HARE SQUEAD – debut major-label single If I Ask, upcoming festival shows
What you may need to know…
01. More Irish hip-hop, this time from Dublin-based trio HARE SQUEAD.
02. Having racked up the laundry-list of Irish independent music milestones, including appearances all over the festival circuit and the gamut of TV and radio appearances, the lads signed to major label Columbia (an imprint of Sony) in January, joining a small but growing list of independent Irish acts to have been courted by the bigs (see also: Le Galaxie, All Tvvins).
03. Streaming above is the video for debut major-label single If I Ask, available now across all digital platforms, and currently on rotation on MTV, of all channels.
04. Catch ’em next at Castlepalooza on June 2, and Longitude on June 15.
Verdict: One of Irish music’s real success stories of the past few years, HARE SQUEAD have it all ahead of them.
I did like this
Good luck to them !
Derivative, bereft of originality, and 15 years behind the times.
As Elite Singles profiles go, you might be selling yourself short.
WOW super generic overproduced pop……… Move along now, nothing to see here!
hip-hop?
not a commercial dance back beat with sung raps then
Check their self-released stuff.
So, they’ve thoroughly sold out and that’s ok these days?
It’s not really okay to do so, but if they want to go in a different direction, more power to them, I suppose.
I’d take 66e, Adebisi Shank, Cast of Cheers, or early Hare Squead over any of their major label incarnations. It’s really quite sad.
God forbid these lads try to earn a decent living, have you read High Fidelity?
This is for a big label, ie: commercial . They only care about ringtones.
Just so yis all know, this track was produced before Hare Squead signed to the evil major label. By the band. Not the evil major label. Funny, who would have thought a group of teenagers would make pop music, eh?
I’m afraid it’s not OK to do so.
I know, right? Still, the label was quick to seize on what they wanted. Wonder will they be let use any other older tunes.
This is what we celebrate now!
66e become Le Galaxie and sound like an EDM act that can’t write a chorus for love nor money.
Adebisi and Cast of Cheers become All Tvvins and sound like One Direction with guitar riffs.
Hare Squead sign to a major label and immediately lose all individuality and become a heavily tailored product.
But they’re irish acts signed to MAJOR INTERNATIONAL labels, so we should all celebrate that notion rather than rueing the fact that we can’t sustain the interesting acts that they were beforehand and they have had to sell out in the extreme to get anywhere… Oy Vey.
Personally: I’d be in agreement, though I like Le Galaxie and did so all along, in an ’80s synth-pop way. All Tvvins’ first single was excellent, also, though I can’t say I relate to newer efforts myself. That’s not to say they’re objectively bad, just that they’re not so much my thing.
I do think majors worked best when they let artists be themselves and did the marketing work instead of vice versa, and the decline of the majors can be traced almost to the point where that balance shifted. They could do with a shift back to that model, but I’m not sure if that horse hasn’t bolted.
Nor is it to say such acts don’t have a place on a column about independent Irish artists, if that’s where they’re coming from. It’s a matter of interest to music nerds and casual listeners alike. Art is subjective (as the column’s title suggests), and it’s down to the listener to get into it or not.
If it’s not your thing, there’ll be something else I dig personally (or feel is of interest owing to its connection to independent Irish music) tomorrow and the rest of the week, and if you don’t like something, something else will hopefully get your attention.
Ah, I’m not having a go at you… I’m decrying a long dead industry that could sustain the more interesting acts because their margins were so great that it didn’t make a dent in their overall profits. These days a band has to make money fast of they’re dropped and I think that leads to bands self moderating and less interesting music happening as a result. I’ve been banging this drum since seeing the live beast that was Melaton transmogrified into a diet Coldplay once Sony got their hands on them.
Here, you may like this*:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2HEbdJTOH8
*must declare that I’m friends with a couple of the guys in the band but I do think they’re reaching for something a bit different, even if I am biased.
Air doesn’t pay the bills tho, so you make some money and free up the time and toe hold in the industry to push more what you want next time.
Those compulsory listening sessions they make you do must be tough alright
@Mike
Im liking the music reviews and bringing new bands forward, any chance of more House acts…
Mike check this guy out I came across him recently
https://www.facebook.com/SeanFeenysNorthernSoul/
“though I like Le Galaxie and did so all along”
LOL
‘I new them before they were………
Yeah & half of the Midwest went from Slayer to Eminem overnight in the mid 90’s.
Commerce.
Who’s gonna give me odds that soon some nu-hipster will drop his cans around his neck
on the luas, only for the commuters to hear Beethoven piano concerto #5
squeal out?
GET F’D.
…Fight!
Or whatever that Irish word that gets town aboit troid is it ?
Ughh thrown about. .