Le songwriting urbain et engagé est de retour,
Alors que la France s'enlise encore avec un train de retard dans une écriture ambigue et androgyne au rabais (Cf le Dernier Indochine ou Aston Villa), le Rock Anglais et Américains défini entre les murs d'un lycée ne se sent plus attiré par le glam à la poésie pompeuse de Muse et consort. Le prolétarisme de Blur à fait du chemin et lorsque l'on écoute le premier Supergrass, on se dit que la condition sociale de la jeunesse n'a pas bougé d'un yota à part peut-etre l'influence inquiétante des médias. Ce retour au songwriting de rue comme sur le premier Album des Strokes a été souvent mis au second plan par les gravures de modes comme Les libertines ou les Franz Ferdinand, véritable excitant pour filles qui pourtant décrivaient à leur façon leur vie quotidienne délurée. Le récent succès des branleurs magnifiques d'Arctic Monkeys avec leur no-look de l'ancienne X-génération montre bien que l'apparence peut être secondaire lorsque l'on a l'oeil averti sur un quotidien terne. Aujourd'hui la jeunesse est plus engagée, virulente voire alter-mondialiste.
Voici donc un petit Florilège de scènes quotidiennes relaté par la nouvelle vague Anglo-saxonne moitié thugs/moitié Nerds.
"Well oh they might wear classic Reeboks
Or knackered Converse
Or tracky bottoms tucked in socks
But all of that's what the point is not
The point's that there isn't no romance around there"
(...)
it's a funny thing you know
We'll tell them if you like
We'll tell them all tonight
They'll never listen
Cause their minds are made up
And course it's all okay to carry on that way
Over there there's broken bones
There's only music, so that there's new ringtones
And it doesn't take no Sherlock Holmes
To see it's a little different around here"
Arctic Monkeys
" I've been driving, a mid sized car,
I never hurt anyone
Is that a fact?
The price of gas keeps on rising
Nothing comes for free
Make like a stone, make like a plant
I can tell you, how this ends
We're going to win this
With spades and truncheons, guns and trowels
That is how the war will be won
Just swat the fly
Taking care of cars and bodies
Nothing ever comes for me
The ghosts are here, red white and blue
I can tell you how this ends
We're going to win this"
Bloc Party
"Watching the people get lairy
Is not very pretty I tell thee
Walking through town is quite scary
And not very sensible either
A friend of a friend he got beaten
He looked the wrong way at a policeman
Would never have happened to Smeaton
And old Leodiensian(...)
I tried to get in my taxi
A man in a tracksuit attacked me
He said that he saw it before me
Wants to get things a bit gory
Girls run around with no clothes on
To borrow a pound for a condom
If it wasn't for chip fat, well they'd be frozen
They're not very sensible"
Kaiser Chiefs
"I've met so many people who look the same,
Most were forgotten but you still remain,
Most of the time I don't care,
But London's so far away when you're there,
And so it saddens me to say,
I'm only happy when i move away
I am young and I am lost,
Every sentence has its cost,
I am young and I am lost,
You react to my riposte
We look out upon the sea"
Maximo Park
"Caught by the fuzz
Well I was, still on a buzz
In the back of the van
With my head in my hands
Just like a bad dream
I was only 15
If only my brother could be here now
He'd get me out he'd sort me out alright
I knew I should have stayed at home tonight"
Supergrass (1995)
"You and tom (you and tom)
To the prom (to the prom)
Camel dick (camel dick)
Crucifix (crucifix)
Everyone's the same and on and on
Emerging from the football stands
Clinging to his broken hand
It's over I have seen it all before"
Clap Your hand say Yeah
"Last by the river we left with empty hands
By the border station
We were blown by the western wind too long
There must be something out there
A shock to kill the boredom
As the smoke kicked high from the factory fires
We never heard the siren calling"
The dead 60's
"Trench wander pavement
Tryin to score some love
In the corner of the city
Matching faces with fees
I guess that you never been here by the look upon ya face
Standing with all the whores and cannibals
In the censored race"
Kasabian