Japanese, no, really I am” in an interview with Filipino-American journalist Jesa Marie Calaor from Alure magazine, a quote that everybody decided to take 100% literally, and then self-righteously turn into a teachable moment.

The sort of pile-on that made me wonder: what would the reaction be to Kennedy if he had made the “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech today?

It’s not that Gwen was right exactly to claim to be Japanese when she very clearly was not. Or that pilers were wrong to criticize her for cultural appropriation with the zeal of a person who has just discovered a new word and were dying for an opportunity to show it off.

It was because every single one of those opinion pieces, TikToks and news segments appeared to have done no research other than to look up and read out the Wikipedia definition of “cultural appropriation.” Few showed any awareness that Harajuku was a whole thing, and even less curiosity to learn about it if they did.

In doing such no-assed research they ignored the fact that Harajuku culture and Japanese culture are not the same thing, they ignored the obvious Western influence on Harajuku fashion – Japan’s second-largest-city, Osaka, have their own version of Harajuku:

And it is literally called Amerikamura, or America-Town…

…Especially ignoring the fact that Japan is, and has long been, one of the richest nations on Earth. A lot of the discussion surrounding Gwen’s crimes seems to be based on the theory that because Japan is not white, then they are automatically poor and downtrodden, a worldview even more patronizing than Gwen’s.

Gwen’s defence of her “Harajuku Girls” era – and Gwen has spent a lot of time defending her Harajuku Girls era because that’s all anybody ever wants to talk to her about – has always been clumsy, but reasonably reasonable:

“If we didn’t buy and sell and trade our cultures in, we wouldn’t have so much beauty, you know? “

“We learn from each other, we share from each other, we grow from each other. And all these rules are just dividing us more and more.”

What appears to be happening here is a clash of two worldviews, not to mention two generations: Gwen remembers the 90s when globalization was breaking down boundaries, and people were talking about “the global village”, and how technology would bring humanity together, and what we had in common was greater than what set us apart.

Having grown up with a global-village ideology, it makes sense that Gwen might reject the idea that our identity group membership is more important than all the things we have in common, as, y’know, people.

But even if you defend Gwen’s right to be a Harajuku super-fan and say crazy pop-star shit like “I’m Japanese, no really I am” and her argument that Harajuku culture itself was “a ping-pong match between Eastern and Western” – and obviously I do – Gwen did do a lot of messed-up stuff.

Here are the actual crimes of Gwen Stefani (some of which are not actual crimes):

1: This live television performance of “Love, Angel, Music, Baby” deep cut Harajuku Girls, a track that is less of a song and more of a fashion-documentary, complete with voiceovers:

“A subculture, in a kaleidoscope of fashion
Prowl the streets of Harajuku”

The song itself is infuriatingly super-kawaii – which as the song explains to us “means super-cute in Jap-an-ese!” – but that’s not the problem here. The problem is that the performance begins with the Harajuku Girls literally bowing down before Gwen. Like WTF!

2: The Harajuku Girls were famously not allowed to speak. That’s weird, right? I really hope that the Harajuku Girls’ experience with the Gwen phenomenon was not as boring as it looks. In pretty much every interview, you can see them sitting around in the background, never showing emotion, never even moving. Less like geisha; more like manikins.

This lead to some genuinely creepy moments. Such as when Gwen explained that they were figments of her imagination, and Jonathon Ross asked if he could get an imaginary hand job from them. Ew!

Pierce Brosnan thought it was hilarious!

3: “Rich Girl”

I don’t hate “Rich Girl” because it’s annoying – almost as annoying as “Harajuku Girls” – but because Gwen spends a whole lot of time banging on about her Harajuku Girls in a manner more suited to talking about children, or, perhaps, pets. Gwen tells us that she’ll “dress them wicked” and “give them names”.

Gwen also says that they were her inspiration and that they’ve come to save her… so logically, they should be dressing you wicked! Remember Gwen: they’ve got some WICKED STYLE!!!!!

(“Rich Girl” is a 3)

4: Maybe this one is less of a crime: But it sometimes felt as though the purpose of the “Love, Angel, Music, Baby” album wasn’t to transform Gwen into a pop star, but to promote her L.A.M.B fashion label, that she had launched a couple of months earlier. Some of her lyrics literally plug the fashion line. In 2005 Gwen would add a less exclusive line – Harajuku Lovers – referring to it as an extension to the album, as though it were a bonus track. A few years later she’d launch Harajuku Mini, for kids.

It’s one thing to sing a couple of songs about your obsession with another culture. It’s very much another to have multiple clothing and fragrance lines based on that culture.

The absence, in this entire project, of virtually anyone Japanese. In addition to “Love, Angel, Music and Baby,” Gwen could have used Japanese supporting acts on her tour, even if it was just those that American hipsters might know like Cibo Matto or Shonen Knife. Or asked Cornelius to produce a few tracks. Or anybody from the Shibuya-kei scene.

Shibuya-kei – or Shibuya-style – was named after the Shibuya neighbourhood of Tokyo, a brisk walk from Harajuku and home to that pedestrian crossing. Shibuya-kei takes the same a-little-bit-of-everything approach to music that the Harajuku girls take to fashion and would have made for a wild Gwen album!

She instead got Black Eyed Peas, M.I.A. and Ciara to support her on tour, and Pharrell and Andre 3000 to produce her. And, for “What You Waiting For?,” she got Nelle Hooper, famous for his production work with Massive Attack, Sinead O’Connor, Madonna… and a lot of Bjork. I’m not sure whether Nelle and Gwen were aiming for a Shibuya-kei sound on “What You Waiting For?” but it’s certainly unlike anything else that was coming out of America at the time!

So that’s another disappointing element of The Great Gwen Pile-On of 2023: it did not lead to a heightened interest in Japanese pop music, which retained its status as the most criminally overlooked music scene on the planet! It didn’t lead to anyone hurriedly booking a ticket to Osaka or Tokyo, thereby stimulating the struggling Japanese tourist sector! I can say from experience however, that Gwen Stefani inspired at least one person to do just that:

Me!

And the reason for that was “What You Waiting For?,” Gwen’s absolutely demented and totally-meta debut solo single all about how nervous Gwen was about recording her debut solo single. With an advertisement for the Japanese Tourist Bureau snuck in on the bridge. Name one other hit song that goes off on a tangent halfway to promote another country’s tourism industry. You can’t say that Gwen didn’t give something back to Japan. You can’t say that Gwen did not give Japan credit.

Gwen had writers’ block, was inspired by Japanese kids, and wrote a bunch of songs and videos thanking them for inspiring her. Few other pop stars would have bothered.

“What You Waiting For?” is a 10.

Meanwhile, in Brit-Pop Land:

“I Predict A Riot” by Kaiser Chiefs

The Kaiser Chiefs were the new Blur.

I am not the first person to have made this observation. As takes go, it’s neither particularly original, nor especially hot.

Liam Gallagher described The Kaiser Chiefs as “a bad Blur.” Given how badly Liam hated Blur, that was quite a burn.

When chief Kaiser Chief Ricky Wilson met Blur-boss Damon Albarn for the first time, he thanked Damon for not suing him. Later on, Damon would find himself on stage singing “I Predict A Riot” with the lads, whenever their respective tours happened to cross paths.

So similar were The Kaiser Chiefs to Blur that there is a Kaiser Chiefs tribute band, The Kaiser Thiefs, who are also a Blur tribute band, Blurb. You can hire them both for the price of one. Naturally they’ve played at Glastonbudget, the world’s biggest tribute band festival.

For their fans, such a similarity was a selling point: some guy called Rob told The Independent:

“The Kaiser Chiefs are poppy and quirky, and they write about being young and British. No-one else is doing that.”

Which is exactly what people said about Blur in 1994.

“Yeah” his mate James agreed “they’re writing about being beaten up on a Saturday night and the whole chav thing.”

Blur had written similar songs: “I Predict A Riot” was the new “Girls & Boys.”

Now, you may think that Blur’s “Girls & Boys” – “girls who want boys who like boys to be girls” etc – is all about celebrating genderfluidity. Whilst a totally understandable reading of the text, it is however, an inaccurate one. “Girls & Boys” was written by Damon after watching his fellow Brits act like twats on holiday in Spain; getting drunk and shagging each other, willy-nilly.

“I Predict A Riot” is about much the same thing. There’s still a lot of shaggin’ going on – judging by all the girls “stumbl(ing) ‘round with no clothes on, to borrow a pound for a condom” – even if most of the focus is on “being beaten up on a Saturday night and the whole chav thing”.

The video for “I Predict A Riot” managed to combine the two, by featuring a pillow-fight. By girls with no clothes on.

Now, it’s not as though Ricky was a prudish teetotaller or anything.

As the indie-pop energy surging through “I Predict A Riot” indicates, Ricky liked to party. Ricky and his mates were constantly organizing parties.

Ricky was DJing at a club night he and his mates had started called PIGS.

Judging by the flyers, the punters at PIGS weren’t a whole lot more dignified than the lairy-rioting pissheads Ricky liked to warn you about “out there.”

At PIGS, DJ Ricky appears to have spun pretty much everything you’d expect a Kaiser Chiefs’ DJ to spin: Guitar/Electro/Gonzo/Party. By “Guitar” you were expected to deduce “New York Guitar Bands”, by which you were additionally expected to deduce “The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Interpol.”

Also, Motorhead’s 1980 headbanger classic “Ace Of Spades,” a tune so headbangin’ it was guaranteed to make PIGS punters go a bit crazy. So much so that a friend of the band walked over to Nick – the drummer – and shouted those immortal words into his ear: “I PREDICT A RIOT!”

And thus, a classic chorus was written!

At least that’s one version of events. There are others who say those immortal words were spoken during a gig by some friends of theirs, Black Wire. Either way, it was rather ironic that the riot Ricky is worried about occurring “out there”, was actually predicted to take place “in here.”

So, what was happening “out there”?

Whilst PIGS was Ricky’s little party scene, it was not the only party scene in Leeds. There was another one, just down the road, and this one didn’t play music with guitars. This party scene catered to university students, barely old enough to drink. Many were living in the big smoke for the first time, determined to make the most of it. Converging nightly on whichever club had the cheapest beer and the trashiest music. A scene that represented the antithesis of, and served as a nemesis to, Ricky’s little scene.

Standing at the epicentre of this scene was The Majestyk, the trashiest club of them all.

The spiritual home of lairy blokes and girls with no clothes on. Countless hordes of them, all chucked out at three in the morning to chuck-up on the pavement.

Ricky, sitting with his friend in a tiny VW Golf, would pass The Majestyk on their way home from one of his DJ sets. Ricky would watch the people get lairy and find it “not very pretty.” Even though Ricky wasn’t walking through town – even though he was safely ensconced inside his friend’s tiny VW Golf – he still found the experience “quite scary.” This was at least partially because the lairy blokes thought the VW Golf was a taxi and kept banging on the roof trying to get in.

It is this terror of their own countrymen that has occasionally rubbed some people up the wrong way. And by “some people” I mean: “Boris Johnson.“

And, y’know, I don’t like to agree with barmy Boris about anything, but when, in a blog post called “Yob Culture”, he (a) suggests that The Kaiser Chiefs made James Blunt seem “positively macho” in comparison, and (b) breaks down the plot of “I Predict A Riot” as “a tale about the bourgeois apprehension of a chap who tries to get a taxi on a Saturday night in the centre of town… then the chap meets another chap in a tracksuit, who looks as though he might offer violence, but doesn’t, and that’s about it”, he’s not entirely wrong.

Elsewhere Boris refers to the band as “the weeds from Leeds” – a disappointing turn-of-phrase given that “the dweebs from Leeds” was sitting right there! – and an “epic softie.”

Ricky seems to like that latter description: he uses it as his Twitter bio.

In his dislike of The Kaiser Chiefs, Boris was going up against the conservative free market think tank – and offshoot of The Institute For Economic Affairs – The Social Affairs Unit, who gave the band a positive review for their “pleasing concern for tradition,” and support of law and order. They probably appreciated Ricky’s use of the word “thee” – a word that Leodensians still use, apparently – as a rhyme.

None of this diminishes the status of “I Predict A Riot” as an immortal indie banger. A dark, and almost ghoulish indie banger, with a classic chant-along-chorus in the best indie-banger tradition (of which the band has a pleasing concern). The kind of indie banger that Blur would have felt proud to call their own.

“I Predict A Riot” is an 8.