THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => BAND => Topic started by: schimmy on 28 Dec 2006, 20:24
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I wrote this article today, and thought that the people here may find it interesting. Feel free to comment critically or in response to the text.
Listening to any form of music that is alternative to the norm will always hold a level of social stigma; who among us has never told somebody they listen to indie, hip-hop, pop, metal, nu metal, r'n'b, or any other form of music, and not been thought strange, or often even mocked? And again, who among us hasn't done the same to somebody else, at least once? People seem determined to stick to stereotypes as best they can, a chav will without doubt listen to some for of hip-hop or rhythm n bass, and they will hate all of "that head-banging stuff." Skaters will listen to pop-punk acts such as Sum 41 and whatever Blink 182 are calling themselves this week, all the while hating and being hated by punks who hate everything that isn't a man shouting along to some guitars being smashed, on the grounds that everything else is pop and recorded by sell-outs.
And where do we stand, the indie crowd? Who hates us? Who do we hate?
The answer is, at first glance, that everyone hates us. There is nobody in the mainstream or in any other subculture that gives a fuck about the latest Malkmus or Broken Social Scene record. But why? The answer is surely because our numbers are too few. We are not out there in the street, and in the school, wearing easily identifiable clothes and band t-shirts, and as a result, few people hear about our music, and even fewer see indie as a scene of large enough numbers to associate with, so they find one of the various other scenes to align themselves with.
Who do we hate then? Well, we are the most irritating punks in everything but musical taste - we will often mock everything that is mainstream, for being sell-outs, all the while claiming that indie bands are musically and lyrically superior, but have we ever actually paid enough attention to bands such as My Chemical Romance to justify mocking them? It turns out that no, we have listened to them maybe once on the radio, and automatically we have made the connection between mainstream and shit in our head. This is unfair, take indie stars the Weakerthans for example, they are, pretty much identical to Blink 182 musically and lyrically (with the notable exception that they use slightly bigger words occasionally) but we still love them and hate Blink 182. The reason for this, sadly, is because we are hipsters. We hate the mainstream, regardless of quality, simple as that.
By now, you're probably wondering what all of this has to do with indie being an integral partner to pop, aren't you? It appears that I have shown what we all know, that indie and pop are stubborn siblings, refusing to get along despite obvious similarities.
However, all this talk of subcultures, and the classifying of people and bands into these subcultures has missed out one group of people; the people who manage to avoid all subcultures by listening to all music, regardless of popularity or who else listens to it. It is these people who play an important part in the pop music scene, but are hated by the indie scene because of being mainstream.
To explain this, I will have to backtrack slightly, however. Music is an art form. There is no debate on this subject, everybody agrees that music is art. But music has an odd characteristic that art as a whole does not have; people are not free to enjoy what they like, and pick and mix between various different forms of music, instead, they choose, or are forced into, a subculture that dictates their tastes. On the whole, though, every other form of art, from television, through film, to painting and architecture, allows people to pick and mix. In film, there's no comedy scene that derides romantic comedies for being too mainstream. There's no impressionist scene that hates post-modernism.
Indie is impossible to define, most of it isn't on independent labels, and there is little musical similarities between the bands. It could, however, be seen as the cutting edge of music. Indie acts are out there rebelling against the boundaries of what music can be. Before the Decemberists, sea shanties were reserved for films about whaling, but now, - for people who listen to indie, at least - we know they're fun to listen to and are pretty much unabashed awesomeness if done well.
And this is where indie's partnership with pop is revealed. Remember those people I mentioned earlier, the ones who listen to all forms of music? This is where they come into play. They listen to the Decemberists, and they have bands of their own, and they're going to make the sea shanties less extreme, and thus viable for sale to a mainstream market. This sort of thing is going to happen with a lot of indie bands, they will do something to often ridiculous extremes, then somebody will come and water it down, and repackage it for the mainstream market. And that is why indie is an integral partner to pop, it's there providing the inspiration for the pop acts of tommorow.
Whether you like it or not, the indie bands you listen to today are going to have been copied and devalued in the next decade. But then, indie will be on to something new and exciting by then, won't it?
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"Our numbers are too few" hasn't been true in ages. Indie is becoming the new pop, and it's not happening slowly. Just because indie people are not easily recognized doesn't mean they're not there.
Also, indie people generally hate a social group that is often referred to as "emos" (but Tommy will kill you if you refer to them that way).
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True hipsters hate anything that isn't on a rare '78 with a sleeve designed by Yoko Ono before she got famous they bought in a Salvation Army store.
Also, you are admitting to creating pop EWWWWW.
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THIS THREAD IS MADE OF FAIL
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That's why you should call them de-pop. Everything will work better that way.
I've almost no close connection to the indie scene, so I can't really apply any of that article to my own existence, but IMO it was a pretty well written article...so, yeah...there you go.
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There's no impressionist scene that hates post-modernism.
stuckism? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuckism) well, maybe not quite, but it's as close as you'll probably get.
well-written article, but i don't really think i much agree with the sentiments in it at all.
if pop and indie are siblings, they're not stubborn. they're in bed with each other.
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I think if you want to examine indie's sonic and aesthetic relationship with pop, you need to look at how the indie critical community has begun to connect the dots there and how their definition of "pop" has become far broader.
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Tommy, I think by pop he means top 40.
I have two questions though.
I like pop music. Does the indie crowd hate me?
What the fuck is a chav?
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Go figure.
I've completely misinterpreted this entire exchange. First I thought the original poster was using the Decemberists as an example of independent music influencing the indie scene (KRS versus Capital). Then I thought when you said the Decemberists were pop you were using pop to describe what kind of music they play (because just like every band mentioned in this thread they play pop). When I use the word "pop" I include just about everything but jazz, classical, folk and noise. And then I completely underestimated how well the Crane Wife had done.
This is a why it sucks to have conversations about words that don't mean anything.
Wittgenstein would call this thread nonsense.
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What the fuck is a chav?
An English term meaning a young ne'er-do-well.
Scots use the term 'Ned' instead which allegedly stands for 'Non-Educated Delinquent'.
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I don't know what "indie" or "pop" mean anymore but rest assured, fuck you.
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I don't know what "indie" or "pop" mean anymore but rest assured, fuck you.
Best post so far.
And I think most genres believe that most other genres dislike them.
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I agree.
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The article seemed to pretty much touch on every subject that didn't really need to be written about. Everything seemed a little implied and common knowledge, except the main point I really just don't agree with. Pretty much every kid I know wants to prove they're cool by listening to Broken Social Scene, and I hear them in bars and occasionally on TV (along with some other bands that I thought I would never hear, i.e. M. Ward on a Zune commercial).
When bands like Man Man are playing venues that are about 700+ capacity, I don't really see it as a sign that "few people hear about 'our' music".
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Enjoyable lil' essay I think.
Echoing an above post, I think that most of these genres and their attached subcultures come prepackaged with an angsty stigma about "everyone hates us/me."
That's why I say fuck all labels and all groups and any other such social dividers unless they're somehow necessary (can't think of a specific one that is..).
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There are only two 'genres' as far as I am concerned.
CRAP and NOT CRAP.
I was wrong. Not every genre has its goods and its bads.
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There are only two 'genres' as far as I am concerned.
CRAP and NOT CRAP.
I disagree! I feel that there is a nessecity to split up those two genres in order to be able to more closely define styles of music!
For example. Not Crap when stoned, but crap sober. Not Crap when making it with a woman, but crap when desperatly alone. Not Crap when swinging from the roof of a house on a rope with a knife between your teeth, but Crap when not Swashbuckling.
How the fuck are we going to understand anything if we don't complicate it to a ridiculous degree?!?!
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There are only two 'genres' as far as I am concerned.
CRAP and NOT CRAP.
How the fuck are we going to understand anything if we don't complicate it to a ridiculous degree?!?!
My sentiments exactly!
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Not Crap when stoned, but crap sober.
Not Crap when making it with a woman, but crap when desperatly alone.
Not Crap when swinging from the roof of a house on a rope with a knife between your teeth, but Crap when not Swashbuckling.
In each of those examples, you can probably find music that is Not Crap in both, and the first one should really not even be a category.
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You're simplifying things Johnny.
Why are you making things easier for yourself?!?
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Who hates us? Who do we hate?
It's "Whom do we hate?" - now you tell me who hates me.
The whole CRAP vs NOT CRAP division sounds good in theory, but do you really think that genres have no use at all? I'm sure, for example, that there's lots of tremendously good hip hop music out there, that belongs in the NOT CRAP category, yet I have zero interest in it. So I can't even say "I like NOT CRAP" (or, lets face it, even "I don't like CRAP") - what am I left with here?
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I like genres, they are useful and they don't in and of themselves, do anything wrong. Sure, there's some people who will only listen to one genre, but who cares about them? They're closed-minded and their musical opinions are pretty much something you should ignore - if someone only listens to metal, and swears off anything that isn't metal, then how good a judge of quality music can they possibly be, if they think metal is the only good genre?
I like genres because they're useful describing the sound of a band without the other person having to have extensive knowledge of music. Saying "Stephen Malkmus is often similar to early Bowie" is useless if the person hasn't heard early Bowie. That's where you use genres, I'd say that Malkmus has a strong rock and roll thing going.
Regarding the use of CRAP / NOT CRAP as genres - this is, as far as I see, useless. Everyone has a different taste in music, and opinions on bands, so what bands fit into CRAP and which fit into NOT CRAP would shift from person to person. And, anyway, if you're only going to listen to the NOT CRAP bands, then you're one of the closed-minded arseholes who listen to only one genre. You don't want to be that guy, do you?
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This is unfair, take indie stars the Weakerthans for example, they are, pretty much identical to Blink 182 musically and lyrically (with the notable exception that they use slightly bigger words occasionally) but we still love them and hate Blink 182.
(p.s. this is not a great comparison for a number of reasons - i see the point you're making but a fan of either band could probably point out a vast gulf that separates the two. the only real similarities are electric guitars and fast tempos sometimes.)
Anyways, I think part of the thing is that everyone who listens to indie goes through this phase where they think, "The mainstream is against us." And then the phase comes where they think, "There's really actually good things in the mainstream? Why hate the mainstream?" The next thing you know, you can appreciate songs you hear on the radio because - gasp! - occasionally good bands or artists get airplay and record deals. Any phobia of success is really quite silly.
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That fear is legitimate but at the same time is akin to cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.
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There's no impressionist scene that hates post-modernism.
stuckism? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuckism) well, maybe not quite, but it's as close as you'll probably get.
well-written article, but i don't really think i much agree with the sentiments in it at all.
if pop and indie are siblings, they're not stubborn. they're in bed with each other.
I always enjoy a good reference to ZMM
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Maybe I'm just old but that article was a big wall of "What the damn?" to me.
There are plenty of "mainstream" people who are into Broken Social Scene, Arcade Fire, and other such "indie" bands. In your average college in America, I'd say probably at least 2 out of every 10 kids like some "indie rock".
Compare that to, say, 1989. Compare how many college kids own You Forgot It In People to how many owned Daydream Nation. The difference is vast.
I just really don't see any place in the world in which "indie fans" are this silent, invisible, oppressed minority, gathering together in secret cabals to fervently trade mp3s of the latest Decemberists bootleg.
If anything, "indie kids" are roughly as big a movement as - and in fact overlap with - "emo" and "scene" kids. Indie rock today is even bigger than nu-metal was in the late 90s, if only because indie rock is listened to by actual girls. Bright Eyes may not sell more records (yet), but he sells out bigger concert venues than, say, Nirvana did.
As far as "who do indie fans hate"? Fuck if I know, but I sure hate them. I'm of the "good music vs. bad music" camp. I could give two fucks about the artistic credibility of Mike Skinner or Annie, I like both roughly as much as I like Ghost or Xiu Xiu. And I see no contradiction there whatsoever.
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Was this article written for a junior-high newspaper?