Guillemots feel blue as critics slam Red
Fyfe Dangerfield tells Andrew Cowen how he's dealing with the Guillemots backlash
You need to read this, even if you aren't a fan of Guillemots. Indeed, you may not have heard of them, but if you are a fan of good music, there's a lesson within.
The Birmingham Post has supported the career of Guillemots' leader Fyfe Dangerfield for many years.
Back when he was the less-glamourously named Fyfe Hutchins, arts editor Terry Grim-ley predicted a high-flying career for this young polymath.
As well as being a gifted songwriter, Fyfe has also written classical pieces and been a mainstay around the Birmingham music scene, playing guitar for a while in older brother Al's Courtesy Group and fronting his own band, Senseless Prayer.
There was a great sense of pride around the office in 2004 when the fledgling Guillemots became red hot property, seemingly out of the blue.
A bidding war followed with the band finally signing to Polydor records. Releasing a series of limited edition singles the band also played some legendary sold-out shows.
The four-piece released their debut album Through The Windowpane in 2005 and found themselves on the Mercury Music Prize shortlist, only missing out because of the unstoppable Arctic Monkeys express train.
The album wasn't the huge commercial breakthrough predicted by many (us included) but it was a classic album by anybody's yardstick.
Fyfe's widescreen and hugely ambitious song structures, wedded to a voice that could charm angels, made for a sublime and coherent collection of songs.
However, the band was massively out of step with current musical trends. When every Tom, Dick and Herbert was aping the Arctic Monkeys, Guillemots sounded like the product of another time.
A critical backlash kicked in, led largely by the conservative NME. This was completely undeserved but Guillemots soldiered on, playing gigs and winning friends.
The band's second album, Red, was released last month to an almost universal chorus of disapproval.
A completely different beast to the elegant Through The Windowpane, Red is a loud rumpus of a record. Much more beat-driven, Dangerfield stomps through three decades of musical styles, hovering ominously over the dreaded 1980s for much of it.
Unlike the debut, it's a difficult album to love and its flaws are easily apparent.
A constant topic of conversation between Terry Grimley and myself is whether Guillemots have blown it.
Terry's a fan of the album and argues that all great rock and pop albums are eclectic. He cites Beatles albums as proof that the age of diversity has gone and, while I agree that most modern music is rubbish, I tell him that Red stands or falls on the quality of its songs and their musical settings.
Both, in my opinion, don't match the debut and, besides, a band as talented as Guillemots really should be making their own Rubber Soul or Revolver at this stage in their career.
Red isn't a bad album, its highpoints are the equal of the debut, but they're spread more thinly and often hidden behind a self-referential fog. It's a baffling album.
It was with this debate fresh in my mind that I spoke to Fyfe earlier this week.
We had heard that tickets for the band's gig in Wolverhampton next month had not exactly been flying out of the box office and Red, which charted higher than Through The Windowpane, had disappeared from the album charts.
"In a way we were impeded by having a blank canvas," admits Fyfe, ackowledging the flak that Red has drawn.
"When we started recording it, we did have an aim.
"We wanted to make a heavier record, more beat-driven with an upfront sound and more poppy.
"On the first album I was deliberately trying to be cinematic and dreamy and I did want the new one to punch a lot more.
"We'd come straight off tour and in a way it was a reaction against that.
"We all wanted to make a lot of noise." Fyfe admits to being "really happy, deep down" with Red and adds: "I didn't realise the new one would piss people off so much."
It's a shame that he now finds himself spending a lot of time defending his creation.
"Greig (the band's drummer) spent a lot of the time when we were on the road making beats on his laptop, which explains the different sound, I suppose.
"The whole album was a more collaborative effort. I wrote a couple of the songs but most just came together in rehearsals.
"We'd already played some of them live." Indeed, one of the criticisms levelled by Guillemots fans is that the live versions of these songs sounded much better on stage.
"When you're making a record, you can't think about pleasing everyone," says Fyfe.
"There was a point during making the album when I did think 'what the f*** are people going to think about this?'
"I don't like the term 'fans' they're just people who like music, but some bands go so far in pleasing people that their fans even want to choose the track listing."
Neither can Fyfe see the alleged 1980s influence.
"I just don't get it," he says. "We are totally constructed people, influenced by everything around us.
"When I was a kid, I used to listen to Radio 2 a lot. I know that's uncool, but the music was what interested me.
"These were great songs that only existed on the radio."
The real danger for bands these days is that they will be dropped by their record label if they don't recoup the money spent on launching them in a very short space of time.
Polydor have invested heavily in Guillemots, with expensive videos, a recording and rehearsal space and promotion. The band have also been granted artistic freedom to pursue their own muse.
The success or failure of Red could make or break the band since labels are notoriously fickle, especially in these times of declining profits from CD sales.
Fyfe claims that, for now, Polydor are happy, adding, with a wink, "but record labels lie."
He also says that recent criticism has stung. "It's not kind of people to dismiss us, but in a way I'm glad.
"I went through a stage of feeling down about it, but the same criticism has made me want to go away and write stuff that's so poppy, nobody can hate it.
"We've done everything the wrong way round. The first album didn't sound like a first album and the second certainly doesn't sound like a second.
"Every album will be different. That's the only way I can do it. That used to be the rule in the past but now everything sounds the same.
"Everyone's opinion is valid and I can certainly see where some people are coming from. But reviewers only listen to an album once before writing their review and our music's made to be taken in over several listens.
"We make music as listeners as well as musicians.
"Overall, it's made me realise you can't please everyone and I'll just go away and write songs that are 10 times as good."
* Guillemots play Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall on May 19. We have two pairs of tickets to give away. To claim a pair, drop an email to andrew.cowen@birminghampost.net with the subject Guillemots and your mobile number and we'll let you know if have won.
