Kaiser Chiefs say their lyrics predicted the riots in the UK last month. At the V Festival speaking to NME.com , the lead guitarist Andrew White claimed that their lyrics foretold of the civil unrest around the country. “It’s funny, if you listen to our lyrics and give it a fucking chance, we did predict this. We sing about culture and the state of city centers and the state of society for five years,” White said.

The guitarist also states they are trying to save the music industry, “Music industry is dying, we all know is dying.” The band was just back from Australia when the riots were giving unforgettable memories. Singer Ricky Wilson stayed up watching the breathtaking news. “It was pretty shocking stuff. The next day we had a day off (so) we had a bit of a look round and cleaned up with brooms,” Wilson said.

He also explained that his band is trying to achieve something different and convince people that listening to their music is worthy enough. “Music is not a magic price.At least we are trying,” he said. Kaiser Chiefs announced an extensive UK tour for 2012.

The Leeds band will play 20 dates across the UK in January and February 2012. The tour will begin in Wales at Llandudno’s Cymru Arena on January 27. The concerts will end on February 23 at London’s HMV Hammersmith Apollo. They have also set two hometown gigs at Leeds’Kirstall Abeey on September 10 and 11.

Tickets went on sale on August 26. The band will also visits places such as Birmigham O2 Academy, Plymouth Pabilions, Sheffield O2 Academy, Newcastle O2 Academy, Grimsby Auditorium and Manchester Academy. More information about where they’re playing is available online.

The band revealed their new album “The Future Is Medieval” last June. This is their fourth album. At the beginning of the same month, they surprised their fans by allowing them to choose their own track listing from a selection of 20 songs. The physical and digital released last June 27.

“Due to the overwhelming success of this process, it’s created lots of chatter, and demand for an ‘official’ album. So it’s time to simplify things a bit, and release a CD and standard digital album of ‘The Future Is Medieval,’” the band said.

The official track listing for “The Future is Medieval” is:

‘Little Shocks’
‘Things Change’;
‘Long Way From Celebrating’;
‘Starts With Nothing’;
‘Out Of Focus’;
‘Dead Or In Serious Trouble’;
‘When All Is Quiet’;
‘Kinda Girl You Are’;
‘Man On Mars’;
Child Of The Jago’;
‘Heard It Break’;
‘Coming Up For Air’
‘If You Will Have Me.’

The official CD and standard digital album will include “Kinda Girl You Are”, a track not included in the original mix bag of songs. “That one missed the website, simply because it wasn’t finished, we were recording and mixing right up until the week of release and ‘Kinda Girl You Are’ was the last through the gatepost,” the band said about the unique track.

Kaiser Chiefs also said they recorded this track with their favorite guru Mr. Ethan Johns and fans can find it on the CD version

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/adambowie/

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By now, London is in a state of collective hangover, but the recent week’s mayhem could just as well have swept through Athens, Madrid or Rome. The year 2011 will be remembered as the year of youth revolt; where the youth of Europe realized generations before them did not leave much for their future.

But lawmakers around Europe can’t really say that the protests, which most recent turned into arson and looting, were all that surprising. Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten reported that the generation that took to the streets in European capitals are the first in decades who cannot expect to reach a higher living standard than their parents. The rioting in Britain underlines this with socio-economic irony; the underbelly of society has been ignored for years while leaders scrambled to save the economy under the global financial crisis. A breakdown was unavoidable.

The initial problem has played out in several countries. In Spain, a staggering 40 percent youth unemployment led to mass protests in Madrid in May. Demonstrators, despite a ban, gathered to express their anger at the unbearable unemployment rate, the recent austerity measures and political corruption. In Athens, demonstrations and strikes led to violent clashes between police and protesters and last weekend saw a protest in Tottenham, UK, against the shooting of Mark Duggan turn into a weeklong street riot that destroyed so much more than materials.

The English anarchy was a display of societal meltdown — the media and politicians were quick to point their finger at fault but the explanation is straightforward. What it comes down to is a generation, raised in the economic boom of the 90s with all its optimism, but held back as they were about to enter society themselves as workers. A strained labor market and an increasingly nervous financial climate prevents many from looking to the future. No wonder those with the least hope, financially or socially, will break first and most furiously. It may be a terrible and upsetting situation, but it shouldn’t be a surprising one.

According to Chris Roycroft-Davis, a British political commentator, Prime Minister David Cameron’s harsh words in the wake of the recent riots will achieve nothing without direct, unrestrained consequences.

“Society is being destroyed because for decades we’ve gone soft on a underclass of lawbreaking, drug dealing layabouts who treat with contempt a world which they think owes them a living,” Roycroft-Davis said.

Though Roycroft-Davis’ words are hard, they voice the tension between the have’s and have-not’s which triggered the violence in London. One part is that young people have no jobs and no future to plan for – another is that some of the European welfare states have taken such good care of their people that they have forgotten society is a two-way agreement.

Some countries have nothing to give and the opportunity to give back is equally limited. The unemployment rate in Greece climbed to 14.2 percent by March and Spain was at a staggering 20.9 percent in the second quarter of 2011. In comparison, Germany only had 7 percent unemployment as of July.

But on the other hand, many western European countries continue their generous benefit systems despite numbers showing that only half of the population is employed. With the deduction of children, students and elderly, Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten found that there were still a large amount of people who simply lived off the state — a vicious circle that many of the newest generations on the labour market will drop into by default.

In comparison with other decades and areas, the youth of Western Europe was arguably spoiled rotten by optimistic and protective states. Whether they achieved academically or was raised on the streets, there was always some sort of security net that tried to catch them if they fall.

There comes a point where people stop being grateful and start expecting more: ‘we want jobs’ or ‘we’re entitled to benefits’. The point is when they truly believe the world owes them just because they were born into it. The people who had no problem destroying their fellow citizens’ livelihood in the last week should be considered the fruit of society’s unrelenting labor. Kids down to eight years of age were out smashing windows and grabbing all they could get because society kept telling them that they were “entitled”. On the other hand, students and graduates want governments to take responsibility for creating jobs for them, while blaming people at the top for everything without fully appreciating the complicity of their parents, the greater society — not to mention the world.

The lost generation of Europe is in the end a motley bunch. All layers of society, educated or not, face bleak prospects in the coming years. While the student camps in squares with eloquently written protest banners, the mobster throws stones and steals designer hoodies but none of this can really change the probability that economic order will not be stabilized before our most important years on the labour market have passed. Governments will ask for patience and restraint but the revolting youth will not be silenced with words and they may spend the rest of the year proving this.

Image Courtesy of Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/64742792@N05/6026530372/

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