Somebody asked me the other day why I had never written about Kneecap. The answer is pretty simple: they don’t interest me.

So uninterested in them, in fact, that I couldn’t even be bothered to get worked up about what they said or did.

They’re an act. No more. No less. They have a sort of shock value I suppose, but so what.

They’ll be around for a while and then disappear, to be replaced by some new shock value act further down the line.

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Alex Kane: My opinion on Kneecap? I’ve seen it all before...

There have been hundreds of bands in my lifetime which enjoyed a brief moment in the spotlight, stirred up some controversy, got denounced by the Daily Mail (older readers will remember Mary Whitehouse getting upset by just about every scruff who held a guitar and shouted into a microphone) and then slipped further and further down the bill until they reached the great trapdoor that drops all but the best to oblivion.

Their original target audience was a very local one – hence the use of Kneecap. They always knew it would offend. The balaclava –complete with tricolour – was another key part of the act and, again, used to attract and offend in........

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