Punk Rockers never actually wore flowers in their hair...
...they had mohawks. They recorded dirty punk songs that relied on the raw sound of their instruments and not layered tracks and copious amounts of processing and over-engineering.
However, while Sandi Thom's history lesson paints a picture at odds with reality it has become a hit nonetheless.
I wish I was a folk singer with a mohawk for my hair?
Punks Speak Out
It was suggested sales of her single had dropped off quickly due to an outcry by punk and hippy fans alike who objected to being mistaken for each other.
Thom has also had numerous comments made about her from many other artists within the recording world most notably from Lily Allen and The Fratellis plus very public hostility from members of The Automatic who said on the BBC "If she was a punk rocker with flowers in her hair she'd get the s*** kicked out of her by other punk rockers, for having flowers in her hair".
Rob from the band vented "We hate Sandi Thom. I haven't found anyone who's told me they like that song and bought it."
Thom has also had numerous comments made about her from many other artists within the recording world most notably from Lily Allen and The Fratellis plus very public hostility from members of The Automatic who said on the BBC "If she was a punk rocker with flowers in her hair she'd get the s*** kicked out of her by other punk rockers, for having flowers in her hair".
Rob from the band vented "We hate Sandi Thom. I haven't found anyone who's told me they like that song and bought it."
Sandi Thom CD and Singles
National Identity
Sandi's confusion with differences between punk rockers and hippies also extends to her national identity
Scots born Thom commented that "It was an exciting time to be a British Female Artist" although in the following months she decided to politically align herself to the Scottish National Party which advocates the ending of the British union and wants total independence for Scotland, leaving many members of the press to speculate as to what nationality Thom actually wanted to be. A British female artist or a Scots artist living in London?
Scots born Thom commented that "It was an exciting time to be a British Female Artist" although in the following months she decided to politically align herself to the Scottish National Party which advocates the ending of the British union and wants total independence for Scotland, leaving many members of the press to speculate as to what nationality Thom actually wanted to be. A British female artist or a Scots artist living in London?
What do you think of Sandi Thom's song I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker?
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Controversy
21 Nights from Tooting was a "tour" consisting of 21 performances from the basement of her Tooting flat, from February 24 to March 16. These were recorded and then webcast by professional hosting company Streaming Tank. Tickets were sold, but the venue had a capacity of "six people" ("10 including the band").
The MySpace post announcing the gigs was posted in the early hours of February 22. Thom's website states that "the idea [...] popped into her head" after her car broke down travelling from a gig in York (on the 22nd) to one in Wales (on the 23rd).
Thom states that she was familiar with webcasting, having had a show at the Edinburgh Left Bank webcasted in October by an independent production crew running a fortnightly live webcast night called www.leftbanklive.com.
Prompted by a contact from Thom's manager, news services noted Thom's promotion efforts. In a story first published on March 5, 2006, the Sunday Times ran a piece, This was quickly reported on by other news sources. The internet audience for the first day was reportedly around 60 or 70, increasing to 70,000 (later quoted as 48,000) by the middle of the run, with viewers from Russia, the United States and Pakistan.
The March 7 Reuters story mentioned that "I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker" was being rereleased the following week, with the album following in April. However, the publicity surrounding the tour led to major label interest, with music label representatives attending the gigs in question.
Thom subsequently accepted an offer by Sony. This led to the single re-release being delayed until May, when it was released on Sony's RCA label. The news of this broke on April 3, 2006, the official signing itself being webcast. The single was placed on Music Week Daily's playlist that day. She was the first artist signed the RCA label since its reorganisation.
Some observers have questioned how she was able to sustain production of the webcasts; critics suggest that she "could not have supported such a large audience on her webcast if she really was a starving artist". Others question the veracity of claims made about viewership. There are also questions as to the level of involvement of PR agency Quite Great. Her manager, Ian Brown, in an interview with the Guardian, asserted that the idea did indeed come from her, whilst her management and publicist claim to have conducted a large publicity campaign, including a million "virtual flyers" (is that a fancy name for spam?).
In an interview with the Sun, Thom stated that Streaming Tank were "friends of my managers and did it for free", agreeing that she could not have afforded commercial rates for this. Some critics accused Sony of orchestrating the campaign. Craig Logan, the managing director of RCA, denied these accusations, claiming that the label was "drawn to" Thom after hearing of the webcasting.
The Guardian's review said that it was "ironic" that she had "harnessed new technology to draw attention to the kind of pop made by her foremothers" - the single being a lament to the spirits of '69 and '77.
In response to the controversy, Sandi Thom told the Daily Record: "I'm not a fake. And look at my band - they're not fakes." But it was Studio musicians and not Thom's band who perform on her album.
Source
The MySpace post announcing the gigs was posted in the early hours of February 22. Thom's website states that "the idea [...] popped into her head" after her car broke down travelling from a gig in York (on the 22nd) to one in Wales (on the 23rd).
Thom states that she was familiar with webcasting, having had a show at the Edinburgh Left Bank webcasted in October by an independent production crew running a fortnightly live webcast night called www.leftbanklive.com.
Prompted by a contact from Thom's manager, news services noted Thom's promotion efforts. In a story first published on March 5, 2006, the Sunday Times ran a piece, This was quickly reported on by other news sources. The internet audience for the first day was reportedly around 60 or 70, increasing to 70,000 (later quoted as 48,000) by the middle of the run, with viewers from Russia, the United States and Pakistan.
The March 7 Reuters story mentioned that "I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker" was being rereleased the following week, with the album following in April. However, the publicity surrounding the tour led to major label interest, with music label representatives attending the gigs in question.
Thom subsequently accepted an offer by Sony. This led to the single re-release being delayed until May, when it was released on Sony's RCA label. The news of this broke on April 3, 2006, the official signing itself being webcast. The single was placed on Music Week Daily's playlist that day. She was the first artist signed the RCA label since its reorganisation.
Some observers have questioned how she was able to sustain production of the webcasts; critics suggest that she "could not have supported such a large audience on her webcast if she really was a starving artist". Others question the veracity of claims made about viewership. There are also questions as to the level of involvement of PR agency Quite Great. Her manager, Ian Brown, in an interview with the Guardian, asserted that the idea did indeed come from her, whilst her management and publicist claim to have conducted a large publicity campaign, including a million "virtual flyers" (is that a fancy name for spam?).
In an interview with the Sun, Thom stated that Streaming Tank were "friends of my managers and did it for free", agreeing that she could not have afforded commercial rates for this. Some critics accused Sony of orchestrating the campaign. Craig Logan, the managing director of RCA, denied these accusations, claiming that the label was "drawn to" Thom after hearing of the webcasting.
The Guardian's review said that it was "ironic" that she had "harnessed new technology to draw attention to the kind of pop made by her foremothers" - the single being a lament to the spirits of '69 and '77.
In response to the controversy, Sandi Thom told the Daily Record: "I'm not a fake. And look at my band - they're not fakes." But it was Studio musicians and not Thom's band who perform on her album.
Source
Sandi Thom Videos
Supposing... Sandi Thom is the musical antichrist
By Charlie Brooker of The Guardian. Friday June 9, 2006
I've not heard that Sandi Thom single all the way through yet, but I've seen the TV ad about six billion times, and the short, poxy burst on that is more than enough to convince me that if her sudden rise to stardom WASN'T the end result of a shrewd marketing campaign, the implications are terrifying. Because to believe the official story - that thousands of people voluntarily subjected themselves to this shit online, then recommended it to their friends - is to lose your faith in mankind completely.
There's a simple way to settle this once and for all, and that's for the huge crowd of people who apparently watched Thom's inaugural bedsit webcasts to step forward and make themselves known. Come on. Hands up. I want to see your faces. And then I want you smacked to death with brooms. You people are the enemies of fun. Your bland emissions pollute the atmosphere, threaten the environment. For the sake of humanity, you must be stopped.
I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Sandi Thom genuinely touches some people. Whoever they are, I can't relate to them. Woody Allen once marvelled with horror at "the level of a mind that watches wrestling", and I'm the same with Sandi Thom fans. All I hear is that telltale, indefinable something that immediately marks it out as something that's bypassed the soul completely: consumable noise for people who don't like music but know listening to it is "the done thing" - like mutant imposters mimicking the behaviour of humans. I can't relate. It doesn't go. I'm being alienated by the replicants.
There's a word for this sort of thing. It's not "art", it's "content". And it's everywhere, measured out by unseen hands, mechanically dangled over the replicants' flapping gobholes; flavourless worms for android hatchlings.
Sometimes I can ALMOST see where content is coming from. Take Angels by Robbie Williams. It's a massively popular piece of content, beloved by millions. If I strain really hard, I can just about make out some genuine emotion. Just a speck or two - but enough to make its huge success at least vaguely explicable. Compared with anything that has any semblance of balls whatsoever, Angels is a bowl of cold mud - but next to most content, it's a towering emotional epic. It almost makes you feel something. No wonder it's become the official theme tune for thick people's funerals.
Anyway, back to Sandi Thom. As luck would have it, while typing this article, I've just heard I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker (With Bollocks in My Mouth) on the radio, and the real braintwister is the lyric, in which she yearns for a time "when accountants didn't have control and the media couldn't buy your soul". It's a boneheaded plea for authenticity, sung in the most Tupperware tones imaginable: a fake paean to a pre-fake era. It's giving me vertigo.
Wait. It gets worse. I've just looked it up on Napster - oh Christ. I didn't realise how far this had gone. The B-side is a cover of No More Heroes by the Stranglers. "Whatever happened to the heroes?", she warbles, knowing full well she's replaced them. She's the musical antichrist.
This is too creepy to be mere coincidence. Someone's messing with us. The replicant kings are trying to mangle our minds. Plug your ears. Block the signal. Final phase. They're taking over.
Source
There's a simple way to settle this once and for all, and that's for the huge crowd of people who apparently watched Thom's inaugural bedsit webcasts to step forward and make themselves known. Come on. Hands up. I want to see your faces. And then I want you smacked to death with brooms. You people are the enemies of fun. Your bland emissions pollute the atmosphere, threaten the environment. For the sake of humanity, you must be stopped.
I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Sandi Thom genuinely touches some people. Whoever they are, I can't relate to them. Woody Allen once marvelled with horror at "the level of a mind that watches wrestling", and I'm the same with Sandi Thom fans. All I hear is that telltale, indefinable something that immediately marks it out as something that's bypassed the soul completely: consumable noise for people who don't like music but know listening to it is "the done thing" - like mutant imposters mimicking the behaviour of humans. I can't relate. It doesn't go. I'm being alienated by the replicants.
There's a word for this sort of thing. It's not "art", it's "content". And it's everywhere, measured out by unseen hands, mechanically dangled over the replicants' flapping gobholes; flavourless worms for android hatchlings.
Sometimes I can ALMOST see where content is coming from. Take Angels by Robbie Williams. It's a massively popular piece of content, beloved by millions. If I strain really hard, I can just about make out some genuine emotion. Just a speck or two - but enough to make its huge success at least vaguely explicable. Compared with anything that has any semblance of balls whatsoever, Angels is a bowl of cold mud - but next to most content, it's a towering emotional epic. It almost makes you feel something. No wonder it's become the official theme tune for thick people's funerals.
Anyway, back to Sandi Thom. As luck would have it, while typing this article, I've just heard I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker (With Bollocks in My Mouth) on the radio, and the real braintwister is the lyric, in which she yearns for a time "when accountants didn't have control and the media couldn't buy your soul". It's a boneheaded plea for authenticity, sung in the most Tupperware tones imaginable: a fake paean to a pre-fake era. It's giving me vertigo.
Wait. It gets worse. I've just looked it up on Napster - oh Christ. I didn't realise how far this had gone. The B-side is a cover of No More Heroes by the Stranglers. "Whatever happened to the heroes?", she warbles, knowing full well she's replaced them. She's the musical antichrist.
This is too creepy to be mere coincidence. Someone's messing with us. The replicant kings are trying to mangle our minds. Plug your ears. Block the signal. Final phase. They're taking over.
Source
