After the Grunge and Britpop booms of the 90’s came a fallow period for good rock and pop. The noughties had the same bloated excess on their scenes that can usually be found after the third wave of anything good has gone mainstream.
Just as they were “Selling Hippy Wigs In Woolworth’s Man” at the end of the 60’s and the reinvention of Punk and New Wave had given way to the hideousness of the rest of the 1980’s, by the time the 90’s were over, 2001 felt like a hangover.
The era of Landfill Indie was upon us. All of rock and roll history seemed to boil down to The Brit School and bands with names like The Thrills (not thrilling) , The Kooks (not kooky) and The View (almost invisible in their dullness).
Travis were the new Del Amitri, Snow Patrol the successors to Wings (the band The Beatles could have been) and Keane were famous rock stars. We were fucked.
The Strokes were considered the saviours of rock and roll despite being one trick Trustafarian’s with $1000 leather jackets and some Television records.
Times were tough.
In among the dreadfulness of a decade that launched Coldplay and made megastars of King of Leon (these two things were painted on cave walls by our ancestors as the beginning of the end time) you could find the odd decent racket. The New Rock Revolution(©®™ NME 2001) gave the world The White Stripes, Doves and The National and it threw up this little anomaly.
Mull Historical Society is basically one man. Colin Macintyre a Scottish singer/songwriter and novelist. A sort of Indie Roy Wood making huge complicated sunny and cheerful pop like a hipster ELO or a chipper Mr E.
Comparisons to Eels work on paper but musically couldn’t be more different within the genre of indie pop.
Watching Xanadu is a monster of a pop song, with chiming bells, chiming guitars, verses that sound like choruses and choruses that sound like another song layered on top. It’s a decadent dessert of a song. Like a mint vienetta topped with marshmallows and sprinkles.
The fact Macintyre has an arsenal of songs like this just makes you wonder why we got stuck with the dross we did as megastars. All the while he remained in the shadows of rock history with The Beta Band, The The and Scritti Politti before him as the real talent.
Steve For The Deaf 
I hadn’t heard this before and liked it. I generally agree with your 21st century appraisals, especially The Strokes, but I’m fond of Keane for some strange reason. Sorry.
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Dude. Never apologise from liking a band. That was just a scatter gun approach to something I’ve not really dug
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Man, when you list all those acts it really hits home… the early 2000’s were not kind to us at all. Not in the slightest. The music Gods were clearly angry with us!
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It was the last throws of the old industry model. They were still resisting downloads but serving up half baked not ready bands without a three album deal as the real thing. It was ugly man.
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