If you regularly loiter in the indiest corners of Twitter, or have even glanced at the NME homepage recently, there’s a decent chance you have at least heard of The Last Dinner Party. It’s possibly less likely that you’ve actually heard them: they have released just the one track so far. Despite this, in the last fortnight the band have received breathless write-ups everywhere from Rolling Stone to the Spectator, for their raucous live performances and baroque-inflected pop.
That sudden rush of hype has sparked a backlash: eyebrows raised on social media over the band’s big-name management and major label status; whispers about them being “industry plants” or – even worse – nepo babies. Which in turn has prompted a pointed rebuttal from the band (Not nepo babies! Not manufactured!) and their supporters. All of this, in the best part of a fortnight. The discourse is already in runaway train mode, and if you’ve been following it all you may have already had your fill. But I do think there’s something fascinating about the whole affair – a mix of old-school buzz band hype, and very modern concerns about the music industry and who rises and falls within it.
