At its height, Primal Scream were a top top rock band. Fuck Rod Stewart covered "Rocks"… that's how top theyw ere. And they dissed Princess Di THE DAY AFTER SHE DIED.
And since theN? They've been treading water since XTRMNTR IN 2000.
So this is what lead singer Bobby Gillespie told the Irish Times per contactmusic.com: "I bumped into Paul Weller the other day and we went for a coffee and we were talking about this lack of ambition which seems prevalent in rock right now. You read interviews with bands and it's all about being rich and famous and being the biggest band in the world. There doesn't seem to be a lot of artists out there anymore Rock music is no longer where creativity is and it's no longer taken seriously by creative people. It's been absorbed into the mainstream culture and has become too conformist and normal. There doesn't appear to be many great minds at work in music right now. It happened around the time of the White Stripes and The Strokes, and no disrespect meant to either band. It seemed that a lot of people had given up trying to be experimental. I don't want to put down either band but the people who came after them had a real lack of content."
I don't think it is musicians who have given it up, I think the art form has shown its limitations and needs to find a way to reinvent itself. If you listen to a Primal Scream album like Vanishing Point, you could fashion an alternative history for modern music. A world not reached. And I think Brit rock is much to blame. It can't seem to fuind its future world at all.