The Trouble With Indie Rock

[beetsnotbeats]

It's not just race. It's class.
 
 By Carl Wilson
 Posted Thursday, Oct. 18, 2007, at 5:53 PM ET
 
 New Yorker pop critic Sasha Frere-Jones has often indicated boredom and annoyance with a lot of the critically acclaimed, music-blog, and/or NPR-approved "indie rock" of this decade. This week, in an article, a couple of blog entries, and a podcast, he tries to articulate why. His answer? It's not black enough; it lacks "swing, some empty space and palpable bass frequencies"; it doesn't participate lustily in the grand (and problematic) tradition of musical "miscegenation" that's given American music, especially rock 'n' roll, its kick.
 
 To give bite to the accusation, Frere-Jones names a few names, beginning with the Arcade Fire and adding Wilco, the Fiery Furnaces, the Decemberists, the Shins, Sufjan Stevens, Grizzly Bear, Panda Bear, and Devendra Banhart, plus indie-heroes past, Pavement. He contrasts them with the likes of the Clash, Elvis, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Public Image Ltd., Bob Dylan, the Minutemen, Nirvana, and even Grand Funk Railroad as examples of willful, gleeful, racial-sound-barrier-breaching white rockers of yore.
 
 As indicated in his pre-emptive blog post, the piece is a provocation, as is Frere-Jones's M.O., and that is welcome at a time when musical discussion revolves numbingly around which digital-distribution method can be most effectively "monetized." (Current champ: Radiohead.) But many commentators have pointed out his article's basic problems of consistency and accuracy: Frere-Jones' story is that the rise of Pavement as role models and Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg as rivals in the 1990s marked a quick indie retreat from bluesiness and danceability. Yet the conscious and iconoclastic excision of blues-rock from "underground" rock goes back to the '70s and '80s origins of American punk and especially hardcore, from which indie complicatedly evolved.
 
 ....
 
 Decent article; worth reading the whole thing.
 
 Months ago, someone in an Arcade Fire thread denied any Bruce Springsteen influence in their music. I bet him $50 that Springsteen digs Arcade Fire. A YouTube link in the article above shows that  it's time for him to pay up.

[IMAmoose24]

Hope you get your money.  

[Relaxer]

Why are hipsters so bad at karate?
 
 Because they can't move past the white belt.

[RustyOrgan]

This guy reminds me why i don't write about music anymore - and had
 little desire to do so originally. This academic analysis turns the
 visceral pleasure of experiencing music into a turgid college essay
 assignment. Writing about music as opposed to listening / enjoying it
 is lot like writing about sex as opposed to actually having it.
 That being said, i pretty much agree with Wilson's critique of
 Frere-Jones (what an OBNOXIOUS name!) - i guess that's why i prefer
 older bands to all this boring top-40 indie pop, 'freak folk' and
 intentionally 'difficult' bands who are all the rage.

[Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer]

Who on this board will admit to being a "hipster"?
 
 Isn't that the equivalent of asking "who is going to the Jens Lekman show?"

[nkotb]

You're probably right on.  I'm not too ashamed to think I may be hipster-esque, just like I'm not really ashamed to be a yuppie.  Whatever, you know?
 
 What's so wrong to being hip to new music?  To be, the real dagger is scenester, where you're there to be seen.
 
 

Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes,Japanese Golfer:
  Who on this board will admit to being a "hipster"?
 
 Isn't that the equivalent of asking "who is going to the Jens Lekman show?"

[sonickteam2]

i dont even know who Lens Jekman is, btw.
 
 which i suppose would exclude me from being a hipster.
 
 nor do i have a nice enough job/car/house to really call myself a yuppie.
 
  i dont know what i am!

[Bombay Chutney]

Originally posted by RustyOrgan:
  This academic analysis turns the visceral pleasure of experiencing music into a turgid college essay assignment.

Less talk.  More rock.

[kookiemnstr8]

Originally posted by Charlie Nakatestes,Japanese Golfer:
  Who on this board will admit to being a "hipster"?
 
 Isn't that the equivalent of asking "who is going to the Jens Lekman show?"

number one sign that you are a hipster: denying that you're a hipster.

[Charlie Nakatestes, Japanese Golfer]

a canadian baltimoron    
 
   

Originally posted by le sonick:
  i dont even know who Lens Jekman is, btw.
 
 which i suppose would exclude me from being a hipster.
 
 nor do i have a nice enough job/car/house to really call myself a yuppie.
 
  i dont know what i am!