Category: Uncategorised

Surprise, surprise, fans weren’t happy.

The UK band Captives has been forced to change their name after an Australian band by the same name registered the trademark in the UK, sending a cease and desist and getting their music removed from online platforms like iTunes and Spotify. The UK band have now rebranded as Caskets, and their music has started to become available again.

While disappointing and annoying, I do support the notion that bands shouldn’t have the same name. Platforms like Last.fm and iTunes can’t really separate them if they have the same name. Obviously it can be difficult to come up with an original band name, and usually of little consequence if a little band no-one has heard of that just plays a few local gigs has the same name as another band. Additionally, the Australian band has clearly been using the name a lot longer, so it’s only fair they get to use the name.

Since then, the Australian band has claimed to have suffered “an absolute barrage of abuse” from fans of the UK band, and give a little insight into how this situation came about. The statement very quickly goes from complaining about unacceptable comments to slandering the UK band, before supporting some very similar comments made by their own fans directed at the UK band. This reeks of hypocrisy, and leads me at least to believe this whole situation is born out of jealousy. The UK band’s least popular song on Spotify has almost as many plays as the Australian bands entire catalogue.

Obviously, it goes without saying that those sorts of comments are disgusting and unacceptable. It’s also obvious, that fans of the Australian band would have reacted the exact same way had the roles been reversed. Thing is, this situation didn’t need to happen. There have been plenty of artists using the same names, and while it can be confusing, both artists could easily have coexisted without changing their names, and could definitely at least have had a resolution that didn’t involve attempting to wipe all trace of one band off the face of the earth. While I wholeheartedly support the Australian band’s right to have priority use of the name, the way they’ve handled this situation says more about them than it does the UK band, and it doesn’t say good things.

Too many bands dramatically change styles, leaving legions of fans disappointed.

5. Fireflight

Fireflight went from hard rock to poppy EDM and it didn’t work. I actually didn’t mind Resuscitate when I first heard it on RadioU… until the staticy electronic bridge. But aside from that (and Anberlin’s Stephen Christian’s guest vocals on Safety) the rest of the album falls flat. It doesn’t sound like Fireflight, and all the songs kinda sound the same.

For Those Who Wait (2010)

We Are Alive (2015)

4. Nine Lashes

When I first heard Galaxy I was convinced that Spotify had stuck a track from another band with the same name on the wrong profile. I was wrong, and it was then followed by a whole album in the same vein. To be fair, Ascend isn’t that bad, once you come to expect it to sound like Hillsong Young & Free instead of hard rock. The album does get better as it progresses, and Christ In Me is definitely one of their best.

The band has hinted they will make heavier music again, but under a different name. This doesn’t really bode well with me, if you’re going to make your original style of music under a different name and produce a vastly different genre in your original band, it just doesn’t make sense to me. All it does is alienate fans.

Anthem Of The Lonely (2011)

Galaxy (2016)

3. Bring Me The Horizon

Bring Me The Horizon is one of the few bands that the change in style worked for. I believe the reason for this is that they didn’t go too soft. Going from deathcore to effectively mainstream rock is still a big change, but they would still be classified as a “heavy” band. I’m not a fan of their earlier stuff, and their change in style has brought in a whole new demographic of fans, including me (though Sempiternal was my introduction to the band). There’s still hard aggressive songs with unclean vocals such as Throne and Happy Song, and Bring Me The Horizon’s style now more closely resembles early 2000s Linkin Park than it does the mainstream pop/EDM of other bands here.

The Sadness Will Never End feat. Sam Carter from Architects (2008)

Oh No (2015)

2. Asking Alexandria

Fans were pretty happy when Danny Worsnop returned in late 2016 after about 18 months away from the band. Despite The Black being a fantastic album, fans were excited about new music with the vocalist whose voice defined the metalcore band. The comeback album released in December 2017 however was a disappointing radio rock album at best and featured the especially hated rap song “Empire”.

The Final Episode (2009)

Alone In A Room (2017)

1. Linkin Park

I’m a big fan of ballads, so I rank songs such as Castle Of Glass, Powerless and Breaking The Habit alongside the classics like Numb, What I’ve Done and In The End as their best work. When I first heard Heavy, I quite liked it. The song works well and would work well on an album in the way Castle Of Glass does. Unfortunately the rest of the album (aside from the beautiful title track) is poppier, more electronic and frankly boring.

One Step Closer (2000)

Invisible (2017)

This morning I woke up to the devastating news that Chester Bennington of Linkin Park had sadly committed suicide.

Unsurprisingly, Last.fm were flooded by Linkin Park in the top tracks, top artist and most loved charts (One More Light is probably too old to chart in recent releases now).

Some people have blamed Chester’s death on the negative reception to their latest album One More Light. I disagree. A Thousand Suns was also very poorly received, and even Minutes To Midnight was polarising. One More Light was definitely weaker and probably more controversial than either of those, but that’s not why Chester committed suicide. Not on Chris Cornell’s birthday and in the same manner.

To me this is clearly a copycat suicide. Not that I’m judging him for it, I’ve already lost one friend to suicide this year, and came awfully close to losing someone even closer late last year and I don’t know how I would have coped. But we need to remember that our actions have consequences for the people we leave behind.

Musicians die all the time. Hugely influential musicians. But this was different. This wasn’t like Chris Cornell, who I’d honestly never heard of before (I’d heard of his bands but never listened to them). Lemmy was the same, I knew of him and his band but never really listened to them. This wasn’t like Michael Jackson, an artist from another era. I was way too young to know of Michael Hutchence let alone remember his death.

This was different. This was my era. My music. One of my bands.

And it fucking hurts.

Who cares if one more light goes out?
Well I do

Get my Best Of Linkin Park playlist here.

The music video for alt-pop duo Twenty One Pilots‘ hit song Stressed Out has passed 1 billion views on YouTube. The song comes from their 2015 album Blurryface and while they were fairly popular by that stage, this song was their breakout track that introduced them to the mainstream audience. The video is currently ranked 63rd for plays of music videos, with Gangnam Style and See You Again way out in front with nearly 3 billion each.

I loved the whole album but I feel that Stressed Out is overrated. It’s not the best song in their discography or even on the record. Maybe it’s just that I’ve heard this song way too many times now that I’m a little over it. I still enjoy it though. That said, I didn’t like the band when I first heard them on RadioU back when Vessel was first released but now I love them so who knows what my thoughts mean anymore.

I had the privilege of seeing the band perform live in March earlier this year. Congratulations boys, I know I for one am looking forward to a new album in the near future.