Know Your Enemy

"So many fucking artists, man, if they can't write a song or they can't sing or they can't play, they end up being like semi-political leaders, or believe they have to have a million causes to hide the fact that they can't do the very thing that we want them to do. Ultimately, if someone's paying hard-earned money to see me play live, they don't want a rant about what's happening on the other side of the world. They don't want to know which way they should vote. We don't give a crap. That paradigm has been broken, smashed by music. That's where music is power."

If Richard Ashcroft wasn't already the self-appointed spokesman of the tedious "it's-all-about-the-music-maaaan" brigade, then he certainly is now. The washed-up wanker somehow thinks that music should/can be divorced from its social and political context, and feels no obligation to use his position of privilege to do anything other than moan and line his own pockets. And the Radio X interviewer just sat there nodding along and soaking up this imbecilic drivel rather than doing the reasonable thing and beating him around the head with copies of the new IDLES album.

It's worth adding, too, that by criticising others for being unable to write a song, sing or play, Ashcroft leaves himself open to accusations of lobbing boulders from inside a fucking massive glass palace. Suffice to say that new single 'Surprised By The Joy' is supernaturally shit.