Then something happened. Something...truly chilling. Indie music got way boring.
It was easy for me to keep up with the stuff in college. I DJed at the college radio station and had access to all the new releases. My show, both solo and the ones I co-hosted, were of the indie persuasion so I, well, I played indie music. And I knew about it, oh I knew about it.
Then I moved to New York.
One would think that moving to the busiest and most important city in the country (if not the world, people, the world) would have made me a hip-happening guy with all the latest jams on his iPod and the most obscure hits in his heart. Interning at "The Late Show" got me loads of new CDs by bands I otherwise would never have listened to (The Go! Team, Hot Chip, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah) but that didn't matter. A free box at a late night talk show is nowhere near as fast as the internet.
Before I, nay, the entire country knew it, bands were popping up left and right. Every one of these bands was important, every one of them were critical darlings, and every gosh darn one of them was absolutely the hottest-most-in-thing...until they release another album, that is. Bands and artists like Aesop Rock, Bat for Lashes, Battles, Beirut, Cool Kids, Dan Deacon, Deerhunter, Jans Lekman, LCD Soundsystem, Liars, Okkervil River, Man Man, Yeasayer, Black Lips, Cut Copy, Fleet Foxes, Foals....ugh, I could just go on and on. And that's the problem! Everyone has a blog and everyone reads blogs, so everyone who goes to a show writes about every show they see, and everyone else reads these blogs about other shows and then they all trade MP3s and send mix CDs and blah blah blah it never ends. There's no filter.
I know that as a young, "hip" New Yorker I should loathe major labels and all that but, honestly, I thank them for weeding out the crap. Let's look at the late '70s. Television. Talking Heads. The Ramones. Blondie. The B-52's. Major labels snatched them up and pressed their records and, hey, that's the only way people heard them. Instead of listening to every single band that sounded just like Talking Heads and having every single one of them be praised, we just got Talking Heads and never got to hear the second rate copies. Now, thanks to the blogs/the internet, we get EVERY. SINGLE. BAND. that sounds like the Talking Heads. Do we really need Grizzly Bear, Man Man and Yeasayer when only one will do? My Brightest Diamond when we have Regina Spektor? Hot Chip, Of Montreal, LCD Soundsystem? I know I'm treading on Andy Rooney territory (please stop reading if I go off on a tangent about people carrying bags), but it's all too much.And it's all too boring.
The kids who listen to and write about this stuff live in their Brooklyns and wear their American Apparels and work at their hip record labels. They don't eat meat and are liberal as all get out. And the music they listen to? Well...it's...um, well it's quite boring. Whispered chants, guitars that will blow away with the slightest gust of air, sparse drums, it's the lightest of flower power folk dressed up like The Ramones. Back in my day, indie rock had some gusto, some flair, and lots of attitude. Hate on them all you want, but The Strokes are much more charismatic and rock and roll than anyone in Vampire Weekend. I guess I'm simple minded, but I need my songs loud, fast, and insanely catchy, three things that used to go hand in hand with indie rock.I've been trying to find new bands lately by downloading anything on Stereogum and, well, it's made me quite depressed. I've listened to the songs, okay, and Deerhunter, Islands, Les Savy Fav and Dirty Projectors blow. And for all the hype, there is nothing fun or enjoyable about half of Arcade Fire's songs and nothing really exciting about LCD Soundsystem.
That's my opinion.
Suck on it, Pitchfork. Your Top 100 songs of 2007 was way lame.
4 comments:
yeah Indie can be boring, but that Peter, Bjorn and John song with the whistling in it is kind of fun. <-- if that even is Indie... I don't know, haha
Arcade Fire?!? Man, low blow!
i agree that music has become way diluted with the advent of file sharing and the internet. i can't really keep up anymore. my cd collection used to be impressive. also, i wouldn't agree with aesop rock in there, he's hip hop, skraight up.
Here's another way to look at it--
you have actually changed more than the music.
As you get older, it gets harder to be impressed by something. A certain band was right there to speak to you in that special way a long time ago, and you loved it. Then a bunch of other bands came along and couldn't impress you that same way anymore. And even though other bands came along that you could've liked even better if you had heard them a year before, that music doesn't impress you. It becomes further distorted by the fact that every time you listen to those old CD's, it's one more experience of hearing it that adds to the body. The collective of listening to those over and over can never be matched by anything you'll hear for the first time today. When I hear my favorite record now, it reminds me of all the ways I've felt over the nine years that I've encountered it. Nothing current can compare to that.
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