Wu Lyf (Finally) and The Great BBC 6Music Sham

by A New Band A Day on Sat, 2010/03/06 - 2:09pm Post to Twitter

I knew something didn’t add up. The BBC 6Music kerfuffle drags on and on – with more and more music fans, politicians and BBC bigwigs all competing to see who can yelp their opinions the loudest.

And yet, all along, something just didn’t seem right. How could the BBC continue to make slack-jawed idiot-vision programmes like I Believe In Ghosts: Joe Swash and Hotter Than My Daughter, whilst cutting 6Music because of budgetary constraints?

The truth is now pretty much out: the BBC has been toying with 6Music’s fate as part of some tedious, wider, political machination. Now, bear with me here – we’re not in tin-foil-hat-donning Conspiracy Theory territory yet – but think: is the following scenario that implausible?

1. BBC are pressured by politicians and papers alike for spending license-payer money poorly on ‘underused services’;
2. Under the auspices of cost-cutting, the BBC axes services with ‘low’ audiences (but high listener devotion);
3. Audiences froth in concerned frenzy, papers and politicians champion spontaneous public protest;
4. BBC points out to critics that the ‘wasted’ money is actually providing a much-desired service;
5. 6Music reinstated, criticism silenced until after forthcoming general election;
6. BBC directors smoke fatCuban cigars on yacht full of Page 3 girls in Mediterranean.

Well, I think it’s possible. We shall see.

Meanwhile, while vague theories abound, how about Wu Lyf? Now here’s a Mancunian band who have released so little information about who they are and what they do that I’m not honestly sure if the image and mp3 attached to this article is anything to do with them or not.

Wu Lyf // Heavy Pop

There are many theories floating around Manchester about Wu Lyf: that each time they play their gigs, they change their name to put people off the scent; that one day they will burst forth and reveal themselves with a #1 album; that they’re an extravagant scam; that they’re the future of music itself.

I ought to have written about Wu Lyf about 6 months ago when I first fell over them, and have been holding off to try and catch them live. I have repeatedly failed at this.

However, in the rarefied environs of the music blogging world, where blogs identify themselves by madly scrambling to be the first to feature new band X, an exeption can be made for Wu Lyf.

No-one knows much about them, so I feel justified in being so far behind the curve. Notice that this ‘review’ contains no actual review of Wu Lyf. I think they’d like it that way.