Various Artists
Fergal Kinney
, March 4th, 2021 09:40
A compilation of space age prog and disco novelties curated by Jon Savage recalls an era when the future was still something to look forward to
A recent Sunday broadsheet interview with the former rock critic Nick Kent raised eyebrows for his assertion that he stopped writing about music in 2007 as “there was no mystery, and rock’n’roll needs mystery.” Like Principal Skinner in black leather and a beanie hat, Kent had assessed the landscape and come to the shock conclusion that it was the kids who were wrong.
I couldn’t find the statement annoying, though, as some did, as it cemented what was quite obvious when I read Kent’s anthology
One of the striking moments, and there were many in the two-part series, was the notion of the west of Ireland being a noisy place, full of talk and laughter and music. It was that notion that hit me most that gone were the songs and talk and the chatter. That a quietness had replaced it that to this day has still not been filled.
The Famine is the Zero Hour of Ireland’s history. It is where all roads begin and end. It is where the clock of nationhood stops and starts. Like other Year One
s or Year Zeros, the outcome was devastating and unlike any other Western nation, our population has never recovered from it.