Clubbing at "The Pink Toothbrush"

Last Friday I went to my local nightclub, called The Pink Toothbrush. Being granted the ability to indulge in my local (albeit limited) nightlife after my entire 18th year stifled by A Level misery in lockdown was hugely enticing. The venue had taken on a near-mystical quality as a child, only glimpsed inside if you could make it during the Christmas lights switch-on, forever knowing it had once been called 'Crocs' and gave a home to real alligators. As you get older you find you have a lot more things organised, and so I received my second jab beforehand, shuffled through a converted pharmacy. Oddly, there was a print-out of Madonna's Ray of Light stuck to the wall, which I realised must've been my kindly doctor's favourite album. I felt astounded and inspired in equal measure by this presentation of sheer confidence in his personal taste, his Madonna fandom for all the village to see, defying all stereotypes and popular critical opinion. If he had blu-tacked OK Computer or Dark Side of The Moon, he wouldn't have been nearly as cool. I was so distracted by this the nurse had to reiterate the instructions to wait outside, like I had been instantly struck with some side effect. And so as once again my arm felt a little sore, I waited in my cubicle and immediately left for the pub to get one step ahead of any possible grogginess the vaccine could give me. 

'Yesterday' Film Review

Yesterday is an endlessly frustrating waste of a great premise which spends two hours yelling at you “THE BEATLES ARE GREAT!” without never exactly explaining why. Musician Jack Malik is looking for a lucky break until an accident  (somehow) results in a world where the Beatles never happened, and he is the only person who can remember the songs. Ergo, he becomes immensely famous through passing the songs off as his own. Jack only feels a twinge of guilt for his actions or fear of being found out every so often, a feature underutilised. The idea of Jack being plagued by symbols of the Beatles, and the members themselves, is passed off for a joke, but is something that could actually be quite interesting to see aside from a quasi-interesting romantic main-plot. When it finally remembers - oh yes, this is a film about The Beatles! - the songs hold no greater significance than just being good songs, or fodder for jokes. The only joke in this film I laughed at revolved around ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’, mostly because of it’s sheer ridiculousness. The script is seriously poor, simply parroting Beatles references, promoting the reason why the first rule of scriptwriting is ‘tell don’t show’. Everything about this film seems to require a second draft. 

The main issue - of which the product is never entertaining enough to distract you from it - is that the logic of a world without the Beatles has hardly been thought through, resulting in a ‘alternative reality’ making the whole idea of the film proving rather dull. The world where the Beatles exist, and the one where they don’t, are pointlessly indistinguishable. So much of the pop culture referenced in this film, from Coldplay, The Beach Boy, David Bowie - was undoubtedly influenced by the Beatles. James Taylor is mentioned, an artist who owes his break to Apple Records: created by you know who. It’s not a fan being sycophantic - the Beatles had an impact on pop music so huge it was incalculable, and without them the pop charts would look extremely different. Instead of a reality boringly familiar, save for one band, not go a tad overboard and depict a depressingly grey loveless world, where radios play no music, nobody makes an album, and hardly anybody owns a musical instrument? At least that’d be fun to see, as Jack’s songs leave to a complete societal revolution. But no, you get the gaudy romantic subplot you’ve seen hundreds of times before. 

It is also a film firmly stuck in the past glories of Curtis rom-coms - and whilst there are small moments that work, and are subsequently deeply affecting, for what they say about the power of the Beatles - the Yellow Submarine section, namely - it speaks volumes that Ed Sheeran is in this film. That alone is enough to point out Beatles fanatics are not the target audience. The absolute cheek to even imply Ed could hold a candle to the Fabs is enough of an insult. Ed Sheeran’s simply atrocious acting is a stain upon this shitrag. Every smug interjection, quip leaves you begging, pleading for him to go away. Curtis is better than this. He’s certainly better than obviously utilising the not just outdated, but plain wrong assumptions of what women like about the Beatles, believing it’s intended audience isn’t interested in the musical value of the Beatles’ music, more good looks, extreme gushiness, something to scream at.  It’s a date film. It may be difficult to say something new about the Beatles, but there’s no point giving the due attention a brilliant premise deserves, your characters any observations, or any reverence to the music you’ve paid millions to include in the film, when you just want it to be something to watch before a couples’ Pizza Express dinner. There’s nothing wrong with a good date film, but this can’t even stretch itself to be a good date film. Hell, an Oasis song holds greater personal gravitas for Jack than anything the Beatles ever did. 

As Jack moves up in the music business world, with busybodies making every creative decision for him in the name of profit, you may begin to recognise that the music of The Beatles could not work (!) and take off in today’s manufactured, conglomeratic climate of pop music, orchestrated by stiff men in suits, with no room for the experimentation the Beatles thrived on. You may find yourself shouting at the screen when Jack laments ‘how can I be creative when I’m never left alone’. This is, yet again, a far more interesting little facet to the story rather than the cookie-cutter rom-com we’re given. Unlike Jack’s, their success did not just happen overnight. Yesterday could’ve explored the changing conditions of success in pop music, and even how a lot of the Beatles’ success was due to a variety of external factors - from skiffle groups, post-war feeling, to the available of hallucinogenics - all having absolutely no impact on this premise. The Beatles are a group adored universally for their irrepressible plucky burst of personality, glowing with a charm none of this film has. A complete waste of potential, Yesterday low serves The Beatles as something they never were, or have ever been: unimportant. 

An Ultimatum For HMV: What They Can Learn From Record Shops To Survive

On Thursday, I shared on Twitter that I was pleased to have found The Beatles' Anthology 3 for a cool £1.50.

Stephen Wilkins, one of my followers, replied that it would've cost £34.99 new in HMV.

Surely not, I thought. Maybe he saw the vinyl version. But no. £35 bleedin pounds. 

Despite supermarkets such as Sainsburys no longer stocking CDs, HMV are hell bent on an almost Stalin-like expansion in the face of an ever-rapidly dwindling market, planning to open between 8 to 10 shops by the end of the year. Saved from the brink of administration two years ago, HMV will have to do things differently to avoid careering over that edge once again. 

HMV seems to be terribly optimistic about the future of physical music formats more than anybody else in the industry. Stocking a huge range of both new releases and older albums, it's seen off it's competitors to become the major entertainment supplier still holding a high street presence. Astutely, they rode the wave of the 'vinyl resurgence' in the past decade or so to maintain a steady influx of customers. Yet there are
many ways in which it seems HMV are doing the exact opposite of securing a long-term future. Forced accommodation of gimmicks such as colour vinyl, signed copies, and limited editions, constantly suffocating the manufacture of vinyl records with needless reissues, suggests the advent of vinyl records may be wearing off. By framing their customers as hipsters, into the alternative way of doing things, further secures the idea of buying actual copies of music as an unusual, old-fashioned and therefore potentially-uncool thing to do, compared to the strength of streaming, culture's number one form of media consumption. It is an obviously colossal business trying to persuade people who love records, and subsequently go to proper record shops, to shop with a colossal corporation rather than a personal, humble small business. 

Because of their regular frequent visits to proper record shops, this audience sees HMV as totally different in it's principles. It is the quintessential place to go in, have a look around, fine something nice - only to order it online for a fraction of the price. It is pointless using terminology of 'virtual record fairs', 'town halls', and 'crate-digging' to push themselves as well-stocked record fair, the kind of shop with passionate, intelligent, honest staff, when the only interaction you'll ever have is a nod to the security guard to convey you're not planning to nick anything and a few faint pleasantries with the cashier. They have taken so long to decide their target market is record-collecting music fans, but without actually getting to know them. Feigning independence has got them stuck in a serious rut. 

Pushing themselves as a record shop exactly demonstrates the futility of the 'value' new boss Doug Pitman wants to bring to the company. HMV seems desperate to rid themselves of an old image which arguably worked better for them - a bread-and-butter entertainment shop - into something completely esoteric, for the anorak, because the vast swath of the population no longer buys a physical copy of music to listen to. This is 'fandom' merchandise, where every HMV is stocked with posters, TV shirts, badges and more concerning the big hitting licensee of pop culture. And garish funko pops. Scaling these back, and focusing on the music, is a big step in ensuring you're not alienating your customers. Not recognizing a piece of merchandise of the hip thing reinforces HMV as a place for young people - the very audience who are the least likely to be customers. A wide age range buys LPs, but HMV seems to only care for the younger generations. 

Each shop boasts a wealth of records, but very often stock standard LPs, the big hitters most new collectors would want, yet at frankly extortionate prices. Though everything may be graded new, fair pricing makes or breaks any record shop. They may have finally backed the right horse with vinyl records, but the 'record revival' itself has been going on long enough that there isn't much in the way of 'new' to bring out regarding the classics - so why not dig for gold in the landscape of music produced today? Everybody already has the basic catalogue, those massive Greatest Hits albums already a market corned by Amazon - and 'special releases' leave the vast majority of record collectors online feeling cold. By

gaining some of the intel of what record collectors actually want - again, by improving the quality of your staff - you could effectively win back a large proportion of customers. Also, by pushing cheaply-produced, suitcase style players, they are effectively cutting potential record sales, as duped customers become underwhelmed with the poor sound quality for a product that isn't cheap in the first place. I did not know until recently of HMV stock is on consignment terms with it's distributors. It doesn't pay for anything until it is sold - essentially it's all 'on loan' until then. This just adds to it's credit, forcing to take more and more stock in the hope of some of it selling, resulting in a considerable amount of tat at silly prices. Taking on stock that actually belongs to them, and not a third party, would be a huge departure from their current model yet could work wonders. It needs gutso. 

We've all re-discovered over lockdown the importance of going out shopping and returning with a physical item; a time where you were forbidden from doing so. So, HMV, give the people physical items they will gladly to hand money over for. Grab customers by the shoulder and say, well, you haven't heard of this band, but you need to - the very thing record shops have always been held up for doing. Rather than stocking records everybody already has - or let alone anybody wants - how about pushing quality new stuff, with enthusiastic staff who enjoy music, bouncing with recommendations, favourites and good displays, put together with love and intelligence? Then you might just be still around for your next centenary. 

Me, Elvis Costello and the Brutal Double-Edge of Ubiquity

"That's how rock 'n' roll works."