Inverse ratios, eighty-twenty splits, all that. As something becomes more popular the usual paradoxical effect is for those who dig it less to get ever further up the hill of enmity they’re willing to die on. Where this has applied to the Kaiser Chiefs the one star reviewers have typified an even stranger breed; the Leeds quintet have rarely been anything other than the rock band they’ve always presented as, even if some have imagined it very differently.
In practical terms it all began with Employment, the Stephen Street produced debut which was it turned out to be about more than chocolate and girls, but not much more, because there wasn’t really much more to talk about. Musically it picked the bones of what the freshly minted iPod generation were already doing, in form like a playlist of a recipe of a set list, indie Cindys, modernists and chart huggers all sharpening their elbows to the likes of Oh My God, Saturday Night and Na Na Na Na Naa.
You could point the finger at what had gone before if you wanted – Graham Coxon’s motorbike even made an appearance – but there was no point to that either, not really. On the future legacy of I Predict A Riot the observed specifics gave way to general chaos; this might have been Park Row, but it could’ve been any park, anywhere that early noughties British people gathered in numbers.
Two decades on the expansion packs (That’s the extra vinyl, daddy-o) serve chiefly as a reminder of the band’s song writing versatility, a quality that’s enabled them to stick around. Employment is proof that being great was never that complicated – unless of course you think it’s cool to know nothing.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 