If you want to know why these are heady days for Irish rock acts and singer-songwriters, you have to go to the exurbs and meet the new mainstream. Get in your car, drive to or from the nearest big city and sit with everyone else in traffic for a few hours. Then, in the gap which appears between the suburbs and the trees, you'll hit exurbia.
With all those new housing developments and residential areas turning what were once villages into traffic-choked commuter corridors, Irish exurbia is more than a mere state of mind. Forget about the impact of this rampant development on future urban and rural planning - we're more interested in the sounds they're listening to in the exurbs.
Irish audiences have always had a soft spot for homegrown acts. Even in those misguided days when it was all about getting and keeping major label deals, Next Big Things could rely on a full house at the Boxing Club in Drogheda or the Hi-Land in Newmarket. Back then, record sale expectations never quite matched reality and Next Big Things became also-rans when their major label patrons ran out of patience at their failure to emulate U2.
Now, though, it's a different matter. As Bell X1's Paul Noonan put it in The Ticket last week, you can make quite a bit of money from live gate receipts in Ireland and sell thousands of CDs to boot if you're good enough. A list of acts as long as your arm make a good living here. Some acts even use their Irish revenue as seed capital for foreign tours and releases.
In the UK last year, the record industry fell in love with 50 Quid Man. This was the middle-aged, largely suburban-living male consumer whose weekly splurge on CDs, DVDs and books before he got the train home on a Friday evening provided a new lease of life for many acts. From Franz Ferdinand to Norah Jones, 50 Quid Man had a particular fondness for new music which sounded just like old music.
Over here, there may be a few 73 Euro Men roaming those record stores still open for business, but it's the new mainstream we're more interested in. And where better to meet the new mainstream than in the latest bar or restaurant to open in the exurbs?
Young, in their first or second job, relatively affluent and with one foot trying to find the property ladder, the men and women of the new mainstream like to have a laugh. They'll go gigging or clubbing once or twice a week with their mates and, when it comes to deciding what acts to see, peer recommendations count in great amounts. Sure, they'll turn on the radio (they're avid listeners to Ray D'Arcy and Tom Dunne) and read about music in newspapers and imported magazines, but the best recommendations come from their mates.
We talk a great deal about digital downloads and the death of the CD, yet we often forget that changes in music consumption are not just confined to physical formats. New mainstream fans have time for The Killers, The Frames and Interpol as well as Declan O'Rourke, The Streets and Josh Ritter. The music hasn't changed, but the mainstream has broadened.
Acts once considered leftfield are now perceived to be more in the centre, and there is a greater openness towards previously scorned middle-of-the-road acts (the parochialism of You're a Star has a lot to answer for).
For the new mainstream, music is rarely as much a badge of identity as it was for previous generations. To them, it's one of several lifestyle choices. To them, it's a lot more than accumulating five CDs a year, but doesn't quite extend to constantly checking the iTunes store for new release dates. For them, it's as much (if not more) about live, communal experiences as buying the new CD.
Because of them, the sound of the exurbs has become the sound of Irish rock and singer-songwriters. In 2005, you'll find that Irish music and the new mainstream go together like cars and exurbia.
