In 2007, Coventry three-piece The Enemy released their debut album, “We’ll Live and Die in These Towns.” While raw, even naive, in places the album was ultimately redeemed by its heartfelt intensity; at a time when shallow emotion reigned supreme, here was a band who clearly felt many things very strongly and, refreshingly, were prepared to dispense with all that self-protective ironic wrapping and express them sincerely and passionately. The result was an unexpected chart-topper, rapidly followed by the anointing of the band as the new Jam, and singer Tom Clarke the mouthpiece of a neglected class.
Today, their follow-up album is released. This one’s title – ‘Music For The People’ – sounds like it has been written by a planner. And if last week’s lukewarm NME review is to be believed, the descent into excessive self-consciousness has extended into the music itself. ‘Buffed to an over-polished sheen, the howling rage that made us care about them in the first place is buried… somewhere along the way, The Enemy lost sight of what they excel at’ was its disappointed verdict.
I guess one of the reasons why second albums are so notoriously ‘difficult’ is that their creators can’t help but be affected by the reaction to the first one. While the debut usually enters the world wide-eyed and innocent, the follow-up inevitably has a reputation, an expectation, either to live up to, or challenge, or directly rebut. The naive purity of the original vision is lost: the opinions and preferences of the listening public is now insidiously mediating, meddling, between the creators and their output, invariably to detrimental effect.
Strikes me that the same thing happens with most new brands. They arrive on the scene with a fresh and authentically held reason to be which captures the market’s imagination. So far so good. But then the tracking studies and the focus groups start getting conducted, hundreds of different opinions are taken into account and soon the brand, instead of just being itself, is either trying to play up to its fledgling image or counter it. It is reacting rather than acting: being led rather than leading. Before long the freshness that made it relevant and appealing in the first place is gone.
So what’s the best way of preserving the original purity and purpose of the brands we manage? If they are at the start, how do we keep them there? Or if later in their life-cycle, how do we get them back to it? In short, how do we save brands for the people from becoming ‘Brands For The People’?
