Forget the cover of Rolling Stone. If you want an indication that your band has hit the big time, get yourself on the cover of UK rock bible New Musical Express (nme.com) like local electro terrorists Crystal Castles have just done. The April 26th issue featuring the glum mugs of the Castles’ Alice Glass and Ethan Kath has just hit Toronto newsstands.
The duo are featured in a countdown of the 50 most innovative musicians in the world today, coming in at #10 behind such acclaimed artistes as Damon Albarn, Radiohead and MIA.
“I don’t care about the rules of how a band should operate because it doesn’t apply to us,” Kath says. “We’re going to do things how we want.”
Which would appear to be jumping on the Klaxons’ bandwagon with material that sounds like the Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Computer Games as if covered by Atari Teenage Riot. But then, who remembers 10 years ago?
The Crystals are also the first Toronto musos to ever grace the NME cover, an honour that has somehow eluded Rush, the Band and Tokyo Police Club. Other local acts that make the top 50 include Final Fantasy’s “wizard of the violin” Owen Pallett at #44 and the Canadian government (!) at #19.
“A new wave of Canadian acts is coming and it’s down to the country’s unique-brand of state-funded rock ‘n’ roll,” something that will no doubt come as a surprise to Stephen Harper.
Even more surprising, Toronto’s own Fucked Up clocks in at #4 on the survey. Although the rag fails to mention their hometown, it gushes that the FU crew, “are an unstoppable force of nature existing outside every rule the industry writes. They’re not just redefining what it means to be a hardcore band in 2008, but what it means to be a band in 2008.”
