The Academic make you wish you were back in school uniforms

 

It’s weird what can kickstart a bit of nostalgia. Smell is apparently the most effective, but obviously a certain track can snap you straight back to a certain moment in time. As such, The Academic’s latest cut Mixtape 2003 seems morbidly intent on getting you thinking about the days before you had to pay bills.

I should hate this track. The slightly grungy jangly guitars. The power-pop chorus. The doubled-up non-regionalised English accent indie lad vocals. The genericness of it all is what spurred me on to listening to different types of music in the post-Arctic Monkeys wasteland that was guitar music in the UK, circa 2006.

But that was 10 years ago and, like Grant Wood’s American Gothic, the half remembered simplicity of it all warms the cockles of your heart, giving you a slight taste of cheap vodka and fags. The term ‘guilty pleasure’ is one I’ve often rejected – I am openly a massive fan of ABBA – but I can reject it no longer. So, good job, lads. But if anyone asks me, you’re crap.