Bloc Party: "Mercury"

Okay, that’s it. I’m calling Okereke out. I mean, he’s no fool. Hell, he managed to align himself with one of the tightest rhythm sections outside of the Dap-Kings. Outside of that, though, all he’s got is missteps, and there’s just too damn many to simply be the overspill of the clichéd misanthropic self-belief of arrogant youth. Nuh-uh. This has got to be on purpose. Kele is the troll of 2008’s music scene.

Why else would he cry “uncle” at Green Day’s supposed milking of post-Iraq anti-Americanism and yet base the whole of the thankless A Weekend In The City (2007) on societal fears after the London bombings? Why else would he decry Jack White’s perfectly rational conclusion that he was not a political role-model? Why else would he deny playing the holier-than-thou card and yet feel perfectly comfortable saying “I’ve always been mildly suspicious of that hedonistic behavior that goes on everywhere, but most notably in gay clubs” when being interviewed by a gay magazine? He can’t be this oblivious. He must be trying to get a reaction.

And “Mercury,” Bloc Party’s “grime” song, has got to be about getting a reaction too, right? I mean, it’s released two years too late for one—Dizzee is going pop by collabing with Calvin Harris. For two, this song is bad. Spectacularly bad. Confrontationally bad. And I’m laying the blame for that squarely at Okereke’s feet, since we know that Moakes, Lissack, and Tong are better than these shitty drum patterns and piss-weak horn arrangements. And, hell, even if their talents are sorely underused, it’s still Okereke’s presence that is the painful thing regardless. Apart from the über-dated vocal looping not heard since Rick Astley (“Mer-ma-mer-m-ma-mercury”) we have Okereke’s fuck-witted lyrics squawked tunelessly like a low-rent John Lydon: “Scars on my shins, scars on my knuckles / Today I woke up in the basketball court / John Joe’s in Sydney and he ain’t returning / I’m sitting in Soho trying to stay drunk.” Are we really still being fed that urban pan-sexual gutter-glamour schtick Suede was peddling 15 years ago and Bowie had perfected over 30 years ago? Really?

I beseech you to not buy this single. Seriously, let’s stop feeding the troll and maybe Okereke and his ludicrous persona will leave us alone.