NewsBreakingOnline

‘There is comfort in pop fandom – I’m reassured by a new Fall release. Michael Bublé fans can say the same of him’ Like a lot of people, I was thoroughly seduced by the first Fleet Foxes album, to the extent that my initial thought on hearing their new one was: hold on, do I actually need this? They smelt, from the start, like a band that did a particular thing very well. Did that mean they should do it again? Subsequent plays of Helplessness Blues have left me little the wiser. Fleet Foxes are very kind indeed on the ear, so it’s easy to lose yourself in their heartbreaking wistfulness – but it was the first time around, too, and a second dose of this immediately soothing folk-pop feels a little like sucking both thumbs at once. Perhaps they’ll be one of those bands that simply sticks with the style they’ve got and wrings maximum effect out of it. A couple of weeks ago I asked friends on Twitter to name the acts who had gained the most critical acclaim with the least stylistic variety. I got a range of convincing responses, from the Ramones to the White Stripes, which pointed to two ways to keep critics onside without changing your sound too much. One – the most common – is to go the AC/DC route, and spin your consistency as a brand of no-bullshit efficiency or truth-telling. The other is to be so idiosyncratic that you own your own patch of pop from the start, like Stereolab. What was interesting, though, were the answers that got me all defensive. Take the Fall, for example. Once you’ve been initiated, it’s very easy to see the group shift between post-punk, rockabilly, and art rock: play Totally Wired then Free Range and the differences are obvious. Except they’re also not – to the non-fan, the primary texture of the Fall is absolutely changeless. The band is forever a scary man mumbling nonsense over a savage clatter: next to that, the precise nature of said clatter is irrelevant. We like to think that the fan’s perspective is more valid, and it’s certainly more rewarding and interesting to hear from people who’ve dug into a band enough to track its progression. But it’s also the case that the idea of artistic progression flatters the listener: there is a strong element of comfort in pop fandom, not necessarily tied to any smoothness in the sound. Once I’d been buying Fall records for a while I realised I felt reassured – cosy, even – when each new one appeared, and I’d imagine a Michael Bublé fan would say much the same about him. These powerful feelings are obscured when we focus on the differences between records. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with comfort, but it helps if we’re honest about it and don’t dress up habit as discernment. “Same as last time, only better,” is a powerfully attractive proposition: just ask Adele. It’s also a potential trap. When the BBC opened its repeat season of Top of the Pops with a 1960s clip show, a familiar highlight was Status Quo doing Pictures of Matchstick Men. But for all the song’s charm, the main intrigue is trying to spot hints of the band’s future as the ultimate icons of rock consistency. You can hardly imagine these likable hippie chancers evolving, like some terrifying Pokémon of pop, into the Quo’s perpetual boogie machine. But there were flashing glances from Francis Rossi to Rick Parfitt that seemed to say: “Hey, Rick, let’s ditch this psychedelic malarkey and just chug.” Fleet Foxes are as un-Quo a band as you could find, though I already get the sense that if they wanted to make the same record forever, they’d find an uncomplaining fanbase. But Helplessness Blues reminds me more of Portishead’s second album. Both records worked to consolidate a debut that hit big out of nowhere. Both managed to completely satisfy expectations and still leave a niggle of disappointment. Portishead, back then, looked as if they might make a career out of consistency. Instead they vanished for a decade, tore the guts out of their sound, and returned