‘We Make Hits’: how Yard Act delivered post-punk’s self-aware decree
When Johnny Borrell was sauntering around Hampstead claiming to be better than Bob Dylan, was he remotely aware that he was being a prick? Does he look back on it now with any degree of regret or justly reconciled retrospect? It’s hard to know for sure from his recent rambles about ditching your phone and living off the grid. But one thing is for certain: even the most ardent fan of Razorlight back in the halcyon days of their indie pomp is now aware that there is a touch of cringe attached to the whole thing.
These were the bands that today’s crop of post-punkers were raised on. I personally think that the indie boom of the 2000s has gotten an unfair rap. But the rap is unmistakable. We live in a cynical age, and now, that cynicism is, perhaps, louder than the music from the era itself in today’s discourse. That sentiment that what is once revered can quickly become derided is a scar on the psyche of all modern creatives. It is firmly a fixture of the modern post-punk scene, often sheepish about shooting for success and riddled with irony.
With ‘We Make Hits’, Yard Act brilliantly address this very notion. These days, popping your head above the parapet of the underground for a quick sniff of Radio One is a deadly game of chicken. Those who raised you to that point will quickly drag you down. These days, the inverse of ‘I knew them before they were big’ is the prominent calling card for hipsters scorned by the success of their former favourite band: ‘I never liked them at all’.
‘We Make Hits’ is an anthem that eschews that proposition before it arises. Love them or loathe them, the following lyrics are a genius stroke of declarative self-awareness in these strange days:
“Yeah, one night up in the attic, listening to Grammatics
Drinking cans and shooting the shit
We reeled off all of our hopes and dreams and made a list
And there was one singular ambition we had
That most musicians of our ilk aren’t willing to admit
And it was to this mantra we would commit
We make hits.”
Furthermore, you definitely can’t be shouting, “We make hits”, with a certain degree of swagger today unless you really do have a hook that can affirm your declaration, no matter how irony-laced it may be. To this end, ‘We Make Hits’ liberates post-punk—it allows it to have fun with its dignity intact.
To some extent, their second album, Where’s My Utopia, is a concept record that delves into this age’s lesser-talked-about ‘cancel culture’: how disposable and unsentimental modern art has become. We’re cautious about celebrating it. We’re marred by the question of whether it’s as good as the past from whence its inspiration came. So, its life expectancy suffers from this stress.
So, ‘We Make Hits’ couldn’t care about being Borrell’d; it’s aware it is simply the anthem of “two broke millennial men” trying to make a go of it—trying to live the dream, a phrase which has oddly become a bit queasy in these downtrodden times. Or, as the lads from Leeds put it: “And we just wanna have some fun before we’re sunk / And if that’s the attitude you exude, then you know you’re really…”
That trail-off alone is indicative of the uncertainty subsuming post-punk. But for now, it still has toes tapping and its heart in the right place, putting it plainly with the line, “I’m still an anti-C-A-P-I-T-A-L-I-S-T”, so hopefully, if the cards align nicely, this defibrillation of the alternative sphere’s capacity to still make hits is one that catches on.
Never Miss A Beat
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