Totally gay for Scouting For Girls

The apparent theft of Scouting For Girls' official Twitter site has had one unforeseen consequence that raises serious questions about the role of social media and pop music.

Here's what happened. For several hours yesterday, the official Twitter feed on scoutingforgirls.com displayed some remarkably odd tweets:

- working on some more shit tunes.

- Oops... turns out Elvis IS dead. Let us know of factual innacuracies in our other songs and we'll write (irritating) corrected versions.

- Robbie WIlliams showed that anyone can rap well. We'e thinking of giving it a bash for our next single. Rap-a-rap-rap! Word!

- she' so loverlee UH! she's so loverlee YEAH! she's so loverlee HAHA-HAHA! #ThatsHowWillSmithDoesIt

- just off to the toilet. One of us is going for a wee - the other 2 are going poo-poos. See if you can guess who!

- time UP! the one in the hat went for the wee, whatever his name is.

- just to let you know, Danny Dyer will be the warm up DJ for our next tour. pwopa nawtee!

A quick, um, scout of the internet shows @SFGOfficial being pimped by the funk-dribbling piano fops for some time, but it seems they never got round to registering the Twitter account.

And so a wag by the name of Chappers took up the name and started tweeting as Scouting For Girls. The tweets fed automatically to the group's website. They were funny. A (very) small segment of pop history was made.

Chappers, a web-head and occasional DJ based quite near me in Stockport, was quick to offer the account back to the group's management. They grumpily referred the matter to Sony, while the band themselves seemed to take it on the chin.

The 'Girls said on their own Twitter account: "Thank you to everyone who complained when out twitter account got hacked into! Just seen it. Quite funny - fairplay!"  Although it should be pointed out, the account wasn't hacked and was simply the result of a slip in web design by their record company.

All very well and fluffy. No harm done. Everyone had a giggle at the expense of an awful band. Except this whole fandango has had a much more dire consequence that anyone had imagined. This will have repercussions way beyond what happened over five hours yesterday.
 
It means I am now following Scouting For Girls on Twitter.
 
The moment Chappers handed SFGOfficial back to the band's management, I suddenly found myself as an official fanboy of Scouting For Girls.
 
I have never followed an awful band on Twitter. 7,000 tweets and two years into my Twitter career, and this has ruined me. I am following Scouting For Girls.

This fact cannot be denied.

I've had to buy into the 'Girls. I am their follower, after all. I've bought t-shirts. I've bought all the singles. I've listened to far too much Ben Folds Five. I am now TGFSFG: Totally Gay For Scouting For Girls.

It has left me in a world of Topman jackets, sensible fonts and Jamiroquai posters. I now like to hear the lyrics in a pop song. A good melody. I don't even like Aphex Twin any more. I mean, it's just noise, isn't it?

Everything's changing, as Keane would say. Chappers is pop music's evil nemesis, while I am a brain-dead fanboy. The whole balance of music has tilted, and all because Scouting For Girls had the indecency to be crap in the first place.

After all, if they didn't make the kind of music that is probably liked by Liberal Democrats, this whole saga would never have happened. Yeah. You heard. Liberal Democrats.

Harrumph. Scouting For bloody Girls. Happy now?

While my guitar gently sods off

The recent news that pop music is outselling rock music is as an important a cultural change as the renaissance, the industrial revolution and processed cheese.

For too long now, the tyranny of the guitar has ruled over us. We have bowed and scraped to our six string masters, as if rebelling against the jangly bastards was as bad as strangling Bill Wyman to death with a jack lead.

The indoctrination starts early. Pony-tailed parents soundbomb their Smiths collection at pregnant tummies to 'train' their newborn into having good taste. Any gawky teenager showing a creative bent has a guitar and a Nirvana chord book shoved into their hands.

Turgid

And what has it given us? The Beatles, who were responsible for the worst haircuts ever and fixed Liverpool into the '60s for all eternity. Turgid rock behemoths like the Rolling Stones and Status Quo, who somehow made stadium rock acceptable and are therefore responsible for Coldplay. And James Blunt. James Blunt.

Official Charts Company figures show a third of sales in the UK are now pop, compared to rock's tawdry one-quarter share. We have rendered our Fenders to the dustbin. Given ebows the heave-ho. Turned rage against the machine into a polite letter of complaint.

Because pop music is more enamoured with the keyboard as opposed to the guitar, this means electronic music fans win. The keyboard wizard is supreme: Adamski can finally rest in the grave of his forgotten career.

Breakcore

Okay, it's only pop music and not, say, ambient or dubstep or breakcore. Having Lady Gaga and JLS at number one is not great - we'd obviously prefer it if Aphex Twin went platinum, and I'm not talking about his hair. But an unpopular, painful compromise is the step in the right direction. It's true. Just ask a Liberal Democrat.

There are dangers in this brave new world. If rock bands start ditching their guitars, we could be saddled with more Ben Folds Fives and Keanes. They need identifying early. I would suggest border police at the door of every recording studio, with faceless but sinister staff asking everyone "are you now or ever have been a guitar player?"

They would lie of course. But then the cunning officer, feigning informality, would mutter a comment about E flat minor seventh not being the sexiest chord. The secret guitarists' instant and obvious revulsion would see them dragged out the back, cut to pieces with an overly-sharp plectrum and buried in their own guitar case with the word "IRONY" emblazoned across the top in glam lettering.

Windmilling

Having said all that, The Who were quite impressive weren't they? All that windmilling and smashing stuff up. And I quite liked Madchester. The XX and Lonelady have a kind of amazing energy, y'know? In fact, guitar bands are fantastic. Who wrote this crap?

Vive la rock music! Guitar bands are brilliant. If I find you buying pop music, I will slice you. I will smother you with Lady Gaga's hat until you are nothing but a vegetable blithering "ro mah ro-mah-mah" in the corner of an institution.

No, seriously. For too long now, the tyranny of the keyboard has reigned over-- (nurse's note - Fat Roland has gone to sleep now. You can visit him again when he's rested.)