PONDERED: Are we in a musical recession?
Posted by Mat | Filed under Music
2012 is the end of the world. Surely the current economic woes and environmental roil are proof! The Mayans knew it, John Cusack played it, and the History Channel programs around it.
Yet, seemingly, they’ve all site of the fact that said calender is cyclical. The world has begun and ended ad infinitum. reinventing itself in the process.
Music, and pop-culture at large, are also tied to these same, Ragnarok-like, ebbs and flows.
New Wave, Alternative, and Indie have been the featured, invented, umbrella terms used to describe the upswellings of listenable music over the past 30 years.
However, as it relates to public consumption, each of these movements had a shelf-life; by the end of their respective musical decades they were usurped by more visceral, feel good music.
The cycle looks to be quite clear – end the decade with crap and languish for the next five years. Enjoy that half decade of creativity and prepare for the following cultural winter.
The last turn of the wheel occurred in 2004. The change was abrupt – Gwen Steffani Covering Talk Talk and reaching farther down into the sewers of music, The Ataris covering The Eagles.
Within a month those songs were banished to the land of wind and ghosts. The Killers, Modest Mouse, and The Yeahs Yeah Yeahs, all existent bands, had broken big and the look and sound of pop-culture would follow.
The rest is present day history. The question now, is Have we left that time?
Are we a few months away from Fred Durst’s new project, or maybe Lady Gaga is the newest harbinger or the musical end times?
Alternatively, have we broken the cycle? Data and ideas move exponentially faster than they did six years ago – have the mercurial opinions that accompany disposable media rendered a decades worth of pop-cultural tending down to a month long process?
Does this even matter in the face of 2012? In the immortal words of Kent Brockman, I for one welcome our new insect overlords.
Tags: alternative, bad music, cycles, indie, mainstream, new wave, pondered
PONDERED: Why your scene doesn’t matter
Posted by Mat | Filed under Music
It’s 1996. Nine Inch Nails is in constant rotation and take up half of the t-shirt wall at your local Warehouse Music. Down the isle is the the Escape from L.A. soundtrack, that featuring Stabbing Westward, Gravity Kills, and effin’ Ministry - talk about bang/smash/book for your buck.
Skinny Puppy and Front 242 were on MTV (midnight on a Sunday, but still they were on). The music you love has a pedigree dating back to Throbbing Gristle in the 70s. Your musical forefathers have mucho music cred, and the newest crop is rebellious and yet relevant.
Take in the sites and smells – this is the last time anyone else in the world will care about Industrial music.
We can file the numbers off and protect that names of the innocent in this scenario. It’s ‘97 and you like Ska. ‘04 and cardigan styled Emo. Two ill-spent months in ‘89 with baggy….
ad. infinitum
The truth of the matter is that while the music, your music, continues to spawn merch, tour, and inspire new bands, they don’t matter. They’re not the black sheep of the musical sub-genre family, they’re the fish head eating mutant that lives in the attic.
Why the pariah status?
Back in the early 90’s, a music critic referred to the London Shoegaze Scene as “the scene that celebrates itself,” and subsequently, the rest of the critics stopped caring. Despite birthing some musical landmarks, the Shoegaze scene got kneecapped, and went from being a sound to a scene.
The criticism was totally valid. When a sound is codified and becomes a sub-genre, the rules are set – attire, attitude, and others are standardized. With the rules set, the old fans become die-hards or drop out and the new fans come in already knowing the rules. Most importantly, with the look, the sound, and the crowd predefined, the artist stop creating and begin producing for the fan base.
Bands in the _________ scene make _________ music for _________ fans.
And this is why your scene doesn’t matter, at least outside of your scene.
Tags: baggy, emo, industrial, mainstream, pondered, scene, ska, Slowdive, sucks
PONDERED: The music elitism counterbalance
Posted by Mat | Filed under Music
There seems to be a sort of odd counterbalance when it comes to music elitism; the more obscure your day-to-day tastes are, the more you really, really need to enjoy some sort of antithetical, mainstream, evil-Kirk, music.
I’ts a common problem around opinionated friends – I’ve really started liking “Post-Noise,” it’s like the sound the occurs after you hit something and the primary noise ends – it’s all very Zen. Shit, is that Phil Collins, that’s my JAM.
It’s the Pitchfork problem – Top Tracks: Low-Fi Yak Calls and fuckin Jay-Z bitches
It’s an all too common problem, without a clear cut answer.
Do the ultra-obsessive music geeks have such a broad palette that sometimes they can’t help but enjoy media that was made for easy consumption?
Is it a subconscious subversion of the mainstream by the intelligencia?
Or perhaps, is there just some sort of reptile brain reaction to Ace of Base that you must heed the call?
Tags: elitism, mainstream, pondered, yak calls
