No, but you can attack the manner of that supposed meaning. To put it another way, I think what Swears is getting at is that there are aspects of music which he values (and used to be valued more generally) which are no longer even recognised or considered by most.
Music isn't really important anymore.
- Thread starter swears
- Start date
No, but you can attack the manner of that supposed meaning. To put it another way, I think what Swears is getting at is that there are aspects of music which he values (and used to be valued more generally) which are no longer even recognised or considered by most.
UFO over easy
online mahjong
seriously swears, is there anything you actually enjoy doing? besides bitching?
polystyle said:
Innit.
Maybe you don't recognise it because you hate the music other people are excited about? Innovation and political engagement might not be important to music lovers anymore, but music still is.
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swears
preppy-kei
Ugh, I know, I'll try to be a bit more positive in future. It just feels like everything I hated as a teenager has become huge, I realise this isn't how everybody else feels.
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
Now THAT'S true. Sounds like you need to do shitloads of drugs n find yrself a Malcolm Mclaren m8, or make some bombs and plan to blow up Sony! just don't keep the files on your computer or you'll get 40 years for even thinking about it.
UFO over easy
online mahjong
swears said:
I hated most things as a teenager, although officially that was only a year ago.
The only difference between my 15 year old self and now is that back then, everything seemed a lot more... important.
"So in a sense I guess you could say that irony, eclecticism, and nostalgia really are the defining characteristics of our time... therefore indie really is the expression of this decade, like it or not.
Which decade? The 90s?"
There has been a "sincere" feel in some indiepop in the last few years perhaps as a reaction to irony, but I think irony has been a huge aspect of a lot of American indie bands from the mid 90s to the present. Only lately are hipsters trying to act like they've unironically always been into say, black and doom metal.
As far as eclecticism, I didn't mean eclecticism as a musical style like Beck, but in regards to a wide variety of styles to choose from right now. The indie and electronic worlds have so many various unrelated subgenres (indiepop/neopostpunk/garage/psych/folk/noise/drone, and minimal/microhouse/dubstep/grime/folktronic/glitchhop) that it's kept me interested enough this decade. Maybe the big mainstream movements haven't been inspiring (although I think there was some great pop and hip hop in the earlier half of the 00s) but there are plenty of interesting underground scenes right now (IMO), and maybe it's better they're not mainstream so they don't get spoiled right away.
Which decade? The 90s?"
There has been a "sincere" feel in some indiepop in the last few years perhaps as a reaction to irony, but I think irony has been a huge aspect of a lot of American indie bands from the mid 90s to the present. Only lately are hipsters trying to act like they've unironically always been into say, black and doom metal.
As far as eclecticism, I didn't mean eclecticism as a musical style like Beck, but in regards to a wide variety of styles to choose from right now. The indie and electronic worlds have so many various unrelated subgenres (indiepop/neopostpunk/garage/psych/folk/noise/drone, and minimal/microhouse/dubstep/grime/folktronic/glitchhop) that it's kept me interested enough this decade. Maybe the big mainstream movements haven't been inspiring (although I think there was some great pop and hip hop in the earlier half of the 00s) but there are plenty of interesting underground scenes right now (IMO), and maybe it's better they're not mainstream so they don't get spoiled right away.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Question re innovation for people who follow the indie press more than me: it's pretty clear that most of the haircut indie bands that are doing business at the moment aren't doing anything shockingly new. But what's the response of their supporters to this accusation? Is it denial (no honestly, Franz Ferdinand are a total musical revolution) or do they accept it but consider it irrelevant?
In particular, there's a fairly obvious line of argument[1] to be made that a lot of previous steps forward in popular music have involved jettisoning things that previous generations considered to be important in favour of pure visceral teenage impact - so things like conspicuous musicianship, being nice young men you'd take home to meet your mother and actually playing instruments have all fallen by the wayside, and that obvious formal progression is just the latest unneccessary bit of baggage that popular music has jettisoned. Is anyone explicitly taking this line (as an argument in favour of haircut indie), or are they still claiming it as a dramatic formal step forward, or has music journalism just been tabloidized to the point that noone really thinks about these things anymore...
[1] which I'm not putting very well here, but I hope the gist comes across
swears
preppy-kei
That's pretty much it.
UFO over easy
online mahjong
Well exactly. By not attempting to subvert everything or make any serious statements, they're rebelling more effectively than any bearded art student or corpse painted metaller. The blandness of bands like Franz Ferdinand has caused more impact and controversy than any musical rebels have recently, and this thread is proof..
There has been progression, but just in a direction that people here don't happen to like very much.
the undisputed truth
Banned
Funny that. If everybody is rebelling against something, then to choose not to is to rebel against rebelling. I supose it's like abstinence form voting as a conscientious objector. It only works if a couple do it but if everyone abstains then does the whole system collapse or maintain a status quo leaving the pwers that be the freedom to do as they see fit ?
Silence is afterall a form of tacit agreeance. Does that in any way help you swears ?
Silence is afterall a form of tacit agreeance. Does that in any way help you swears ?
qwerty south
no use for a witticism
at the moment i'm really enjoying songs about music itself
like jibbs and chamillionaires 'king kong' etc
like jibbs and chamillionaires 'king kong' etc
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
But afaict, it's not so much that people are looking for a new way to rebel and deciding that the most rebellious thing they can do is to fail to rebel and the most innovative thing they can do is give up on innovation, more that they are (or might be or are implicitly) questioning whether rebellion / formal innovation (as compared to a load of records you may not have heard) / whatever is something that music needs to do, or whether it's basically unneccessary and what the music really needs to do is in some way to connect with people and to move them. And that us sitting around complaining that it basically sounds like a b-list Gang of Four tune with shinier production are in the same boat as seventies crits bemoaning the lack of technique in punk.Funny that. If everybody is rebelling against something, then to choose not to is to rebel against rebelling. I supose it's like abstinence form voting as a conscientious objector. It only works if a couple do it but if everyone abstains then does the whole system collapse or maintain a status quo leaving the pwers that be the freedom to do as they see fit ?
Silence is afterall a form of tacit agreeance. Does that in any way help you swears ?
swears
preppy-kei
Have you ever met an indie band? They're really not that smart. It's conformity straight down the line, any rebellion is a recieved idea of rebellion: Che posters, tight jeans, a sculpted sneer, a weird combination of aggression and smugness.
And we've had twenty-odd years of this sort of retro-rock, it might have been subversive when The Smiths were doing it, but now?
C
cyst
Guest
I'm not going to try and link this to what anyone else has been saying, but isn't the problem that music has become more important in terms of defining identity [however shallow and corporate that definition is] and subsequently music and its creation is no longer primarliy the domain of the disaffected, but rather nigh on everyone you'll ever meet. Fame and idolisation are more imporatant than content or genuine apreciation, maybe this has always been the way?
In the same way that the majority of the populace has little interest in the intcracies of, say, politics or war or enviromental issues, there is little demand for a musical representative of the fact not all is rosey. Bands like the ones already mentioned may say fuck all off interest to a rebelious mind but it blatently doesn't matter, by liking them their fans have a pre-built identity with a million other clones to validate their cool. At university it seemed the first question people would ask is "what music do you like?", after i while i gave up trying to justify my choices as it became as pointless as trying to explain why i didn't like watching telly.
I recieved a couple of CD's last week from a mate who's about to bring out his first releases, the first was upbeat hip-hop about girls/parties/drinking etc. which he was happy with. The second was introspective, dark and discontented [sample lines: "..flew from the word go with plenty of perno, vigilante reading Dante's Inferno, astrology philosophy, i delved into to prophecies, but all these colleges and ology's couldn't offer me, a way to live to so i patiently evaded it....] though he was v. worried that no one would like this one.
Surely the only way to combat piss weak music is to source things with soul or meaning and support those acts...
In the same way that the majority of the populace has little interest in the intcracies of, say, politics or war or enviromental issues, there is little demand for a musical representative of the fact not all is rosey. Bands like the ones already mentioned may say fuck all off interest to a rebelious mind but it blatently doesn't matter, by liking them their fans have a pre-built identity with a million other clones to validate their cool. At university it seemed the first question people would ask is "what music do you like?", after i while i gave up trying to justify my choices as it became as pointless as trying to explain why i didn't like watching telly.
I recieved a couple of CD's last week from a mate who's about to bring out his first releases, the first was upbeat hip-hop about girls/parties/drinking etc. which he was happy with. The second was introspective, dark and discontented [sample lines: "..flew from the word go with plenty of perno, vigilante reading Dante's Inferno, astrology philosophy, i delved into to prophecies, but all these colleges and ology's couldn't offer me, a way to live to so i patiently evaded it....] though he was v. worried that no one would like this one.
Surely the only way to combat piss weak music is to source things with soul or meaning and support those acts...
ooh i love reflexive music like that. for the same reason i can listen to elektrochemie's stuff endlessly... great tracks, especially "pleasure seeker":
you take what you want
i give you a lot
i want what i need
i live to be pleased
won't take any less
just want the best
for me as yourself
don't buy nuthin' else
pleasure seeker
i will meet you
at the entrance
of your secrets
don't try to behave
won't you most ****(?)
leave your old habit
where you came to it
come here all new
i won't play with you
won't want what i need
you have inside of me
chorus
show up don't be shy
lets go for a ride
give me all you feel
come on lets be real
chorus x2
Not even the sneer, swears, if only there was at least that! Otherwise relentlessly OTM. Its the classic misnomer of the influenced- copying the form rather than attempting a transposition into our own context.
brokenmodel
Member
As is obvious, music has become more and more entwined with the internet itself. As people invest more time in the internet and the "new music" search, the time between conception and inception grows smaller and smaller. Because of this, music has taken on more of a pleasure of the moment type status. Rather than something that would last over time, bands burn brightly and very quickly fade away or dissolve and turn into some other band. Bands don't really have the time to mature as a group. There's the obvious hardships of touring, but the initial getting known is almost entirely too simple. It's a vicious cycle of the need for new music, the creation of that music, and then the search for newer pleasures. Where that cycle used to take years to get scenes off the ground and grow, now, the scene is everywhere.