Every year, without fail, the T in the Park line-up announcement causes a predictable furore. Disgruntled music hacks and self-appointed tastemakers climb over each other to berate the organisers for their lack of foresight and imagination, all while basking in the warm glow that only a spot of self-congratulatory autofellatio can provide. As a wannabe muso I was eagerly awaiting the chance to join in the communal celebration of how painfully alternative we all are until it hit me: the T in the Park line-up for this year isn’t actually all that bad.
Right, let me quickly qualify that lest I fritter away the remaining shreds of my credibility. The T in the Park 2010 line-up isn’t actually all that bad for an enormous corporate event whose primary goals are:
- to pack 80,000 plus revellers into a couple of fields and sell them copious amounts of alcohol for three straight days.
- to promote the event as an all-inclusive celebration of summer, music, Scottish-ness and, um, drinking copious amounts of alcohol for three straight days. Note the ‘all-inclusive’ here.
- to make sure every festival-goer leaves with the sickly taste of Tennants in their mouths and a giant red ‘T’ seared permanently on their retinas.
- to provide a nice free day out for dozens of sheltered Sunday newspaper journalists convinced that Coldplay and U2 are about as good as music gets in return for page after page of breathless coverage.
- to make large sums of money by selling off the TV broadcasting rights to the highest bidder.
With all that in mind, well, it could have been a whole lot worse, really, couldn’t it? Let’s quickly remind ourselves of what’s on offer at Balado this year. More acts to be announced, list not final, etcetra.
30 Seconds To Mars
Black Eyed Peas
Biffy Clyro
Black Mountain
Broken Social Scene
Calvin Harris
Carl Cox
David Guetta
Dirty Projectors
Dizzee Rascal
Ellie Goulding
Empire of the Sun
Erol Alkan
Faithless
Fake Blood
Florence And The Machine
Four Tet
Goldfrapp
Gossip
Jay-Z
John Mayer
Kasabian
La Roux
Mayer Hawthorne and The County
Newton Faulkner
Paolo Nutini
Plastikman
Rise Against
Skunk Anansie
Slam
Stereophonics
The Cribs
The Coral
The Courteeners
The Proclaimers
The Prodigy
The Stranglers
The Temper Trap
The View
Two Door Cinema Club
Vampire Weekend
Wolfmother
I’ll lay my cards on the table right away and admit that the only band on that list I would actually pay good money to go and and see on their own is Black Mountain. Muse, the Stranglers, Broken Social Scene… I’d probably go if you had a spare ticket. The Prodigy, Faithless and the Proclaimers are all good festival bands with tunes pretty much anyone can sing along to (or, well, one song in the case of the Proclaimers). Biffy Clyro I don’t much care for but don’t actively dislike and there’s a scattering of acts I might pop along to out of morbid curiosity – Goldfrapp, Skunk Anansie (yes, I was surprised to find that they were still around) Wolfmother. But really that’s it, as far as I’m concerned. The headliners, Muse aside, are a bizarre choice. The pub rock titans of Kasabian and Stereophonics are simply dull and uninspiring while Eminem and Jay-Z are the sanitised face of hip-hop, just about edgy enough to get people talking but not actually, you know, controversial or even interesting.
But none of that really matters, does it? T in the Park isn’t a festival for me, and, if you’re reading this, probably not for you either. In fact, for someone with such a relatively niche taste in music, I’m actually spectacularly well-served by any number of festivals in Europe: Wacken, Bloodstock, Graspop, Hellfest, Metal Camp, Download, Sonisphere, ATP, Electric Picnic… If T in the Park’s line-up was chosen based on people like you and me (and yes, I’m aware we have wildly varying music tastes but bear with me), nobody else would go. Anyone who was part of the pitifully small crowd for Nine Inch Nails last year will be only too aware that there are bands that simply just don’t work at Balado. Unfortunately, most of the artists I enjoy probably fall into that category.
So instead, let’s look at what the organisers have achieved, bearing in mind the objectives listed above:
- A decent selection of major Scottish artists. Biffy Clyro, The Proclaimers, Paolo Nutini and Calvin Harris may not be particularly to my taste but they’re enormously popular and between them cover a pretty wide span of genres and demographics.
- A good cross-section of mainstream genres. Muse, Stereophonics and Kasabian laying on the arena rock, Eminem and Jay-Z some fairly safe hip-hop, Faithless, the Prodigy and Carl Cox providing the dance fix. Even if the inside of the Slam Tent during Carl Cox will be like a scene from Dante’s Inferno.
- Bands so dull (Stereophonics, Kasabian, The View) that punters will be forced to down Tennants by the gallon just to get through it.
- No repeat of last year’s Lady Gaga/Katy Perry debacle. How the Sunday newspaper gossip columnists will cope, I have no idea
Could definitely be worse.
But to return to my opening point, the bloggers seething over yet another safe and pedestrian T in the Park line-up are wasting their breath. There was never any doubt that this year’s roll call was going to continue in the same mainstream direction the festival has turned over the last few years. T in the Park isn’t an event aimed at you, and never was. But for everyone who is completely turned off by this year’s line-up, nine other people will be squealing with barely contained delight.
And that has to be some kind of an achievement.
