February 2008
THE FUTURE NOW:
DOES IT OFFEND YOU, YEAH?
Fire and brimstone from: Alex Childs
“Great artists steal.. they don't do homages” were the words Quentin Tarantino once hissed to a probing journalist, after relatively fair accusations of plagiarism were put to him during a press conference prior to the release of Reservoir Dogs. So this autumn when punk electro tearaways “Does It Offend You, Yeah?” release their debut album You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into, the already feverish comparisons to Justice, Daft Punk and The Prodigy should provoke the same reaction from the myspace spawned new rave rockers from Reading. For DIOYY can take comfort in the fact that those dance music pioneers are to them, what Kubrick, Scorsese and John Woo were to Mr.Tarantino, and it’s fair to say he’s no under-achiever. The track We Are Rockstars is a crunching slice of gratuitous pop, which leaves the listener feeling like they have been locked in a fridge and thrown down a flight of stairs, but still happy to be of help. The album reeks of samples from classic zombie movie scores and eighties arcade games, but combined with a mixture of live-fast-die-young style production and savvy vocals, it’s hard not to be impressed with the sheer muscle of the songs. Skinny jeans and glow-sticks aside, it’s like new rave has grown some balls and passed its driving test. An average live show will consist of naked crowdsurfing and most the instruments onstage being kicked to ribbons, while the video for Battle Royale saw two Siamese twins, with their heads still adjoined, happily roller-blading through a park before meeting a grizzly coup de-grace. Offensive? MTV certainly thought so when they banned it. No doubt DIOYY will meet their share of non-conformists along the way like the NME reader who felt that they were “sniffing at the crotch of Daft Punk”. But as Quentin Tarantino once said “I steal from every movie ever made alright? I love it. If people don’t like it, tough titties, don’t go and see it.” I’m sure DIOYY share exact sentiment.
