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The Ordinary Boys 'Over The Counter Culture'
The title’s a lame pun, the album cover’s appallingly incongruous and even the band name is an ill-advised piece of reverse arrogance, yet The Ordinary Boys have made one of the most confident, assured debuts of recent memory.
Right from the start, The Ordinary Boys’ utter contempt for their contemporaries is as obvious as the awe in which they hold elder statesmen like Mozzer and Weller. “You try to be so different/As does everybody else/Create your own distinctions/And flaunt them for yourself” slams frontman Preston on the title track, a slab of rabble-rousing Jam guitars. The industry at large doesn’t escape either “Radio play/Just depresses me today/Why is it so throwaway?” he bemoans in his baby-Morrissey tones on ‘The List Goes On’.
That The Ordinary Boys are some of life’s critics should by now be obvious, but while you could certainly accuse them of cultural myopia (there seems little doubt that, had they emerged twenty years earlier, they’d be similarly contemptuous about the artists they deify here) it’s hard to object to a line of vitriol that’s expressed this intelligently and in the context of such blistering tunes.
The fact is that ‘Over The Counter Culture’ manages to be a great English rock record whilst being neither The Libertines or ten years old. Pretty much every track delivers that instant familiarity whilst keeping just enough distance from its influences (The Jam, The Smiths, ska) to sound modern, like the Tate.
There’s more than just simple industry-bashing on offer too (although it does take them most of the first half to get it out of their system). ‘Talk, Talk, Talk’ manages to make political correctness sound cool ("Too much small talk/Leads to a small mind/Tell me what your views are/And I’ll tell you mine") while the joyous cacophony of ‘Maybe Someday’ drives a shopping list of life’s simpler pleasures and pains ("Cursing/Your computer/’Cos it will not do/A single thing that you’re sure it oughta"). In fact, when they’re not bawling out other bands, DJs, journalists and record company execs, The Ordinary Boys pen portraits of everyday streetlife that scatter cultural touchstones like an old woman feeding pigeons.
‘Over The Counter Culture’ isn’t as good as The Ordinary Boys probably think it is, but seeing as they probably think it’s up there with ‘London Calling’ that’s not necessarily a criticism. What it is is one of just a handful of records to properly define what it means to be a British guitar band after the millennium, to draw a line back to the past rather than fixing a chain to it. That its comes from such a fledgling outfit only makes it all the more impressive.
This feels like the start of something.
The Open 'Over The Counter Culture' (Warners) Released July 5 2004.
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Tagged as The Ordinary Boys, archive
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