The fact that my musical taste is so diverse, including the above, and a wide variety of other stuff from a wide range of genres and styles, is why I particularly represent the vocalised or unvocalised conceit that my love of metal and gothic music is either some sort of teenage infatuation, or something I deliberately impose on myself in order to fit into a certain cultural stereotype.
Did you mean
resent? I think you think you might have.
I'm not sure why you are concerned with people judging you or your musical tastes. Certainly
no one who matters in this forum community takes the position that your appreciation of either metal or goth/industrial is either a teenage infatuation or a role that you are playing self-consciously. Perhaps this is something that occurs when you make people aware of your musical preferences in the
real world?
Also, as I have pointed out at great length in past threads, the terms "indie rock" and "indie pop" are useful only as
commercial signifiers, but useless is specifying
the actual sound of music. The only thing that Liars, Architecture in Helsinki, Mogwai, Spoon, Animal Collective, and Sleater-Kinney (all generally considered to fall within the "indie" rubric) have in common, is that none of them sound much like anything on the Top 20 (at least in the States). If the signifier is useless, as I think you've acknowledged, then
cease using the signifier.
And what would you say was the dominant cultural norm? Rap is one of the most insanely post-modern genres ever (Many songs are extremely self-referential, they sample from other works, they reference other songs and artists, and so forth) and I would say its influence has pervaded mainstream pop almost utterly. Rock, meanwhile, especially 'indie' rock, is entirely self-knowing and often amounts to the musical equivalent of a smirk. I can count the number of rock bands doing something individual or original in anything approaching the mainstream on a legless persons toes. Certainly, I wouldn't call much in the mainstream modernist or absurdist, which are two of my personal faves.
I can't agree with most of this. Rap is self-referential, yes, but never have I heard self-reference to be the basis for calling music "post-modern". Music has been self-referential (e.g. people having been singing about themselves and their songs) for thousands of years. Bach's music, to take one wordless example, is
strongly self-referential since many of his compositions reference, within the same piece, his colleague's music, his past pieces, and the
piece itself. Is Bach a postmodern composer? If so, the term loses all meaning.
More confusing, though, is your statement that rock, especially "indie" rock is entirely self-knowing. Perhaps you can explain what you mean about this. Ignoring for the moment that you are using the useless "indie" signifier again, I wonder: Do Sleater-Kinney, Sufjan Stevens, and Explosions in the Sky all sound like they are smirking to you? They all sounded pretty sincere to me. Am I missing something?
I think you are asking the wrong questions when you query what the dominant cultural norm is. These bands really have little to do with each other on an ideological level other than (at least for the good ones) wanting to have fun, and rock out. Some of them are feminist, Christian, atheist, liberal, communist, anarchist, ironic, hippy. . .the list is endless. I'd be hesistant to paint them with the same brush.
