Primal Scream‘s Bobby Gillespie has said that modern rock music is “too conformist and normal”.
In an interview with The Irish Times, the singer claimed that bands were more interested in being famous than being creative, and had also become too absorbed in mainstream culture.
“I bumped into Paul Weller the other day and we went for a coffee and we were talking about this lack of ambition which seems prevalent in rock right now,” he said. “You read interviews with bands and it’s all about being rich and famous and being the biggest band in the world.
“There doesn’t seem to be a lot of artists out there any more. It seems to me that if you were a serious young person and you had something to say that you’d be looking at other disciplines,” he added. “In music, everything seems lightweight and conformist and not very artistic. Everybody seems to be settling for the status quo.”
Gillespie, who also suggested that bands who had arrived in the wake of The White Stripes and The Strokes had “given up trying to be experimental” and had “a real lack of content”, went on to say: “Rock music is no longer where creativity is and it’s no longer taken seriously by creative people.
“It’s been absorbed into the mainstream culture and has become too conformist and normal. There doesn’t appear to be many great minds at work in music right now.”
Last month, [a]Primal Scream[/a] played [url=http://www.nme.com/news/primal-scream/60350]a set voted for entirely by fans[/url] at London‘s Electric Brixton venue (November 10). The show marked one of bassist Mani’s final appearances with the band before he returns to play with The Stone Roses in 2012.
In October, meanwhile, [url=http://www.nme.com/news/primal-scream/59974]they hit out at The X Factor[/url] after their 1994 single ‘Rocks’ was performed by contestant Frankie Cocozza.
Primal Scream have recently said that they intend to record and release a new studio album next year and have “a lot of new music” written for the follow up to 2008’s ‘Beautiful Future’. You can watch an interview with the band from this summer’s Bestival by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking.