Little Scout – Dead Loss
Brisbane is a small town and if I had a dollar for every time someone told me “oh, you should check out my brother’s/boyfriend’s/workmate’s/housemate’s/neighbour’s band”, I might be close to paying off my HECS debt. So when a friend told me to check out their friend’s ex-house mate’s band Little Scout, I wasn’t expecting anything special.
However, Little Scout are something special. Mixing indie pop with folk and tinny Casio drum beats, their songs are sweet and devastatingly beautiful without being self-conscious or twee.
Debut single “Dead Loss” has recieved Triple J airplay and the band has support slots lined up with Yves Klein Blue, The Holidays and Cloud Control over the next couple of months.
October 7, 2008 9:45 am
This is tired old stuff. Indicative of the complete lack of ideas in aussie music today
October 7, 2008 4:38 pm
Great stuff! A great addition to the indie-pop scene.
Pogotogo, what genres of music do you like?
October 7, 2008 5:45 pm
Pogotogo (if that is your real name), are you completely void of musical knowledge? Do you not understand what deliciously gorgeous fairytale-style music this is? I feel for your friends who have to listen to you down play anything of substance!
October 7, 2008 6:41 pm
I fkn love this band. I don’t know who you are, pogotogo, but if you haven’t anything nice to say – then don’t say it! The music is lovely, it makes me happy. How can you dislike something so sweet?
October 15, 2008 11:58 am
I don’t think it’s sweet. I just think it’s really contrived stuff from a bunch of kids who only listen to JJJ and only hear one style of music. That’s all they can do. JJJ has a lot to answer for, they’re stuck in the early 90’s and they really need to move on.
October 16, 2008 3:53 pm
What a wide generalisation, though everyone is entitled to their own opinion. There are some bands that I don’t like. I, however, believe the Little Scout hype and fucking love them.
October 17, 2008 2:45 pm
And I respect that Sarah B. I don’t believe I’ve made wide generalisations about anything. I’ve put forward an opinion about JJJ and Little Scout. However, I do believe JJJ have a disproportionate focus on a particular type of band (indie) and I believe that this favouritism damages our local music industry. When a band that’s only been around for five months; and let’s face it, isn’t particularly original (my opinion); gets airplay over other bands from other genres simply because they fit a particular sound and image it must discourage other bands both commercially and creatively. Some bands out there would probably think if they modified their image and sound it would be much easier to make a living in the music business and the sad thing is that they’re right. The intellectuals at JJJ are doing just as damage to Aussie music as Triple M or any other pop radio station because of the focus on ‘indie’ music. Christ, I’ve been to high school band comps that’ve had more technically accomplished musicians than most of these so-called ‘musos’ in indie bands. While I acknowledge that the quality of Little Scout’s song writing is only a matter of taste, I firmly believe that I could find a large number of female folk singing musos who could easily fill any gap left by Little Scout. They’re trodding a well worn path and, because of JJJ’s bias, many more will continue on it long after they’ve been chewed up and spat out by JJJ.
October 17, 2008 5:32 pm
I read in an interview that the band had been writing together for years, and one member has studied musical performance extensively. I highly doubt that the band set out to make music that was commercially viable, but you’re completely right – the music is a matter of taste, and it probably helps that they look approachable.
Purely out of interest, what other bands do you see as falling in this category of “favouritism” by the station in question, and which bands do you think should benefit from more air-play for their songwriting and musicianship?