Do they Know It's Christmas Part 284825955

Continuing with our one-sided discussion of shit-for-brains Bob Geldof, I wonder if he knows who the fuck Bullens, Waldman and Holland are. Or what they were.

I did happen to notice, in typing in various names at Farcebook to check on some folks, that they're sadly a part of the pathetic world of BANDCAMP. No better than amateur play-for-pay stooges, they are hoping their small circle of fans will pass the hat, pay $1 to BANDCAMP or iTUNES or wherever, and "HELP" get a new album produced.

Christ, talk about Christmas depression!

The point is not whether the song is any good (it isn't). It isn't that "Refugees" is just about the shittiest name for any band (go try and Google it and see the crap you get). It's that artists, including indies and has-beens and many more, are having such a hard time getting their music in front of any kind of audience. Does Geldof or ANYONE think that putting Christmas tunes on BANDCAMP is the way to go?

How come this bastard, and no other established stars, ever seem to give a damn not only about new talent to promote, but helping out the older artists? Christ, even Ringo doesn't bring former-stars into his "All Star" band anymore.

I suppose that the sheer apathy involved has one bright side. It could make the useless Father Ash-hole types give up, and it could force the rest to seriously check with management and friends and issue quality material that major labels MIGHT want to release. I mean, why play to your fans? Doesn't it make more sense to write and perform songs for people who might become fans?

This particular piece of drek is just your usual Bonnie Raitt-type of dopey C&W "boogie." It might be ok for the converted, but if I was their manager, or a band member, I'd say, "You know, this imitative, easy bit of novelty crap is NOT going anywhere. It doesn't have the WOW factor. It's merely, barely, competent. You know this would've been rejected by whatever major label you were on 20 or 30 years ago, so don't hand this crap in as the best you can do. DO BETTER."

This thing has a familiar barroom beat, uninteresting lyrics, and couldn't have taken much time to write or record. Their relatives might take pity and buy the fucking thing, but it's not going anywhere beyond that. The only good thing about the Kickstarter way of doing business, is that can fail so miserably it'll tell the artist that maybe, just maybe, putting more time and effort into your art could pay off better. Because these days, mediocre shit is NOT going to fly.

I've been saddened, more than once, by artists who AT ONE TIME were on major labels, but who now simply have run out of new ideas and like the Randy Newman song, are dead but don't know it. For people like that, the cruelty of being on an indie or self-pressed label is tempered by the knowledge that this is really the best they can do, and they're lucky long-suffering fans indulge them.

But for a lot more, the song IS fairly good, the album WOULD be worth buying, but nobody knows, and there's no radio stations, no real alternative to Farcebook or YouTube, and no meaningful rock press anymore. In our dodgy economy, the media is geared to look up only when Viley Virus starts taking her clothes off and sticking her tongue out and doing another selfie. Nobody's going to push a Refugees Christmas song onto what's left of the radio, or as a "pick hit" on iTunes unless it's absolutely brilliant. And even then! And anything less? Well, that's why you only heard of this thing because I used it as an example of the sorry state of music.

I mean SORRY! Because 20 or 30 years ago, somebody at a record label might say "What the fuck, let's release it. We have the money. We throw so many singles out there and take so many chances..." Not now.

Does Bob Geldof, licking around the Ebola-ridden assholes of Africans, know that Christmas means caring for your own needy people? How often has he, and others like him, programmed drums rather than helping a drummer or switched on the fake strings rather than bring in a few streetcorner violinists? I'm not saying that THESE three past-their-prime chicks (one of whom now identifying as male) should or could be promoted as rivals to One Direction or even The Bangles, but they shouldn't be limping around on Farcebook begging for a dollar to help make a new album.