“Banquet” Will Survive Nuclear Holocaust

Remember 2005? Remember when those really annoying Brit bands started getting a lot of attention? The Futureheads, The Kaiser Chiefs, Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party…they all played this derivative angular shit, kept their Northern accents real thick, and aped Gang of Four like it was going out of style. (It was.)

“I Predict a Riot”? Exciting for a few minutes, hooligans getting beat down, OK, but then nope, this is actually kind of tuneless. Ditto for the other fucks—it sounded so trendy, so intentionally gritty, and in the end disposable. I was glad when they started going away a bit (though granted, Arctic Monkeys’ trajectory started a bit later, and so the backlash is just beginning for them.)

Except for that one tune, “Banquet,” the one that got flogged for months at every bar, club, or house party where anyone ever denied hipsterdom.

That Bloc Party song wouldn’t go away, actually sounded the sleekest and the trendiest of that whole bunch, and yet it never sounded old. Actually, it still doesn’t. When it came on during the theme park scene in Entourage the other night, it sounded fresh as ever. That’s a pretty amazing thing. Trendy, and yet incredibly persistent. A Bungalow-esque phenomenon. They've created a cockroach, a twinkie that’ll outlive every other bit of organic matter in the city.