[Tracks + Thoughts] On Ben Wallace and The xx
PT Barnum used to champion the concept that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. The logic behind this statement is sound. Even if a movie or music star is fed up with their press coverage and blow up at a photographer, it usually results in more attention paid towards them, and thus, more attention paid towards their careers. Take Chris Brown. He beat up one of the biggest female pop stars in the world and was rightly scrutinized and turned into a pariah. But when he put out new music a few months ago, he received solid reviews, good sales and his absurd apologies were quickly forgotten.
The xx are somewhere towards the other end of the of benefit/publicity scale. After slowly releasing tracks to blogs and music writers during the first eight months of 2009 (and being profiled by Scott Wright at The Fader and a certain other music website in April), something struck in August with their full-length debut’s release. Blogworld constantly wrote about the record. The band’s remixes were immensely popular on everyone’s favorite love-hate website. It was only a matter of time before Pitchfork gave the album a fantastic review. The band scrambled to put together British and American tours for the fall, and eventually, called off several shows due to exhaustion. Baria Quereshi quite the band permanently. And still, the band’s star continued to rise.
In retrospect, it seems a little silly. Don’t get me wrong… I enjoy The xx’s music and have said as much here at CotP on occasions; and I don’t mean to make light of a band member quitting due to stress. Their debut was a solid album, but it’s also a quiet, headphones record. I’m not sure I once said to a friend of mine, “You HAVE to hear The xx.” It’s not that it’s bad; it’s just not that kind of music.
The xx have gone through the Ben Wallace cycle. Wallace is an NBA center currently playing his second stint for the Detroit Pistons. He started out his career as a journeyman, jumping from Washington to Orlando before landing in Detroit the first time. He was always a good rebounder, but wasn’t a threat offensively. Due to some circumstance, Wallace ended up starting at center for Detroit and over a few years turned into a fantastic defensive player, protecting the rim on the weakside rotation and leading the league in rebounding.
Initially, Wallace was drastically underrated as a player; he was tough and could help control a game on the defensive end of the floor, but many people couldn’t look past the fact that he struggled offensively, never averaging more than 9.5 points per game and was among the NBA’s worst free throw shooters. After a few years of playing fantastic defense, receiving the league’s Defensive Player of the Year award four times and winning a league championship with Detroit, Wallace was overly praised. Slowly he started to become overrated. Soon after, he became a free agent and signed a deal with Chicago for far more money than he was worth. Shortly into his first season, it was clear that Wallace was on the downside of his career. As ESPN’s Bill Simmons has observed, so many people named Wallace as underrated that he became overrated. (Interestingly enough, so many people then dumped on Wallace for Chicago’s eagerness in giving him the big contract, that while he’s on the down slope of his career, he’s actually kind of underrated at this point; he still averages 9 rebounds per game for the Pistons.)
The xx started 2009 out as a talented band not receiving enough recognition. Then, for whatever reason, they received a ton of press attention and couldn’t quite handle the lot of it. They made year-end top 5 and 10 lists and are regarded among the best young bands working today. I’m not saying that’s wrong, but they’ve gone through a similar cycle as Ben Wallace; that is, so many people took up their cause and gave them more attention that Blogworld has overrated them as a band.
The best thing for The xx would be to go away for a while. No remixes, no EPs, no touring, just studio time, on the grind. Given time away from the spotlight, not only will the band be able to focus on their next project, but Blogworld will stop pimping them. Over time, they’ll reassume their understated and underrated identity. We want this band to continue to make good music. We want them to not burn out, but it’ll be interesting to see what happens either way.
mp3: The xx – Space Bass (Jamie xx Remix of Basic Space)
mp3: The xx – Islands (Nosaj Thing Remix)
mp3: Theophilus London – Pull My Heart Away (Jamie xx Remix)
