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The Final Dinner Get together haven’t been well-known for lengthy, however they’re already coping with their first PR disaster. The London band fashioned in 2021, reached the UK prime 10 with their debut single “Nothing Issues,” and launched their lush and ornate self-titled debut final month. (Final week, we posted Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s cowl of “Nothing Issues.”) The Final Dinner Get together are already an enormous, hyped-up deal within the UK, the place their album debuted at #1, they usually’re making inroads within the US. Their fast success might be why a British critic not too long ago sought to make an instance of them.
Yesterday the British Instances posted an article from music critic Will Hodgkinson concerning the post-Brexit UK financial disaster and the way in which that it’s hitting bands. The piece focuses on the profession obstacles confronted by bands who make offended, cantankerous music, and it posits the success of the Final Dinner Get together because the exception to prevailing developments. It additionally features a very damning quote from lead singer Abigail Morris: “Folks don’t need to take heed to postpunk and listen to about the price of residing disaster anymore.” Hodgkinson follows that quote with some commentary of his personal: “Having attended the liberal boarding college Bedales, the place charges could be £43,000 a yr, the price of residing disaster in all probability isn’t an enormous concern for Morris.”
That’s a foul look! When the article was printed yesterday, a since-deleted tweet included a screengrab of that paragraph, and it went viral. This morning, the Final Dinner Get together responded. On the band’s Twitter, bassist Georgia Davies posted an announcement defending Abigail Morris, claiming that she “by no means stated the quote that has been attributed to her” and that it was taken from an outdated interview and “eliminated of context, tone, and intention.” (It’s not spelled out, however evidently Davies is claiming that she, not Morris, is the one who made that remark.) Davies says that the Final Dinner Get together are very conscious of their privilege and that they’re working to handle the impression that the UK’s monetary issues have had on smaller venues. Right here’s what she wrote:
I can say with confidence that Abigail by no means stated the quote that has been attributed to her within the article that’s going round.
The remark was lifted from an interview we did six months in the past, eliminated of context, tone, and intention, and now it’s been shoehorned into a brand new article about one thing completely completely different. The context during which I initially talked about the price of residing disaster is extraordinarily vital, and it’s disappointing that it’s been introduced on this means. What was stated was in relation to folks connecting with theatrical music as a type of escapism from the brutality of our present political local weather, which is in a state of nationwide emergency.
The velocity of our journey as a band and the privilege we have now (personally and because of being signed to a serious label) has not been misplaced on us. The venues that gave us our careers on this business are closing at terrifying charges due to rising price of residing and company greed. With out these venues there could be no TLDP, so after all it’s one thing we really feel terribly captivated with. It’s changing into unattainable for artists from working class and different marginalised backgrounds to be heard. For the previous few months we’ve been engaged on one thing with the Music Venues Belief to name for cover for impartial venues and artists, however extra on that one other time.
I utterly perceive why persons are upset. It will upset me to learn that. However I simply needed to make clear that Abi didn’t ever say that, and it’s completely out of line with what we consider.
Love Georgia and the remainder of TLDP
For his half, the Instances critic Will Hodgkinson has apologized for singling out the Final Dinner Get together. On Twitter, Hodgkinson says, “Yesterday I wrote a chunk concerning the disaster hitting bands that – unfairly- used a quote from The Final Dinner Get together from an interview I did with them late final yr. Now they’re getting a load of grief about it. They don’t deserve it and I’m extraordinarily sorry.”
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