there have been loads of times when musical innovation and revolutionary ways of making/listening etc have been huge i think
yeah, just not right now. would like to think it's darkest before dawn though (see 1975 / 1986).
thing is there
are (some) great innovative, exciting groups and musicians out there with something to say that are operating in a 'pop' idiom of one kind or another, or making music that could translate to a large scale audience given the right nudge. i think lots of people have felt that there's perhaps been no point in trying to make that leap, that it's more important to make the music you really feel should be made and leave it at that rather than risk being damaged by the marketing process or something, even if that means only directly reaching a small coterie of those 'in the know'; settling for a peripheral influence. wasn't a lot of 'real indie' characterized by an air of intentional amateurism as a stance/defence against having to compete on someone elses terms or play the 'industry game'? it's easy to see why.
seems that the grimesters on the whole are not afraid of this, which is great of course.
what we need is more margin dwellers and cultural wall-flowers getting ready to push to the front and rush the stage. in a strange way maybe the artic rolls and their particular route to exposure have prised open the door of possibilities just little bit?
of course it's in the nature of revolution / evolution that it is very hard to predict, and the next step will in all probablility not be at all like the previous ones. watching the clip of the sex pistols on 'so it goes' on jarvis cocker's pop tv thing the other night (was that a repeat?) nearly brought a tear to my eye. how did that feel (i was 5 at the time)? if i was a little older then and had seen it i think i would have been like "holy shit! there's real people on tv, look!"
are 'the kids', and the rest of us, not once again crying out for voices that really speak for and to them about how they feel and what they want, to actually be heard? beyond parochial social comentary / realism that is.
avant gardists / weirdos / outsiders / self-appointed geniuses - accept your responsibility and start thinking BIG, for all our sakes. learn from the past but talk about your present and our future.
change lives and minds, provide hope and clues.
here's to the New Weird Pop.