ugh when will Kanye fuck off for good? people keep idolizing him and he's fucking shit. As a musician and as a person

I can't think of many bands that weren't cult bands before they released their first LP. I'm talking about now, today, this very moment in time. They're not a cult band. Their fanbase could go up, their fan base could go down. All I know is they have a significant enough fanbase to sell 30 thousand tickets in 10 minutes. The point I made was they have a unjustifiably large fanbase for saying they have released 1 LP of painfully average music.
Like basically every other band ever... no?
I said I wasn't knocking them for writing melodic music. I was knocking them for writing some of the most unsurprising, uninspiring, unimaginative, unambitious, derivative, vanilla, forgettable, background indie fodder I've heard in some time. They make Kanye West sound like some kind of Demi-God or something. I don't even like the guy.

Where's the so called big sing-a-long songs which Catfish & The Bottlemen fans can hold up high and say "This. This is real music. This is undeniably great." As far as I can tell they haven't got a single song remotely close to such a level. 
I think several members of this community have at least accused him of toning it down a notch or two. The other day someone called out his recent output out a "mum-rock". I wouldn't go that far, but he's definitely edged that way post Dig Out Your Soul.
What do you think are the musical directions a band could take to appeal to more teenage-20 something girls? Are any of these positive things? If so please enlighten me...

At the present moment, while I was exaggerating to call them a cult, they're the closest thing you'll get to it.
I'd still say The Rifles are the best known cult band in indie music right now and yet they still boast an agreeable sized fanbase and an ability to shift a fair few tickets.
They'be had a lot more recognition of late, Catfish, but right now they're closer to being a cult than being in the true mainstream.

As for Noel, several members of this community, us being the 1% most highly discerning people towards Noel you can get. I doubt you'd hear the same levels of accusation from people who aren't die-hard fans such as ourselves.

As for that point with Arctic Monkeys, the musical directions a band takes wouldn't be in a deliberate attempt to appeal to young females as you appear to suggest.
This sort of fanbase is a mere byproduct of certain types of music, yet it's immediately used as a put-down to any band who discover "Shit, young females like us" and such bands get the sort of unfounded criticism I'm so up against in this debate, because it suggest that musical integrity and artistic merit and indeed relevance goes out the window as soon as a band gains female fans. 

And the "so-called" big singalong songs that you seem to be seeking are the songs that had throes of people singing in unison before, during, and long after their show I had the pleasure of attending not long ago.

Seriously, there's no argument to say they don't have well-written, singalong songs after you've actually experienced their live show.

What they bring is tight, raw renditions of their songs and your main criticism is a slightly heavier worded "I don't much like those songs".
If you don't like them, you don't like them but to scorn their popularity by cynically suggesting behind the scenes NME help as well as dismissing their fanbase as a group who render their music irrelevant while you hand them the slightly backwards insult "try-hard" , it comes across as over top when in reality, you just don't get the songs.

Honestly, to see them live is to realise just how strong that first album is in uniting a room full of people who make up a small number of the amount of people who recognise that Catfish and The Bottlemen have been a good thing to happen to "indie music".

I have to agree with The Crimson Rambler about Catfish & the Bottlemen. For me, the music does absolutely nothing with no melody in there at all - it's the same with these new NME 'hip' indie acts.

But in all seriousness, if they all got their haircut, dressed like Take That and went to church every Sunday, would people still listen to their music? As ever with these bands, I just cannot help but think 'all image, no substance'.

*sigh* I think you're misinterpretation many of my points.
Must I repeat this point a third time? They sold 30,000 tickets in 10 minutes. Do you not get the scale of that? Most bands won't sell that many tickets in a lifetime. There are musicians out there who write some of the best albums there are and still have to work a second job to support themselves because they don't get invited to big music events, they don't get any radio time and they don't get invited on TV. NEWSFLASH, Catfish & The Bottlemen have hit the mainstream. They're not even close to being a cult band anymore. Do you know the meaning of the word 'Cult'? It means to have a small but very passionate fanbase. Why are cult bands cult bands? Because they don't appeal to the mainstream? Catfish & The Bottlemen couldn't sound more mainstream if they tried, as I've explained in as many as ways possible, including a comparison to icecream! A band that sells 30 thousand tickets in ten minutes does not have a small fanbase. They may not be the Foo Fighters, but how many bands are, huh?
Please tell me I'm reading this wrong? Are you telling that music critics are less scathing critics of Noel than we are? We may analyse it more than a 5 paragraph piece released every 2 to 3 years but that doesn't make us more harsh. People here rate Noel's weaker tracks at 6 out of 10, what do you think Pitchfork would rate them?
That isn't what I was suggesting. I was simply fleshing out the act of "pandering to fangirls" that you brought up. I'm not saying a band would sink as low to deliberately move and bring more females into the fold, I was saying that the act of "pandering to fangirls" that is wrongly brought up by fans, is brought up for a reason. It's because they've changed their sound. My question to you was what do you think they've done to cause such accusation and are any of these musical changes positive?
People sing along in their thousands to One Direction songs. To Justin Beiber songs. It doesn't necessarily make make them good songs. I'm asking you where are these songs you can hold up high and proclaim "This. This is real music. This is undeniably great." Can you really do that? The Clash didn't think so. The NME didn't think so. The Guardian didn't think so. Q didn't think so...
For which I have explained why a few times now. Welcome to the 'There, I said it" thread, sir.
I never suggested behind the scenes NME help? Read what I said again... "Alternative britrock fodder, time warped from 10 years in the past, cashing in on indie kids. The NME crowd." The indie kids ARE the NME crowd.

Again you've misinterpreted my point. I never said the fanbase were "try-hard" I said: "Style over substance, a try hard frontman and no songs to justify their massive audience." I said Van McCann was 'try hard'.

You're right, I don't like the songs because I don't get the songs... just like anyone who doesn't like certain songs. However I think I've done a good job explaining as to why. I haven't read any reviews on them (I simply plucked the former mentioned from their Wikipedia page) but I bet they raise similar points. Going by the rating of such reviews, I'm not exactly convinced there is a lot too 'get'. I'm sure One Direction fans 'get' something from their favourite 'bands' music too.
I'm sure a crowded room full of passionate individuals screaming and cheering can make anything that much more convincingly better. Catfish & The Bottlemen are so vanilla they don't even make a positive or negative on the Indie scene, simply a passive one.

I have, erm, "got in some way" their album but I still haven't listened to it. I completely forgot about it.

I'll listen to that tomorrow and I'll see if they deserve my money

Nah, we're too polite in this country.  If Kanye West can top off an hour and a half set of him shouting over his own CD's by butchering Bohemian Rhapsody and still not be mercilessly booed off, then you'll be fine. 

Google translate version beats that:


F***ING!

I was referring to Van and the band when I mentioned try-hard, not the fans.

"A small but passionate fanbase" - even with 30,000 tickets sold, they still don't have a properly huge fanbase.
Fair, there's few bands that do scale those heights but in terms of their place in the public consciousness, you could go into the street and say that name to every person that walked past you. I'd be willing to bet that 9/10 people or even more wouldn't know who they are.

Yes, their fanbase has got much bigger but they still aren't as widely recognised as a true mainstream indie band would be.

Even just about a month ago on here, somebody said something along the lines of "Are these guys a thing? Only ever seen them talked about on here". - people on this forum are easily some of the most discerning people when it comes to guitar music yet this unfamiliarity is testament to how Catfish and The Bottlemen are still shrouded in a certain degree of obscurity.

Regarding your point about the live shows, I'm sure a hell of a lot of children would indeed sing their hearts out to whichever gleaming pop angel was playing, but the crowd at the Catfish gig were of a different kind of people. Not children. Not mums.
They were young people and a fair few older people clearly into guitar music who have taken to Catfish like a duck to water. 
It did seem a fairly diverse crowd who clearly do see the quality of the songs off their debut.

Reviews such as the ones you've mentioned could have easily killed off a weaker band, but the fact that people who listen to Catfish have taken to them so much shows that there is an appetite for feel-good songs with big choruses among lovers of guitar music. 

What this whole debate all boils down to, really, is the fact that I look at the debut and I hear a set of quality songs that I like listening to and I like playing along to which make me hopeful for the next record, whereas you hear a few shit songs that you don't care about.

Well that's fine then because that's who I was referring too.
How are we still arguing this point?

I believe it was Lennon2217 who said that, who I happen to know is an American member of the forum. UK Indie rock doesn't exactly travel well to the states. Plus they had only just released their debut LP.
Well use your imagination... I referred to one artist when I could have quite easily have chosen Nickelback or some god awful pop-punk band. People passionately sing to music whatever the standard.
I doubt many bands (selling as many tickets as they do) get "killed off" after 1LP. People=Money.
I think that's been overwhelmingly obvious from post 1.

Maybe as the biggest music market in the world (and a huge western/ english speaking population) if the u.s did try a drag though new acts like bbc introducing, sound of 201x year, the nme fav indie band instead etc etc..The worlds music scene would look better.
i find it funny that that you find it funny that brits get riled up by these young bands coming through, good for us.. Where as the biggest market in the world doesnt seem to do a lot but support anything thats not a pure marketable pop band .. Thats whats breeding mediocrity