Johnny Borrell has slammed The Libertines as "a referential tabloid pantomime".

Johnny Borrell

Johnny Borrell

The Razorlight frontman claims that after the release of their second self-titled album The Libertines' label wanted to "capatilse" on their success and make them record whatever they could get out of them.

He said: "The history of recent British music could have been very different if Pete [Doherty] and Carl [Barat] had gotten into amphetamines instead of gak. But, by the point of this video, it feels like they are barely even a band. They'd been turned into a referential tabloid pantomime, where every song was about themselves. It was almost a piece of performance art - Marina Abramovic meets Phil and Grant of 'EastEnders'. I guess that progression is important when talking about the descent into landfill indie."

And he even claimed that their earlier demos were better than the final track-listing of the LP.

He added to Noisey: "I think with that second album [2004's self-titled LP], their label were just desperate to capitalise on the initial success, and get anything out of them. So, they hashed together a lot of songs that didn't make the first record, and dredged up some even older stuff. I remember listening to demos of 'Music When The Lights Go Out' from, like 1999 - and honestly, they were better than what ended up on that album."

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