"It's embarrassingly easy to do what they do." douche
it is, though, and that's the problem; they're content to just
do it rather than slap any craftsmanship into it. there doesn't seem to be a lot of pride in doing anything except stuff that "sounds cool" and the problem is with stuff that "sounds cool" is that unless you have an idea of something that you want to
do with it, it almost inevitably turns out terminally boring (viz. also dozens of acts making post-rock, prog, ambient, psych, noise, etc.). i mean to convey here that they really haven't thought about why it sounds cool, or what it might do once it sounds cool, they just smacked a few keys and buttons and then left it at that.
and it is, in fact, embarrassingly easy to have done this; anyone in a band or anyone who does music writing has probably known someone who does this and has had to listen to their output while wearing a like really polite grin that feels internally like it's going to turn into a cringe any second. and pretending that it's not easy to do that ("that" being play around with a pedal or a knob or a key or what have you) is a serious disservice to those people. what all half-decent artists have to learn, one way or the other, is that once you know what sounds cool, you have to make it do something, otherwise your work is going to come out totally half-baked and turgid.
there's plenty of shit that's out there that hinges on stuff that sounds cool but it puts those sounds, usually, in some kind of stylistic context, elevating both the cool sounds and the style itself by effectively and cleverly synthesizing things. easy, salem-relevant example: dj screw figured out that slowed-down shit sounds really cool, so he started doing it as remixes to songs, making them hit lower and harder, but also occasionally changing the tone of the song, making it menacing or airy or playful or just flat-out weird depending on what he wanted to do with it; rappers took the screwed aesthetic and then applied it to normal-ass, structured and crafted rap songs, taking a genre whose audience was familiar with its tropes and reinventing those tropes in a clever and interesting new way. this wouldn't be the reason why they brought screwed aesthetics into their songs, mind you, if you were to ask them: most likely they'd say they did it because it "sounded cool." but that, fundamentally, is why it
worked. or the reason waka outstrips salem by a wide mile, for example, is that waka isn't exactly much of a lyricist either but he has an extraordinary knack for tossing a club hook or several into a song and transforming it into an anthem. even not-great lyrics can work well in a context, and salem crucially don't really get
why not-great lyrics can work well.
so yeah okay my point is that they do the stuff they do because they think it sounds cool, but i'm personally sick of hearing that as an excuse or a rationalization for someone's shitty half-formed audio farts being foisted on an unsuspecting world, and i get the feeling weingarten does too. i don't hate salem because they're kind of awful – they are, but i don't hate every awful band that comes along. i hate salem because they ex- and implicitly use not caring as defense for releasing shitty music. that's a hell of a low thing to do. and that's not even playing to the race card, which like i think the "sounds cool" thing is again being used as a kind of apathetic defense for not actually thinking about what you're doing.
fuck apathy forever basically, be earnest or die shitting
