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Indie but not really

Started by alan nagsworth, January 07, 2008, 06:22:37 AM

Previous topic - Next topic
Anything vaguely belonging to any 'scene' is always full of cunts and destined to die a quick and undignified death. I just pray that everybody hates SebastiAn's album when it comes out or the glory days are fucking over.

Edit: Mindbear, that SebastiAn remix was of 'I Still Remember' I think. I think it's the most boring thing he's done, I blame too much respect for the source material.

lazyhour

The really big hitters in today's so-called indie scene are of course all utter swill, but I think it's not too too too bad a time at the moment for just-beyond-the-mainstream indie fans.  Off the top of my head you've got:

Camera Obscura
The Knife
Broadcast
Deerhoof
Bonnie Prince Billy
Belle & Sebastian
Jens Lekman
The Fiery Furnaces
Joanna Newsom
Bill Callahan/Smog
Blonde Redhead
Animal Collective
Feist
Super Furry Animals
PJ Harvey
Mum
Wilco
Silver Jews
Mouse On Mars

You may not like all of these acts, but I think they're all making a really positive and reasonably big contribution to the current music world, and pretty much all of them have CDs out that are readily available in any decent music shop in the country.

Hmm, I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make here.  I'm as depressed as the next music fan at the dire state of this country's biggest-selling musical acts, but it's hard to deny that there's a fair bit of good stuff quite close to the surface too.

Quote from: thugler on January 07, 2008, 08:03:08 PMI don't get why the singer has such a boring voice despite being black.

I was really surprised the first time I saw them playing live on the TV, had no idea he was black.


Mindbear, being tagged about is a sign of acceptance in some ways.


/adds tag

Little Hoover

Quote from: Cack Hen on January 07, 2008, 08:45:00 PM
I can't help but wonder how long it's gonna take for the next indie 'thing' to happen. Everybody's been feeding off the garage rock/indie-disco/post-punk thing for nearly 7 years now, it's definitely time for something new. There was that 'new-rave' shit that lingered like a bad smell for about two years, but that'd fading out, unsurprisingly (it doesn't help when the best band from that scene are Klaxons - though they do have a couple of good songs). Oh, I remember there being a few attempts at indie-grime quite recently, but it was shocking.

The trouble is, as good as The Strokes' first album was, it had such weak competition, it wouldn't have taken much at all to make people sit up and think "maybe Limp Bizkit aren't all that!" But how long is it gonna take for people to want something other than this brand of indie that's been popular for over half a decade? There's always bait in the water (Gallows, Klaxons, Hadouken) but it's too shit for anyone to bite properly. I don't know if we have to wait for everybody to get bored before the next 'thing' can come, or if it's just a matter of waiting for somebody to make an extraordinary album in a particular genre to get the ball rolling. The question is, will the general Indie Public buy into it if the current scene still has a tiny bit of life in it? If so, I fear a change could be a long time coming.

For the record, I'm perfectly aware that the music world doesn't begin and end with "mainstream indie" but it's interesting to monitor the progress of it. Besides, things may be bad now, but who's to say something special won't happen one day soon? Music dies the day you give up on it. 

Well yes, I really can't wait for an end to this current phase that all started with the strokes, I mean there was the end of britpop where there was basically nothing, and in the mainstream there was almost nothing in the way of guitar bands, I first got digital t.v in this era, and it collided with me discovering music I liked, and actually seeing guitar music on t.v was actually quite an exciting and rare thing. I actually got into Korn and some associated bands at around this time, about a year before all the other kids scrawling the names of all the bands they liked onto their rucksacks and pencil cases. Of course I was already unpopular, and having happened to already like these bands wasn't going to win my friends (still at least the people that liked these bands weren't the nast bullying cunts that the people who were into so solid crew and their ilk were)

I would go on but suddenly realised that what I was essential just starting to write a blog, so I think I'm going to bring abrupt stop to this, without coming to any real conclusion.

Mindbear

Quote from: Steve Lampkins on January 07, 2008, 09:32:05 PM
I was really surprised the first time I saw them playing live on the TV, had no idea he was black.


Mindbear, being tagged about is a sign of acceptance in some ways.


/adds tag

Well thats made me feel better, I've always thought this place would be scary as hell and it's not at all, especially not like it was when I looked about six years ago!

I don't think we're suffering so much from post Strokes as we are post Libertines. I'm so fucking sick of everyone being so pleased about living in london, with their london accents and stupid hats and skin. I'll just stick with los campesinos for now, and if anyone blows up the paddingtons....and all of camden, let me know.

Anon

Quote from: Mindbear on January 07, 2008, 09:56:56 PM
I don't think we're suffering so much from post Strokes as we are post Libertines.

This for me seems to be the real problem for 'indie' music (if we're using it as a term for a certain type of guitar music anyways) - I was talking about this with a friend of mine who's rather into The Strokes and dosn't mind The Libertines (whereas I find the first act rather middiling and the second genuinely painful), and we both agreed that the whole scene at the moment seems incredibly narrow minded - there's only one type of rhythm guitar playing for crying out loud, and it's a weak imitation of the sound of early Wedding Present records.  You know, that one that goes scrank-a-scrank-ety-scrank that's been used by almost every NME cover-star for the last three years.  Indie's become the complete inverse of what the term originally suggested, and I really don't know how to get out of the situation.  It's got to the point that I refuse to believe that British Sea Power, a band that the press seem to be grooming for stardom as of now, will actually be as successful this year as a lot of people hope they'll be because they're just a bit too playful and distinctive to appeal to the audience of morons that 'indie' music is now marketed to - they don't even go scrank-a-scrank-ety-scrank all that often...


Quote from: Cack Hen on January 07, 2008, 08:45:00 PM
I don't know if we have to wait for everybody to get bored before the next 'thing' can come, or if it's just a matter of waiting for somebody to make an extraordinary album in a particular genre to get the ball rolling. The question is, will the general Indie Public buy into it if the current scene still has a tiny bit of life in it? If so, I fear a change could be a long time coming.

My fear is that for something to emerge as a real replacement for the current scene, it'll have to have the same 'lifestyle choice' factor that The Libertines have or that New Rave has - it'll have to have clothes, haircuts and accessories built in to it so that this (sadly rather real) crowd of cretins get a new look to base themselves around and something new to conform to.  And any scene that has those cynicially built in to them in the same way that the current scenes do, rather than the slightly less manufactured style that arises out of the music organically that will accompany any scene, won't be a cure but just another new strain of plague.

I find that everyone everywhere is so fucking pleased with themselves these days because there's a shitload of media to suit absolutely everyone. Leading off from the counter-culture comedy thread, I'd say that there is no counter-cultural music scene any more. Everybody under 30 is so media-savvy they just choose whatever is marketed directly at them. It's virtually impossible to dissociate music from image, concept, context, fan circles. I think this is the reason that some people (like many on here, no doubt) hate it when their favourite band/performer/producer supercedes a certain level of success which leads to the inevitable influx of bandwagon-jumping fuckmuggers bounding in with haircuts aplenty until the next thing smells like it might get big.

Case in point: Ed Banger records. Having been all over all French house music since about 1996 and witnessing the scene finally die with a whimper around 2001, I was quite excited to hear about Pedro Winter's new project with a bunch of up-and-coming talent. I heard Justice's Simian remix and thought 'hmm, old-school French house bassline, massive Daft Punk compression and...something else...' so I was pretty happy when it got relased through Ed Banger, and along with SebastiAn's grinding slo-mo distorted industrial 'Smoking Kills' EP, I thought it might herald a renaissance. There followed a good few years of awesome new-wave electro with the 90s French house production standards being adapted by a newer breed of more rave/techno/electronica/hip-hop influenced guys. During this time Justice and SebastiAn put out some fucking devastating remixes, alongside the likes of Feadz, Krazy Baldhead, Mr Flash and DJ Mehdi producing some very fresh stuff, culminating in Justice's devastating Waters of Nazareth. It sounded like a metal band playing Da Funk. Astonishing record, admittedly borrowing liberally from the sonic innovations that SebastiAn had made. Still, they were the 'new Daft Punk', nobody would say a bad word about them.

Around this time, x numbers of absolute bell-ends got onto them, they became the mp3 blog group du jour, the Ed Banger crew started putting out more T-shirts than records and looking incredibly pleased with themselves and their enormous coke habits. Most of the artists stopped producing anything, the ones who did took to completely ripping off SebastiAn/Justice. They toured constantly to sell T-shirts and half-arsed compilations and enlisted the help of Uffie, Feadz' girlfriend (!), to do some of the shittest raps you've ever heard in your life. You must need a coke habit as long as Inspector Gadget's mechanical cock to see the musical merit in anything she's put out. Anyway, Justice smelled the big time and watered down their sound completely to the point where they even re-recorded a Waters of Nazareth-lite for the album proper, which they backed up with sub-Discovery plinky-plonky synth plodders. Perfect for adverts though...Ed Banger is artistically dead and never more popular.

I honestly don't know how SebastiAn continues to fly the flag so well, constantly evolving his sound over the last four years or so, piggybacked by a load of cunts. I vaguely appreciated the more 'reflective' tracks on the Steak soundtrack he did with Mr. Oizo and Sebastien Tellier but if he goes the Match of the Day/car advert route like Justice, I will be more disappointed than I was by Human After All. I just hope these indie-not-indie cunts don't suck him dry.

Quote from: lazyhour on January 07, 2008, 09:30:08 PM
The really big hitters in today's so-called indie scene are of course all utter swill, but I think it's not too too too bad a time at the moment for just-beyond-the-mainstream indie fans.  Off the top of my head you've got:

Camera Obscura
The Knife
Broadcast
Deerhoof
Bonnie Prince Billy
Belle & Sebastian
Jens Lekman
The Fiery Furnaces
Joanna Newsom
Bill Callahan/Smog
Blonde Redhead
Animal Collective
Feist
Super Furry Animals
PJ Harvey
Mum
Wilco
Silver Jews
Mouse On Mars

You may not like all of these acts, but I think they're all making a really positive and reasonably big contribution to the current music world, and pretty much all of them have CDs out that are readily available in any decent music shop in the country.

Hmm, I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make here.  I'm as depressed as the next music fan at the dire state of this country's biggest-selling musical acts, but it's hard to deny that there's a fair bit of good stuff quite close to the surface too.

May I add

!!!
Battles
Arcade Fire
Biffy Clyro
Bjork
British Sea power
Gorillaz
LCD Soundsystem
Modest Mouse
She Wants Revenge
Sigur Ros
Simian Mobile Disco
Yeah Yeah Yeah
Aesop Rock
Bat For Lashes

There is a lot of interesting music out there at the moment, as long as you turn off T4 and radio 1 and stay away from the scene kids. It happened with Nu metal, it happened to brit pop. Its a certain style becomes flavor of the month, is then copied and stripped of all the originality and meaning.  You can hear the energy in the strokes or the libertines, but it has been blurred out by copy cat bands, made up of scenesters that don't get what made it good in the first place. I prefer to forget about labels and time frames and just simple divide things into music I like and music I don't. Because the best music is normally the music that crosses genres, experiments and comes up with a sound of its self. Just ignore the advertising of band brands and the play list brainwashing that goes on, and enjoy the hunt of finding something for yourself, and the fun of telling somebody about it.

Vitalstatistix

Quote from: Delete Delete Delete on January 07, 2008, 10:43:26 PM
There is a lot of interesting music out there at the moment, as long as you turn off T4 and radio 1 and stay away from the scene kids. It happened with Nu metal, it happened to brit pop. Its a certain style becomes flavor of the month, is then copied and stripped of all the originality and meaning.  You can hear the energy in the strokes or the libertines, but it has been blurred out by copy cat bands, made up of scenesters that don't get what made it good in the first place. I prefer to forget about labels and time frames and just simple divide things into music I like and music I don't. Because the best music is normally the music that crosses genres, experiments and comes up with a sound of its self. Just ignore the advertising of band brands and the play list brainwashing that goes on, and enjoy the hunt of finding something for yourself, and the fun of telling somebody about it.

I agree completely. The two lists of bands given are full of brilliant, experimental and passionate bands and artists, and despite running the risk of turning this into a list thread, you could also add the likes of:

The National
Cinematic Orchestra
Prefuse 73
Youngblood brass band
Okkervil River
Sufjan Stevens
Thee More Shallows
Interpol
...Trail of Dead
Mum
Panda Bear
Broken Social Scene
Ellen Allien
Faraquet
Iron & Wine
M.I.A
Tapes n Tapes

There is so much great music out there, but like Delete Delete Delete says, you have to almost take it out of all context, style and scene. Experience music on a visceral level without the baggage, it's very possible and I'm sure this is how many of us here enjoy our music. Most of the artists that have been listed positively value their music over the haircuts, the scene and the look, but, importantly they have all achieved moderate success. It can be done. There will always be shit music and shit indie scenes, just search for the good music because it is there!

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I agree.

Cack Hen

Well, of course.

But is it not damaging if the mainstream alternative is allowed to become increasingly saturated with crap? The rot sets in and spreads, effecting other things.

Paaaaul

The crap always floats to the top.
The crap is always initially inspired by hearing the good stuff.
The good stuff isn't affected by the crap. If you were in Belle & Sebastian, would you be copying Bryan Adams or or Leona Lewis to improve your emotional message?
Nothing to worry about here.


Manfred Mann were big in the 60s but didn't destroy music.

Vitalstatistix

Quote from: The Boston Crab on January 07, 2008, 11:42:02 PM


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I agree.

I like lists OK. Jeeeeeeeeez

Quote from: Cack Hen on January 07, 2008, 11:42:15 PM
Well, of course.

But is it not damaging if the mainstream alternative is allowed to become increasingly saturated with crap? The rot sets in and spreads, effecting other things.
No, because music reinvents its self to over throw the previous regime, Punk, Grunge etc etc... Now the question to be asked is what effect the transition from broadcasting to narrow casting has. Movements are picked up so quickly that they are often killed off before they have a chance to flourish, for example new rave. But then was that a movement at all, or a brand created by the press. It gets very difficult to sift out the propaganda. Commercial radio and the charts is for people who don't like music that much anyway, how else can you explain Westlife having more number ones than the Rolling Stones.  Wehn it comes down to it, some of the land mark albums of the past weren't commercial hits at the time. Such as Love - forever changes, or th velvet underground. Its only in hindsight that we can see the quality of these albums.

Cack Hen

Quote from: Delete Delete Delete on January 07, 2008, 11:51:25 PM
No, because music reinvents its self to over throw the previous regime, Punk, Grunge etc etc... Now the question to be asked is what effect the transition from broadcasting to narrow casting has. Movements are picked up so quickly that they are often killed off before they have a chance to flourish, for example new rave. But then was that a movement at all, or a brand created by the press. It gets very difficult to sift out the propaganda. Commercial radio and the charts is for people who don't like music that much anyway, how else can you explain Westlife having more number ones than the Rolling Stones.  Wehn it comes down to it, some of the land mark albums of the past weren't commercial hits at the time. Such as Love - forever changes, or th velvet underground. Its only in hindsight that we can see the quality of these albums.

But we live in a completely different age to the ones that have musically reinvented themselves. These days there are so many different strands and sub cultures of alternative and mainstream, I think there's way too much room for things to just stagnate and rot away. Because there are so many sub cultures of music these days, I can only really imagine 'musical revolution' happening within individual strands; because of the variety available there's no way for a particular kind of music to cause a positive reaction.

So yes, in one sense it's good that the media can't (though they try hard, still) dictate peoples exposure to music to the same degree, it does mean that the way music will reinvent itself is now kind of vague and unsure. It hasn't really happened yet, has it? I mean not since this digital age really kicked off, anyway.   

thugler

I say, don't worry about it and discover all the old music you've missed. Far more rewarding.

djtrees

What is extremely infuriating, and has been since I was 16-17 (which is a shitting long time ago) is the fact that it is the same tired, bland, uninspiring piffle that gets bigged up. If you are slightly askew/awkward/weird/not in synch with everyone sodding else at the time, yes you can have a place at the table of "indie music" but only as a bit part player. A one hit wonder type of thing.

The massive lists of bands that have been massively listed above are mainly great in my ears, but to "indie kids" and the cockheads at yer NME they are like a weird gatecrasher to the blandest party on earth. These bands crop up all the time, make a strange racket, get a little bit of acceptance because they are "y'know dead crazy." After a while however, your innovative interesting music monger gets piss bored of being patted on the head by a patronising cunt with a shite haircut and goes off and makes more "weird shit."

Which is how I like it, kind of. It would be good if odd, non-jingly jangly, noisy weird shit could be as accepted by the mainstream, as easily as The frigging Wombats, but I'm sure that if this were the case many people would seek out even more obscure stuff. Not in a indie snob kid of way, but simply as music fans, I think it is much more appealing to try and fine something that will make other people go WOW!! Unfortunately the people that should be doing that, as in the people who have jobs trying to turn people on to new music, are more concerned with advertising the same old same old so that they don't scare off their precious readership(closely followed by their even more precious advertising)

Anyway as others have said there are loads of fucking great bands out there doing marvellous stuff, here is my list of some of them....

a.P.A.t.T.
Gay Vs You
Kling Klang
Quack Quack
Action Beat
Stignoise! :)
Lovecraft
Big Joan
Hunting Lodge
Agaskodo Teliverik
+ Loads and loads and loads more.

Cack Hen

Quote from: thugler on January 08, 2008, 12:28:45 AM
I say, don't worry about it and discover all the old music you've missed. Far more rewarding.

Erm, that isn't the point.

Besides, new music is important. Old music, as great as it can be, is dead. It's happened.

And it's not about wanting to be a part of a vapid scene, it's about experiencing culture in real time. Culture that belongs to you. 

Mindbear

Quote from: The Boston Crab on January 07, 2008, 10:36:41 PM
I find that everyone everywhere is so fucking pleased with themselves these days because there's a shitload of media to suit absolutely everyone. Leading off from the counter-culture comedy thread, I'd say that there is no counter-cultural music scene any more. Everybody under 30 is so media-savvy they just choose whatever is marketed directly at them. It's virtually impossible to dissociate music from image, concept, context, fan circles. I think this is the reason that some people (like many on here, no doubt) hate it when their favourite band/performer/producer supercedes a certain level of success which leads to the inevitable influx of bandwagon-jumping fuckmuggers bounding in with haircuts aplenty until the next thing smells like it might get big.

Case in point: Ed Banger records. Having been all over all French house music since about 1996 and witnessing the scene finally die with a whimper around 2001, I was quite excited to hear about Pedro Winter's new project with a bunch of up-and-coming talent. I heard Justice's Simian remix and thought 'hmm, old-school French house bassline, massive Daft Punk compression and...something else...' so I was pretty happy when it got relased through Ed Banger, and along with SebastiAn's grinding slo-mo distorted industrial 'Smoking Kills' EP, I thought it might herald a renaissance. There followed a good few years of awesome new-wave electro with the 90s French house production standards being adapted by a newer breed of more rave/techno/electronica/hip-hop influenced guys. During this time Justice and SebastiAn put out some fucking devastating remixes, alongside the likes of Feadz, Krazy Baldhead, Mr Flash and DJ Mehdi producing some very fresh stuff, culminating in Justice's devastating Waters of Nazareth. It sounded like a metal band playing Da Funk. Astonishing record, admittedly borrowing liberally from the sonic innovations that SebastiAn had made. Still, they were the 'new Daft Punk', nobody would say a bad word about them.

Around this time, x numbers of absolute bell-ends got onto them, they became the mp3 blog group du jour, the Ed Banger crew started putting out more T-shirts than records and looking incredibly pleased with themselves and their enormous coke habits. Most of the artists stopped producing anything, the ones who did took to completely ripping off SebastiAn/Justice. They toured constantly to sell T-shirts and half-arsed compilations and enlisted the help of Uffie, Feadz' girlfriend (!), to do some of the shittest raps you've ever heard in your life. You must need a coke habit as long as Inspector Gadget's mechanical cock to see the musical merit in anything she's put out. Anyway, Justice smelled the big time and watered down their sound completely to the point where they even re-recorded a Waters of Nazareth-lite for the album proper, which they backed up with sub-Discovery plinky-plonky synth plodders. Perfect for adverts though...Ed Banger is artistically dead and never more popular.

I honestly don't know how SebastiAn continues to fly the flag so well, constantly evolving his sound over the last four years or so, piggybacked by a load of cunts. I vaguely appreciated the more 'reflective' tracks on the Steak soundtrack he did with Mr. Oizo and Sebastien Tellier but if he goes the Match of the Day/car advert route like Justice, I will be more disappointed than I was by Human After All. I just hope these indie-not-indie cunts don't suck him dry.

I have to disagree about Uffie, she's a dickhead, but I really enjoy what she does....well no, I don't, I enjoy what Feadz an Oizo do with her. Oh, and don't for Oizo's most recent stuff, it's fucking outstanding, and I totally agree with what you say about Justice et al, I have found the amount of gigs they've been doing ridiculous, they're spread so thinly now it's hard to get at all excited by them. I've gone back to just looking forward to seeing a new Soulwax remix, those boys never fail.

SebastiAn is great, yes, but if I'm honest, his output isn't enough for me to form an opinion on him in relation to all the other acts mentioned. I think I only became aware of him when he put out smoking kills, which is stunning.

Basically, regarding that scene, don't forget that a lot of shit bands have sprung up, like Does It Offend You Yeah?, and the more shit bands, the more diluted the scene becomes. My boss had another club called Our Disco which brought over all the Ed Banger lot before anyone gave a shit, but three plus years later, his club died because there's nothing special about going to see justice guest dj anywhere, they're everywhere, and nearly every club around is pumping out substandard electro mixed with the same five records that everyone is playing. Modular are responsible for a lot of shit music, I really don't like Modular, despite NYPC.

alan nagsworth

It's a constant fatty-feeding rally.

Technology allows different ways to access music because CDs are apparently not cool any more. > Kids want to be cool. > Kids get onto iTunes and download the hippest looking artist to look hip on the screen of their hip new iPod. > Technology realises it's onto something big. Cue more endless promotion of the same bands. Squeaky clean pop music = culture. Pete Doherty wearing a shirt with a fag burn and a jizz stain on it = counter-culture. > Ver kidz are rebelling with their sexy technology and sexier lead singers. Do not realise that they're having a mid-life crisis at the age of 15. > NME realises it can make a killing by featuring a healthy mix of mainstream rock bands and soon-to-be-destroyed-by-the-mainstream rock, and hyping them all to death, because you can't fail when you do that. > Indie hipsters love the NME.

And on and on and on.

Love the 'mid-life crisis at 15' comment.

To go back to Mindbear and EdRec, yep, I didn't mention Oizo because he's always done his own thing and existed outside of any norms and standards. I'm actually very happy he's done some stuff on the label and done some shows with them because he annihilates virtually everyone else and shows them up for the musical charlatans they've become. I suppose he's only really there because they've given him the chance to put his music out with some serious promotional clout behind it, without daring to tamper with what he does.

As for SebastiAn, the Smoking Kills EP was actually '04, Ross Ross Ross EP eventually came out this year. He's done one track for an EdRec 7", 'H.A.L.' which is pretty basic stuff but a stylistic experiment at least. He also did 'Greel' for the EdRecVol2 compilation which I think is a little bit lazy for him and probably rushed out for the comp but still pretty devastating when you're in the right mood. So, eight tracks in three years...however, he's done about fifteen or twenty bloody brilliant remixes in that time. Worth hearing every single one.

Little Hoover

Quote from: Delete Delete Delete on January 07, 2008, 10:43:26 PM


May I add


There is a lot of interesting music out there at the moment, as long as you turn off T4 and radio 1 and stay away from the scene kids. It happened with Nu metal, it happened to brit pop. Its a certain style becomes flavor of the month, is then copied and stripped of all the originality and meaning.  You can hear the energy in the strokes or the libertines, but it has been blurred out by copy cat bands, made up of scenesters that don't get what made it good in the first place. I prefer to forget about labels and time frames and just simple divide things into music I like and music I don't. Because the best music is normally the music that crosses genres, experiments and comes up with a sound of its self. Just ignore the advertising of band brands and the play list brainwashing that goes on, and enjoy the hunt of finding something for yourself, and the fun of telling somebody about it.

Well yes at the same time, this current music scene has been going on far too long, britpop and nu-metal didn't, and they at least have more of their own unique flavour, there's something slightly laughable about Linkin Park, whereas with the whole current wave of garage rock, it's just so bland, I could fall asleep to it, as awful as nu-metal is, it's sort of a bit more noticeable.

And while you know I kind of like seeking out alternative music, and wouldn't really want it to be the biggest thing in the mainstream, christ it could have been a little easier to seek out couldn't it, for far too long I had a really old dying computer with no sound, so I couldn't seek out new music, and just sort of gave up for a while, once you can start discovering new stuff it's just quite a daunting task, and it really pissed me off when I realise "Ok there are literally hundreds of bands out there that I'd really like, many of them have been going, why the fuck have I never heard of them"
I only recently found out about broken social scene, and they seem to be a huge collective the members of which all seem to have side projects either as solo artists with other bands, some of them with people involved with groups from costellation records, there's about 20 different groups, (often with a lot of albums out all together, I want to hear all of them, but it's going to take an incredible amount of time discovering them, and giving them multiple listens to gauge a fair opinion on them and their only a small portion of what I want to discover, if mainstream music channels and radio gave just a little bit more exposure to these bands, I could have been discovering all this stuff at a reasonable pace. I mean there's quite a few that are on the fringes of the mainstream, but most of them get no exposure at all, I'm seeing on last.fm that a lot of these obscure bands I like do make music video's, but it's just the internet is the only place to see them, even mtv 2 at 2am ignores them.

drberbatov

Quote from: Mindbear on January 07, 2008, 08:09:58 PM
I think Fugazi were meant in ethics, as opposed to jangley guitars...I could be wrong though.

yes sorry I didn't make that too clear. I think ethics is important in trying to define 'indie'. However the 'indie' label as we have established appears to apply to the endless stream of post nu-metal guitar bands that float around the pages of popular music magazines, get talked about on Jo Whiley/radio1/fhm and feature a few videos on MTV2.

You have to also wonder about the conflict between musicians as careerists or artists. Not everybody has the talent to release ground breaking material, so many seem to compromise themselves in favour of easy money. I wonder just how many bands are in it for the money and that after each performance of their 'hit song' they are thinking "Please kill me". There are a number of bands who work the toilet venues adopting their sound each year to fit what's currently 'in'. Are we placing too much importance on music as an art, should it be disposable?

Cack Hen

Quote from: nagsworth on January 08, 2008, 05:19:56 AM
Technology allows different ways to access music because CDs are apparently not cool any more.

Yes, could be that. Could be that it's much, much more cost efficient to distribute digitally. Owning physical copies of music isn't uncool; if anything it's "cooler" than it was. Vinyl revival etc. 

QuoteKids want to be cool.

Surely not.

QuoteKids get onto iTunes and download the hippest looking artist to look hip on the screen of their hip new iPod.

No. They don't. They download their (sometimes awful) 'hip' music because they like it, and they put it on their 'hip' iPods because their 'hip' iPods store lots of music they enjoy listening to. Ps. not every kids owns an iPod.


QuoteTechnology realises it's onto something big. Cue more endless promotion of the same bands. Squeaky clean pop music = culture.

I'm not even sure what point you're trying to make here, but yes, squeaky clean pop music does = culture.

QuotePete Doherty wearing a shirt with a fag burn and a jizz stain on it = counter-culture.

Give me an example anybody heralding Pete Doherty as an important, controversial, cultural figure as a result of tabloids chasing his car and taking photos of him. Nobody cares.

But you know what people do care about? Pete Doherty's music. 

QuoteVer kidz are rebelling with their sexy technology and sexier lead singers.

Nobody's rebelling. It's sold to us as rebellion, but nobody buys that. Not really.


QuoteNME realises it can make a killing by featuring a healthy mix of mainstream rock bands and soon-to-be-destroyed-by-the-mainstream rock, and hyping them all to death, because you can't fail when you do that. > Indie hipsters love the NME.

Firstly, nobody gives a shit about the NME. It's long dead. Pitchfork has much more influence (they're not perfect, but they're a damn site better than NME) Also, phrases like "indie hipsters" are really pathetic. Every time I see it used, it's always for somebody to get on their soap box and make some blind, false generalisation.


I'm not saying you're completely wrong, but you're not saying anything everybody already knows; even the people you claim to be blinded by the media lights know.

Cack Hen

Quote from: drberbatov on January 08, 2008, 11:29:54 AM
Are we placing too much importance on music as an art, should it be disposable?

Why shouldn't art be disposable?

Anytime I see someone mention 'soapboxes' though, I'm angry that they couldn't think of a better point to undermine something they disagree with.

Are you saying that the concept of an 'indie hipster' is false? Everybody posting in this thread, like it or not, is setting out their stall as outside-the-box, better than the ignorants, me included. Even just saying something as mind-numbingly facile as 'just enjoy the music you like and forget about the peripherals' is defining yourself as 'outside the alternative mainstream'!

If you're very passionate about music, you're going to be a twat about it sometimes. Accept that. All those nights when you bored some poor sod about your latest fad? That's you being a music twat, that's what happens when you're passionate about something. Occasionally someone will have something interesting to say to you in response. Likewise, listening to Klaxons because you enjoy being part of the scene is a twat thing to do but so what? The music is only a part of that overall experience. It's impossible to separate music from context. Get used to twats and being a twat over what you love.

CaledonianGonzo

Quote from: Cack Hen on January 08, 2008, 11:57:41 AM
Firstly, nobody gives a shit about the NME. It's long dead. Pitchfork has much more influence (they're not perfect, but they're a damn site better than NME)

I'm not sure about it being completely dead - I think in the UK it still has a large (albeit slightly negative) influence.  Certainly, its power has diminished from 10-12 years ago, when (along with a few other niche magazines and radio progs like Peel & Lamacq) it was one of the few places to hear about new music, but that's not to say its completely obsolete.  An NME-hyped band like The Wombats or The Pigeon Detectives is automatically on the fast track, and I think it probably still holds sway in a lot of 'young people's' (christ, listen to me) hearts and minds - albeit, out of proportion to what are probably low-ish sales.  

For example, the NME will pretty much drive the playlist of things like T4 and the Evening Session, and will also clue the tabloids into bands like the Kaiser Chiefs that are sufficiently mainstream enough to 'cross over' to the general market.

Comparatively, in the UK at least, hype from places like Pitchfork and Stereogum has less of an effect.  Sure, it introduces acts like, say Okkervil River to a small (though maybe more discerning) audience, but in terms of impact on the mainstream/commercial popularity of these bands, it has very little effect.  Otherwise Jens Lekman would be bigger than The View.

Pitchfork's record of the year was Panda Bear's Person Pitch.  Quite right - it's great.  On the other hand, the NME's end of year lists were uniformly depressing affairs, full of Klaxons and Kate Nash.  And it seems that, for now, it is the latter opinion that holds most sway with the UK public.

CaledonianGonzo

Quote from: The Boston Crab on January 08, 2008, 12:16:42 PM
Everybody posting in this thread, like it or not, is setting out their stall as outside-the-box, better than the ignorants, me included.

Quote from: Me on January 08, 2008, 12:29:21 PM
a small (though maybe more discerning) audience

Yup!

Famous Mortimer

I remember when they used to print the indie chart in Melody Maker and Erasure were there or thereabouts whenever they had something out, being on...Mute? Food? Whatever label they were on. I liked that.

QuoteEverybody posting in this thread, like it or not, is setting out their stall as outside-the-box, better than the ignorants, me included.
Not really. I'm not saying people who like Pigeon Detectives (to pluck a name out of the air) are stupid, and I understand the huge weight of the mainstream media. I don't think I'm any better than a person who likes pop music, it's not why I listen to music. I reserve the right to call their taste in music rubbish, of course.

thugler

Quote from: Cack Hen on January 08, 2008, 12:44:18 AM
Erm, that isn't the point.

Besides, new music is important. Old music, as great as it can be, is dead. It's happened.

And it's not about wanting to be a part of a vapid scene, it's about experiencing culture in real time. Culture that belongs to you. 

New music is important, but not just because it's new. Old music can be just as relevant, and is often vastly better than all the bands everyone in here is complaining about. I don't always feel connected to new music purely because it's written now and therefore about now. Personally I'm quite happy to miss out on a bit of current indie nonsense so that I can discover a wealth of music that is completely new to me and utterly brilliant. That doesn't seem dead to me. Personally I hate the way the radio/tv is constantly trying to promote and go on about new music, when all the new bands they plug aren't new in the slightest musically.