"More attitude than angst." So reads Sarah Phillip's blog post, which hopes for good things from E4's raucous, realistic new teen drama Skins. It may be timely, given the change in mood that seems to be occurring in the ever-preferred teenage pastime: pop music.
While last year saw the press fawning over the frothy-mouthed regurgitation of red-top headlines that was Plan B, 2007 is getting off to a truly great start with the imminent release of Jamie T's Panic Prevention. It's an album full of attitude, infused with magnetic personality and building on, rather than imitating, a grand musical tradition that includes The Clash, Dexy's, 2-Tone and the art-informed pop of Talking Heads. All of these influences are in there, but this is an album that could only have been made now, and in the UK.
Panic Prevention places as much emphasis on the pleasure, promise and excitement of being young as it does on the darker elements. He's as likely to brightly celebrate "a blast last night down the old 12-bar, twos on a cigarette and talk blah blah" as to lament alcoholism. "That's why the dead people," one chorus runs, "are especially out to be evil," possibly a testament to passion and an indictment of those content to live their lives by the numbers. "That's why we do what we do," Jamie T said in a recent interview, "we do it to have a party." That statement is refreshing simply for its lack of "I'm telling it how it is" bravado. We know how bad things can be for teenagers, but we also know that for most, things aren't.
This new, optimistic strain of teenage life is also witnessed in the rise of the all ages club night, previously guaranteed to raise a sneer from any self-respecting youth. Across the country, canny promoters have discovered that booking hungry, youthful MySpace sensations guarantees a huge turnout of wildly enthusiastic under-18s. These nights are a sight to behold, with near-hysteria breaking out over unsigned acts and London-weary, bigger-name artists discovering with surprise what it really means to be mobbed.
It's already a well-worn fact that MySpace has empowered artists by changing the way they're discovered by labels and fans, but equally interesting is the fact that the most successful ones all seem to be having a lot of musical fun. Bono Must Die's and Hadouken's sets at an all-ages night in December was gloriously unrestrained. These musicians have not abandoned documenting angst, but Jamie T for one is able to do so in an elegiac, personal manner that transcends the exaggerations of the oft-compared Plan B, and even latter day Mike Skinner. Let's hope the new year will bring a few more records as evocative of youthful spirit as Panic Prevention most definitely is.
