Music

Hard-Fi, Stars of CCTV (2005)

June 16, 2007 by Raymond Blanton

“I wanna be successful…what’s the point of being parochial and small time? You’ve got to think big.” These could be the ambitious utterances of any average bloke, but they happened to be those of British indie-rock Hard-Fi frontman Richard Archer. This little affluent band of eclectic rock from Staines, a borough of Surrey in South-East England, is now a chart topping (#1 in England) and fresh flavor in the musical world. These audiophiles of ‘hard fidelity’ are indeed the self-proclaimed Stars of CCTV (closed-circuit television) and they’ve earned a 2005 Mercury Music Prize nomination and a #1 album in the UK to boot.

Hard-Fi is comprised of Archer, the bollocks and brains, along with guitarist and vocalist Ross Phillips, bassist and vocalist Kai Stephens and drummer Steve Kemp. Their debut album, Stars of CCTV was recorded at ‘The Cherry Lips Hits Facility’ in Staine and produced by Archer and mixed alongside Wolsey White. Having moved from Necessary Records over to big time Atlantic, Hard-Fi has been declared by The Sun , as “Pure foot stomping anthemic genius…Gods in the making.” Well, I’m not going that far but the Stars of CCTV give a fair gamut of highs and lows with an English flair all their own.

From the punk and rock flair of “Cash Machine” and “Gotta Reason” to the more mellow and easy flowing “Move on Now” and “Better Do Better,” it’s a pint of jovial hip fluctuation complete with a white-man’s overbite and a compulsive toe tap on any night of the week you deem worthy, and that includes the Bay City Rollers Saturday Night. Their release and re-release of “Cash Machine” among other singles such as: “Tied up to Tight”, “Middle Eastern Holiday”, “Living for the Weekend”, “Better Do Better”, and “Hard to Beat” have all reached the top 15 on the UK charts with both “Cash…” and “Hard…” reaching the top 40 on the US charts.

Reflections
To preface, it’s very important to acknowledge that the cultural landscape of this band might beset us a bit, i.e. the British roots. Regardless of what side of the ocean it’s on, it has a relevant theme which hinges on livelihood leisure’s like the weekend and the up down again challenges of relationships. If I had to describe it in recognized terms, I’d say it’s a cross between the HBO television series Sex and the City and the movie Swingers. The lyricism covers the gamut of relational dilemma from hooking-up-just-met-you-intimacy to cheating and breakups. The music is overly familiar in tone but enjoyable and the lyrics are a common dime a dozen.

Our reflections should center on the cultural notions of explorative individuality which tends to breed between the hours of 5 PM on Friday and 8 AM on Monday. If there’s one thing most working folk can relate to, it’s working hard all week both “for the weekend” and the “cash machine” in hopes of living life to its fullest at one go around. I don’t know that this music is stimulating in the sense of depth. If you like the style, which I do, then it’s alright. Yet, it’s the themes and the realities of such lifestyle that arouse our interest and beg our reflection and analysis. It has a finger on the pulsating reality of relational enigma and the life that so many tend to spend all their free time and money to achieve, i.e. the mythological and lucid dreams of fantasy that they envision in their mind due to relational emptiness and pop culture exploitation. It captures a flamboyant and bombastic lifestyle that rarely considers consequences and that has little regard for anyone or thing but self. This is the defining characteristic of our post-modern culture but more accurately, the human heart.

Desperately unwilling to acknowledge such, our culture will cling to anything that seems to offer hope, even unrealistic or ideological, to their unquenchable thirst for purpose and significance. Apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ, there is no such reality, truly. Perhaps it might seem contrary to what our culture proclaims, but then again who says our culture has the cornered market on significant relationships. Hard-Fi embodies fun and flashy lyrical tunes that resonate with a culture inebriated on domestic individuality and the naïve illusion of no consequence and to leave such worldview hovering as though adequate and meaningful is to apathetically buy in. So, here is where our call to engage culture with “gentleness and respect” for the glory of God is in frantic need of application.