Kate Tempest

poetix

we murder to dissect
There are plenty of things I don't like that other people think are wonderful and it doesn't bother me at all. Kate Tempest isn't one of those things. It actually annoys me that people think she's good.

She makes these records and there's something about them that winds me up. It's not like there aren't good lines. But the whole performance is so stage-authentic it makes my teeth hurt.

The music's ok, but it doesn't have to be particularly good music because it's just there for moody backdrop. The words are ok, but they don't have to be particularly interesting because they're mainly a vehicle for a sort of smudgy cloud of emotional attitudes. 2 in the morning on the rainy streets and you feel exhausted but alive, you know you've got to keep on fighting, life is both dreary and romantic and hope is a tiny flame you clasp between your mittens. There's no camp in it whatsoever.

It doesn't take you anywhere, it just daubs slogans over where you already are. The literary equivalent of Banksy.
 

luka

Well-known member
It's very cringey but my feelings are coloured by believing that only I should be allowed to write poems make money and receive acclaim for writing poems and that any other outcome is proof of a grand cosmic injustice.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I don't really know this person but I've only heard of her in the context of people saying how utterly hateful she is. Certainly she makes people angry, but not the right people as far as I can tell and not in a good way.
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
Oh, and Jason Williamson of Sleaford Mods, here talking about a Nationwide advert starring Hollie McNish:

Jason Williamson: I was put off by it instantaneously because it reminded me of Kate Tempest. I don’t wanna start slagging my peers as usual, it just really annoyed me. She has that same false sentiment and unconvincing delivery that Tempest has got, from my point of view anyway. I dunno, I just felt like it was patronising for some reason. She’s gonna be doing life insurance ads in 20 years, isn’t she? You can imagine it. She’s gonna be hosting fucking game shows, just another one of those people who would easily settle into the rigmarole of the entertainment system, be a cosy English face. I just wasn’t feeling it at all. I think if my mum had written that about me I’d have grown up feeling very alone.

https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/...review-the-terrible-nationwide-poetry-adverts
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
How do you qualify "false sentiment" though? I mean, I just said much the same thing - "stage-authenticity". It's how it feels to me. But I'd like to be able to home in a bit on why it feels that way.
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
I'm going to be really disappointed if it all boils down to "well, it's just a matter of taste, isn't it?". I want there to be a reason. I want there to be a reason why the people who like her are wrong.
 

luka

Well-known member
This is a problem we always have here, although usually in relation to music.
 

luka

Well-known member
Part of it is the relatively modern attempt to reclaim sincerity at a point when that kind of sincerity is really untenable. So it feels like, and is, just acting sincerity, the language and the delivery. There's a thread on pastiche where we talk about this. What is aped with fairly high fidelity, is the outward gestures but it still feels off by a few degrees.
 

luka

Well-known member
You can hear this in the buskers with guitars near where I work. There's a vocal mode which is intended to transmit vulnerability and sincerity and it's very disgusting.
 

luka

Well-known member
Wheedling fresh faced men making suffering sounds despite never having suffered. You didn't call me last night and I felt bad.
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
Oh god yes, I hate the current mandated wavering croon. It's everywhere and it's vile. I blame the talent shows.
 

luka

Well-known member
That's part of it. That what is learned is the ways in which 'emotion' and 'sincerity' is communicated within a pre-established model. The outward forms. You can relate this to way social media has trained us to pose better. To present better. How to work with a camera and the image.

The prevalence of video extends this into how to move and speak.
 
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luka

Well-known member
But that model of the human which is being represented no longer exists.mfor a start, we don't have emotions anymore.we're quite different.
 

luka

Well-known member
There's a thread about teaching Barty about electro that goes into this and is expanded on in the beyond soul thread.

Another disgusting part of tempest is the poses she wants to occupy. For instance, she wants to be Catniss Everdeen. This feels silly if not modulated with a degree of bathos and self awareness, or something at any rate.
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
I'll say this for my own poetry, it never tries to be more meaningful than it is. It might be crabbed, parochial, autistically up itself, but it's not got anything to prove about how urgent it is, how much I really feel it, how vital is this moment when we meet in the pure delight of etc. Sod off. SOD OFF.
 

luka

Well-known member
Another thing which is fairly disgusting is the spoken word mode itself which is a halfway house for people who are too middle class and just as importantly not musical enough to rap (despite wanting to) but not literary and cerebral enough for poetry proper.

The lines are too flabby, too dopey on a technical level, for rap and too stupid for poetry.
 

luka

Well-known member
I can always tell a 'spoken word artist' as they walk up to my table, even before they say a word. It's written all over them.
 

luka

Well-known member
The way they dress, the smirk on their face, the way they carry themselves. I'm never wrong. They might as well have it tattooed on their forehead.
 

luka

Well-known member
"Hi, I'm a spoken word artist myself"

Yes mate you don't need to tell me I can tell from your adidas alone
 
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