As I explained yesterday, The Title Fight are pretty young, but what they lack in age they make up for in passion, enthusiasm and talent. 

 

Their debut album is the sound of youth, and as such, it is far from perfect. 

 

The mix is a bit shoddy in places, the vocals are a tad strained and sometimes don't quite hit the note, and the guitar work is sometimes slightly sloppy. 

 

But you know what? These imperfections make the album 10x more brilliant. Instead of sounding like another indentikit-emo-punk-band-straight-off-the-production-line these kids sound like kids, like human beings, like a band, like a gang. 

 

This music sounds real. It sounds like it will be important. It sounds fucking vital.

 

My immediate reaction to seeing the band live and hearing the album was to think of the early works of bands like The Get Up Kids, At The Drive In and Cap'N'Jazz. The similarities those 3 bands share? Their early recordings are sloppy, imperfect, and utterly vital to the creation of an entire scene. Those 3 bands are what we in the business of "talking shit about music" call 'seminal', 'game changers' and 'genre defining'.

 

This is no coincidence.

 

Recording a perfect track with every note in place, with every beat time stretched to hit at the right time, with every vocal sang line by line to ensure maximum 'breath allowance' may make for nice daytime radio fodder, and it might sell you some records, but imperfect records make people want to start bands of their own.

 

You hear a band like this, you love it, and then you say "shit, I could do this!". You realise that these guys are real kids playing real music just like you.

 

I could not imagine somebody hearing the over produced, note perfect, pop masquerading as punk, records by Youmeatsix and thinking the same thing.

 

Perfection may sound good on the radio, it may sell, but imperfection inspires.

 

I suppose you could ask where 6 music comes into this equation? Well, for me 6 music is the station where this imperfect music can find a voice and find an audience.

 

I shared a story on another blog recently regarding Steve Lamaq's old evening session on Radio 1, where I heard a track by a band called Serum called Know How. Now, I would wager that no more than 100 people in the country have heard this song, but it remains in my top 5 songs of all time.

 

And it is just bass and vocal. Imagine that being played on Radio One these days at 8pm of an evening.

 

In the days since Lamaq left Radio One and since John Peel sadly left us all, Radio One's alternative programming has been slowly but surely brought in to line with the mainstream, with any true alternatives relegated to the graveyard shift. But that was ok, because the alternative moved to 6 Music. 

 

With 6 Music now going, where will our alternative go? I can't see it going back to Radio One in the way it used to be, and anyone who argues that 'specialist DJs' such as Zane Lowe offer a real alternative are either being deliberately obtuse or are simply wrong.

 

I will say it again; Perfection may sound good on the radio, it may sell, but imperfection inspires.

 

The BBC should have a duty to inspire, so where will we find our imperfections now?