Kaiser Chiefs is an indie rock band from Leeds that has enjoyed great commercial and critical success, especially with their debut album “Employment” in 2005. Now, years later, they still make music and want to keep reinventing themselves and not get stuck in the tropes of the 10th or 20th anniversary album.
Many artists these days complain about how streaming and social media are changing the way we, as a society, consume music. However, when Kaiser Chiefs released their album “The Future Is Medieval” back in 2011, they were ahead of their time. They specifically created a website where you could make your own album and choose 10 songs among the 20 that they had produced for the album. It’s the same as what people do now when they create a Spotify playlist with their favourite album tracks.
But back then, other than some music nerds and critics, people didn’t really get it. “We sort of invented playlisting...in a way... well, at least moved it on... but we found that people DO want people to curate things for them.”
Make sure to listen to the full interview, to hear the whole story and Simon’s recollection of how it all went down.
“We sort of invented playlisting...in a way…well, at least moved it on…but we found that people DO want people to curate things for them”
The bassist also talks about the trouble he has to get the bands he’s now managing to the same level of success he enjoyed with his band. “There’s still loads of bands around, but there are fewer and fewer successful ones where they feel like it’s a step up.”
Last month the band released the second track of their most recent project.
