The cultural revolution
As The List’s editor puts the finishing touches on his last issues before taking up his post as director of The Lighthouse, he argues that since he started editing the magazine, Scottish culture has undergone bigger changes than we might realise.
feel as though I‘ve been working at The List for
no time at all. btit when I think back to September
2003. just over three years ago. it becomes clear that the changes we‘ve witnessed are frankly gobsmacking. It's just that everything‘s so recent we’ve barely had time to take stock.
Since 2003. the second wave of the net has hit the culture and entertainment world like a tsunami. As we all turned to Broadband. a world of visual and aural possibilities opened tip. and into that space jumped Apple with its iTunes download system. whose UK version was released in June 2004. It was thanks to this online record shop that Apple‘s natty little piece of hardware. the iPod. became the single most important cultural innovation of the decade.
Once the iPod was established. not only was the death knell for CDs being sounded. but also for DVDs — even as we were still rushing to replace our redundant VHS recorders. Thanks to the prospect of video downloads. the price of DVD players was plummeting to around £30 in supermarkets.
Just at the point when record shops were coming up for breath. another wave broke over them. this time in the form of MySpace. A logical next step for the iPod generation. MySpace gave musicians the chance to make their music available online. directly to consumers. And there are already 108 million of them.
The revolution continued apace with the launch. at the end of 2005. of YouTube. another social networking site which allowed users to embed video clips into their MySpace pages. Not only was this great for bands on MySpace. but also for comedians. film~makers. ad agencies. you name it. As a result. YouTube is the fastest growing site on the internet. and its reach has outgrown that of MySpace. No wonder that Google splashed out over a billion quid on buying YouTube. less than a year after its launch.
What has this technological revolution meant for Scottish entertainment? Well. it probably helps the better bands to succeed more quickly. Three years ago. Alex Kapranos and his mates were old stagers on
THAT
the Glasgow gigging circuit. with little prospect of
any money to augment their earnings from teaching. The net was probably responsible for catapulting ‘Take Me Out” into the world in February 2004. and helping the band to over a million sales of their first album. On the other hand. the net has probably contributed to the ever faster life-cycle of pop bands. and that may be no bad thing. Today. bands are lucky if their popularity lasts them beyond a second album — as Franz Ferdinand might attest. How quickly will it be before another ‘hot‘ band come along to replace
10 THE LIST 14 Doc 2006—4 Jan 2007
IT'S TIME TO STOP SAYING
‘SCOTLAND PUNCHES ABOVE ITS WEIGHT'
the latest sensations on the circttit. such as Dundonian band The View?
At the same time as all the virtual nonsense. Scotland has witnessed some other. possibly even
more fundamental changes since I‘ve been editor of
The List. For a start. there was the completion of the Scottish Parliament. and while its construction was mired in controversy and its benefits to the government of the country remain dubious. the fact is that this new building has helped give the country a newfound cultural confidence. It‘s a confidence which makes a mockery of the ‘Best (Small) Country in the World‘ campaign. Personally. I hope it will also pttt a stop to that so-called compliment that’s so often trundled out: that Scotland ‘punches above its weight‘. because it carries with it an implied criticism. Although the beloved Jekyll and Hyde split personality remains part of our cultural heritage. many Scots are beginning to turn their backs on the self-deprecating view of the country as some kind of chirpy featherweight. Who cares that our population is five. not 50 million? It seems natural to me that we should have a National Theatre that produces world class theatre: that we should have world class writers. musicians. architects. artists and actors. Sons and Daughters. Douglas Gordon. Ali Smith. Nathan Coley. T in the Park. Martin Compston. Simon Starling. Red Road. Paulo Nutini. Sutherland Hussey. Claire Barclay — the list could go on and on: these are not people or things who are ‘punching above their weight’. They are simply world class artists and entertainers emerging from a vibrant. post-industrial. 2 1 st century economy.
Things have certainly changed. and l have no idea what the future will hold. But I know that things are more exciting. more vibrant and more optimistic than they were when I arrived. I‘m privileged to have been here to witness the cultural revolution.
The most. Important innovation oi the decade
PlUCKlNG FRUITS FROM THE CULTURAL BUSH
I Susan Sarandon has joined the cast of In the Va/ley of Elan, alongside Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron. The film follows a father searching for his soldier son who has mysteriously disappeared after returning from Iraq . . . In the first movie of the His Dark Materials trilogy. Eric Bana will hook up with fellow Aussie Nicole Kidman. as a young girl travelling to save her best friend encounters shape-shifting creatures and witches and other scary stuff . . . Speaking of which. Oasis will release the title track from their recent tour documentary. Lord Don 't Slow Me Down. as their next single in early February. The tune arrives one week before their appearance at the Brits where they will pick up a Lifetime Achievement Award . . . On BBC2 next year comes The Company. a six-part drama about the CIA. Chris O’Donnell stars in a stOry which spans a 30-year period from the Cold War to the first Gulf War. with Alfred Molina. Michael Keaton and Natasha McElhone also showing up . . . The official line- up for the Glasgow International Comedy Festival will be revealed in January but a few acts are already booked up for some dates in the city during the March festival period: Russell Brand. Josie Long. Jimmy Carr and Phil Nichol for four . . . Not Sure if it's an April Fool. but the spring month ushers in the debut novel by Gene Wilder. coming hot on the back of his 2005 memoir Kiss Me Like a Stranger. Set in World War I. My French Whore is abOut a coward stealing a hero's identity.