![]() In 2008, this division was magnified even further following an altercation with John Lydon, who Okereke claimed attacked him verbally and physically in a racist tirade backstage at a music festival – which Lydon denied. ![]() ![]() Raised in Essex by Nigerian parents, Okereke was an outlier in a sea of predominantly white indie artists, and was frequently expected to carry the 00s mantle of Black ambassadorship alone, save for the odd mention of TV on the Radio or the Noisettes. Looking back, any potential prickliness on Okereke’s side may have been a frustrated response to journalists who seemed more concerned with pinning down his sexuality and racialised experiences than discussing his music. “Despite their gripping stage presence, they seem utterly at odds with the prevalent notion of how a rock band should be.” “In the nine months since they were hailed as ‘the sound of 2005’, the London quartet have managed to cultivate a reputation for prickly reticence,” wrote the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis that year. Their website in the early years featured a bold manifesto (“Bloc Party is an autonomous unit of un-extraordinary kids reared on pop culture between the years of 1976 and the present day …”), while Okereke frequently cited lofty literary inspirations, gleefully critiquing the scene’s less artistically inclined bands (Towers of London, anyone?).Ī comedown from the Britpop era of big, playful personalities, this serious approach earned them a reputation for being uptight, not always inclined to play ball with the music press. Famously characterised by Liam Gallagher as looking like members of a “University Challenge team”, Bloc Party were often lampooned for leaning too far into their intellectual indie tag. This musical triumph didn’t always come easy. Musically, Okereke’s melodic constructions paved the way for many of the more interesting guitar bands that came after you can hear A Weekend in the City in the math-rock flourishes of Foals, Everything Everything’s intricate wordplay and the Maccabees’ poignant sentimentality. ![]() The album discussed issues that have taken on more significance in broader culture in the years since: personal trauma as public entertainment, hedonism as a balm for extreme loneliness, queer love stories in a world that expects you to feel shame, racist surveillance and brutality. The low hum of lead single The Prayer, with its cavernous drums and unabashed earnestness (“I will dazzle / I will outshine them all”), could be considered a perfect intersection of indie and emo. Nominated for the 2005 Mercury prize, it was celebrated as a record that felt energising yet introspective, capturing a sense of youthful ennui.īloc Party’s second album, 2007’s A Weekend in the City, made an even greater impact with its bird’s-eye view of the tumultuous British political landscape. But they pushed beyond the idea of making indie disco music for uni students to sink pints to, and the razor-sharp, stabbing Telecasters on their debut album, Silent Alarm, felt like a revelation. Okereke was a fan of hip-hop producer Timbaland (see the band’s excellent 2009 Live Lounge cover of Nelly Furtado’s Say It Right), and his omnivorous tastes meant that Bloc Party appealed to the open-minded listener, whether they were a hardened Gang of Four fan or a desert scarf-wearing, glowstick-toting underage raver.įor teens in the mid-2000s, Bloc Party were part of your average NME starter pack: Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, Hard-Fi. They borrowed from the dance-punk that was making stars of the Rapture and LCD Soundsystem over in the US, matched the catchiness of their commercially minded peers and extended their reach into other realms, such as house, grime and R&B. Channelling the spirit of Radiohead’s OK Computer, Bloc Party imbued their early work with a distinctive velocity.
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