My pal Meg sent this card to me the other day, and I saved it because I’ve been feeling this exact way for a while now. I’ve been meaning to write a post that attempts to articulate all the reasons I’m bored with today’s music. Or rather, why it takes a damn miracle for me to like anything new that comes out. Unless it’s Radiohead. Or Yo La Tengo. Or Spoon. Or Wilco. Or Sonic Youth. Or Will Oldham. Or The Flaming Lips.
What am I going to do when bands I liked in 1997 stop releasing music?
I suppose I’ll join a church and buy audio books.
I have a couple of theories as to why music sucks now / why I care less. Indeed, it’s either music sucks now OR I care less.
I’m old
In absolute terms, I’m not old at all. I’m only 33. But my passions, such as they are, have been re-directed away from music and towards things like work and home ownership. Sure, I still play in a rock band, but I haven’t written a new song in months. I don’t read the music blogs and magazines the way I used to. On Sound Check the other day, they interviewed the editor of the 2008’s Best Music Writing, and I can’t imagine anything I’d want to avoid more strenuously than reading a collection of current music criticism.
It wasn’t always this way. When I was 16, I’d skip lunch to hang out in the library and read all the rock ‘n’ roll reference books. They had a fairly handsome encyclopedia set of more than 20 volumes tracing the illustrated history of rock. I’m pretty sure I read the whole thing. I don’t read anything now, but the Allmusic Guide and Pitchfork. I’m still interested in reading about music, but I am efficient. I zip through my RSS feeds in Google Reader, I visit a few sites. I download interesting stuff from Emusic and Amazon. And there’s about four or five records a year I really get into. And one or two of those is usually Yo La Tengo or Radiohead or some other band from the 90s.
The last two paragraphs are unnecessary because it’s a cliché. People get old, and they don’t care about finding new music anymore. It just happens. They love their old time rock ‘n’ roll, and that’s it. My music tastes have fossilized, and I must accept it.
But it’s not just me, it’s them
Or maybe that’s not completely right. Again, in absolute terms I’m buying more music than I’ve ever bought in my life. I listen all day at work via Last.fm. Then I listen at home. I’m listening right now. I am trying to discover the new gold soundz. I really am. But there’s something uninspiring about most of what I’m hearing.
I’m going to pick on Okkervil River for a moment, because this week they’re symbolizing everything I think is wrong with rock music right now. Their new record, The Stand-Ins is the subject of an ambitious YouTube project in which they recruit today’s new music stars to recreate their latest record in a track-by-track series of live video performances (get it? they’re stand-ins). The list of collaborators is impressive, including A.C. Newman, Bon Iver, and Crooked Fingers.
It’s a great idea. Too bad the record being celebrated is offensively boring. Here’s the first single and video, “Lost Coastlines”.
Yeah, the melody isn’t memorable or interesting, but lets see if we can’t fix that with a pastiche of faux-rustic banjo, horns, synthesized accordian…oh, and do I detect the distant clatter of handclaps bathed in tastefully processed reverb?
But we’re still not there. Let’s have our two singers trade a few verses of painfully obvious rhymes. And don’t forget to mention marionettes and a foreign war:
And see how that light you love now just won’t shine,
there might just be another star, that’s high and far in some other sky.
We sing, is that marionette real enough yet to step off of that set to decide
what a dance might mean to it. Ruining the place where the ensuing may lay escape.
We packed up all of our bags the ship’s deck now sags from the weight of our tracks
as we pace beneath flags black and battered rattling our swords in service of some fated, foreign, war.
I don’t mean to single out Okkervil River. Most of the bands competing for your average college student’s attention are playing this sort of mannered, pseudo-literate, overproduced, sweet-voiced crap. I’m looking at you Fleet Foxes. Vampire Weekend. Band of Horses. Ra Ra Riot. Arcade Fire. And I blame the relative godfathers of modern day wimp rock who’ve graduated to major labels and Gap ads: Death Cab for Cutie and The Decemberists.
I must blame myself, too. I enjoy the hell out of Arcade Fire, as well as the first two Death Cab records. And the first two Decemberists records, and the first Band of Horses record. Hell, even the last Okkervil River LP ( The Stage Names) was kind of awesome. Except that it was basically an Arcade Fire record, which was really a Bruce Springsteen / Smiths mash-up. But enough is enough.
American indie-rock is starting to suffer the same ills that made 90s brit-pop so insufferable. They’re all trying too hard to recreate the the fame and pedigree of the same three or four bands. And they’ve never heard of the blues or punk rock.
I realize the long tail of our fragmented, niche-driven digital music market will never again allow bands as big as U2 or REM or the Talking Heads. But all I’m asking for is bands to create an identity and peculiar sound for themselves. Is there even a single band spawned in last decade that approaches the singularity of Stereolab? Camper Van Beethoven? Or Sebadoh? Sleater-Kinney? With the possible exception of Deerhoof or Modest Mouse, I haven’t heard them. Wait, no, those bands were formed in the 90s. I just got to know them in the 2000s.
Just seems like everyone wants to claim a few seconds on our iPods. No one’s worried about crafting a career or forging a coherent sound apart from their peers. All the new music is competing for a cinematic 30-second spot. And I guess they’re succeeding.
Oasis, Weezer, and Stone Temple Pilots was better than this.
I repeat myself here but I don’t feel that way at all. I find it hard to listen to the same artist over and over. I haven’t paid attention to the Flaming Lips since that little Japanese girl took on some robots. It’s boring. Rock is boring and a pretty tired format.
the singularity of Stereolab? Camper Van Beethoven? Or Sebadoh? Sleater-Kinney
I like these bands’ output but singularity? I do not know. These were all yesterday’s answer to fill-in-the-blank. Look, the kids loved Guided By Voices back then. That was a throwback played by old men in a basement who simply refused to grow and suddenly their shit smelled good again and there was a group of kids unfamiliar with all their stolen riffs who fell for them. You don’t like new rock cuz it’s not for you – you’ve seen it all before. Rock is rock you know.
Well, nothing’s completely discrete or utterly singular. But the bands I mentioned had an identity. New rock seems to lack that. But you’re right; I have to be open to other possibilities: maybe the format itself got tired long ago, and not even the bands I idolize are all that good.
Or maybe the bands today are as good as they ever were, and I’m just dead inside. Maybe Interpol and The Strokes are every bit as good as the Lips in their prime (I largely agree with you on the Lips’ later output). Maybe I just can’t hear what’s good anymore because I don’t care.
Either way, it’s bumming me out.
You seem to think that soundalike bands is a new phenomenon. It’s not. The fashion will change and then everybody will be playing music with another common influence.
You would be well served to read all the way to the end of that Wikipedia entry on long tail, where it mentions the Harvard Business School study on the phenomenon. Basically the study says that technology has made it easier for people to find niche products, but that the majority of people still aren’t interested in niche products. So people who were already buying the stuff can now do it with ease (one click, even). Whoo. That’s not really a game changer. The majority of people are still only interested in what’s popular.
There are still hugely popular acts. You’re having trouble identifying this because you have a bias towards a particular sort of music and that has blinded you to the popularity of others. It may be true that there will not be another popular band with music like U2, but there will be another band with the popularity of U2. Millions of people watch American Idol every year. It’s certainly as popular as U2 ever were, possibly more popular. Though, it may not sell as many albums, since people just don’t buy as much music as they used to when they can get it for free elsewhere.
There was a brief moment in time when music you liked was popular. Because it was popular, there was an explosion of copy bands who wanted in on the action. Some of these bands you even liked. That day has passed.
I think agree with some of that, Justin. Certainly, you’re right about popularity, but I wasn’t talking merely about popularity. Obviously Coldplay is very big, and maybe even a huge part of the problem I’m describing.
And no, I don’t think the phenomenon of soundalike bands is new. It’s a cliche I acknowledge early in my admittedly rambling piece, but I’m just now recognizing how it’s affecting the music I listen too. I think I’m really asking a question and trying to identify an answer: is it just my perception of things? Or are there other objective factors contributing to what I’m hearing?
As I said, most of my favorite bands don’t sound similar to me. For example, whatever touchstones the Pixies and Camper Van Beethoven had in common, there’s a fairly wide range of stylistic variation between them.
Also, most of the bands I love were never hugely popular. The other bands I mentioned as being “same-y” and uninventive have similar sales figures (shifting between 25 – 300k per release), but seem much more similar to each other, and similarly unimaginative, than the bands I loved 10 years ago. They also seem to be on a shorter career trajectory. I’m trying to think of a current band that’s got 5 good record in them, and I can’t (again, I’m speaking about the relatively narrow category of indie rock/pop).
But I’m very open to the idea that I’m blinded by my own preferences, and that I’m only noticing the dynamic now because there’s some distance between me and what the kids like nowadays.
Finally, I think your point about the long tail is well taken, but it only moderates what I think is still a fairly real effect.
As I said, I hear and buy much more music than I used to, and I many of the artists I listen too have sales figures below 20k. That’s possible not only because of democratized delivery systems (Amazon and eMusic, not to mention filesharing), but also because it’s much cheaper to produce high-quality recordings on a budget. The lack of barriers to entry doesn’t preclude the existence of bands like Coldplay or Foo Fighters. But it does mean they have more competitors restricting the scope those acts might have had in an era dominated by radio and record sales.
I meant to mention the democratization effect of high-quality digital recordings in my post: I think that’s a big reason you’re starting to see all these bands gussy up their songs with fake melotrons and string arrangements. There’s unprecendented access to both production and distribution, which means there’s been an explosion of great sounding arrangements, without a similar expansion of good songwriting.
Again, I think I would agree with much of what you’re suggesting. A lot of dudes entering their 30s and 40s go through the same thing I’m going through. But I wonder whether technological and economic changes in the market are shaping the contours of that transition.
i’m going to go out on a limb and claim that bands in general are getting boring. i find it harder and harder to be musically satisfied with traditional music genres at all, including experimental music. i’m not sure where this leaves me, but i’m looking to science.
I like your honesty and I think the answer is probably a little of both (world changes, you changes). Obviously whatever band you jumped up and down for and hollered for and all that, you’re never going to find another band like that again – it’s a part of your youth. At the same time, you buy and listen to more music than you’ve ever bought before (and I can say the same). That’s saying something about the level of access and absorption of our new age that isn’t so bad. I don’t mean to sound bitter, but I don’t think you’ll ever have that old passion for a band, but you might not ever lose your passion, your curiousity for music. I think you’re becoming wiser is all. Prove me wrong.
I have more to say on this topic and even though I agree with your first premise (nostalgia for music of your youth) I have to disagree to the other that there are no new artists that forging a new path, despite how derivative the sound which some may argue is inescapable more so now because of the wider availability of music.
At this particular moment in time I have discovered more and more bands in the last 5 years or so that is starting to rival the number I discovered in the 90′s Whether I will still be listening to them as I do music from the 90′s in 10-15 years I don’t know. The one act that I will offer that have delivered good and evolving records (and about to release their fifth) is animal collective.
I will expound more on this in a piece I am getting together regarding the My Bloody Valentine curated ATP festival I just attended which speaks almost directly to these points.
I think your scope is too narrow. Extremely narrow actually. I’d even venture to say that in the great world of music, all the bands you mentioned are basically playing variations on a single theme.
Keep your ears open, there is good and new music in the least expected places (many of them not anywhere near your computer).
Ultimately, though, I believe as a listener one becomes the principal composer of the music one hears. In the right context a dripping faucet can become the best music you ever heard, while on the other hand there are all those initial terrible reviews of some of the “greatest” albums ever made, before people realized how “great” they were.
This is an interesting discussion and one close to my heart…I have been a music lover since a very young age, and I am a part-time musician. I go through periods where it seems like contemporary music is a wasteland and there’s simply nothing out there for me. I was married for 5.5 years and virtually stopped buying/listening/caring about music. Then I got divorced and there was a sea change. I got back to playing and rediscovered my first love, music, in all it’s forms.
Even though I live in Austin, Texas, where the band was formed, I have only recently really gotten into Okkervil River and am so happy that I did. My enthusiasm for music has soared once again even higher. I think they have an original sound, albeit in the same family as Arcade Fire and the Decemberists, and they’ve inspired me to play and write more.
I like some of the stuff you mention and pretty much hate the rest. Take, for instance, the Pixies. I have never even for a moment found myself in agreement with the movement to canonize them. Further still, I am almost at a total loss over the Arcade Fire.
Finding singular acts in any genre isn’t too hard as long as you recognize that there are only a few per genre and that the rest are either passable if not totally derivative or else downright terrible. This goes for any generation.
There’s nothing objective about your assessment of 90s indie-rock supergroups. Sebadoh to me is generally speaking totally boring. What you love is yours to love alone, but that’s a good thing, no?
There’s nothing wrong with loving what you like, but there is something very wrong with thinking that you have it nailed down because it simply works for you.
Seriously, singularity is in the eye of the beholder.
I have never heard anyone that sounds like Celine Dion and I think we all know what we feel about her stuff.
Do I think the music I like is better than the stuff you like? Of course, because it is, but that doesn’t mean shit to you. Plus, wasn’t it Justin who pointed out the similarities between Stereolab and other loungy, hip and clever groups?
I am glad you love whatever you love, but you’re wrong in thinking it’s lovable to you because it is inherently good.
It’s like the Nazis.
I win.
Its kinda like Neurosis, Mouth of the Architect, Isis, and Cult of Luna-all wildly divergent in their sound and approach. Meh.
Nirvana wouldn’t have been shit w/ out the Pixies and you know where all that led. “The Year Punk Broke”.
Yes, we are moving our feet to the motion of buildings…
BTW- saw William E. last night. Fuckin savage, I say to this day!
I think there’s a lot of good music being made now, but I also think there are sometimes time periods that are particularly musically fertile. For instance, 1965-1970 produced a lot of great music and originated a number of influential subgenres. I think 1991-1996 or thereabouts was another high point.
I dont know Conor, I get your point that creativity and quality in music doesnt run a straight even-keeled line over time, but it seems that saying that this or that period was more or less fertile in creating good music is a bit egocentric. Doesnt it all depend on what you like and what you consider “great” music? Couldnt you say the same about 1971-78, or 80 – 88, or 57 – 63… and that is if you are talking about rock music, if you begin to look a bit outside of that group, dates become even more irrelevant.
Think about how many people are out there making music at any given time. And then think about the fact that what constitutes “good” music is purely, and I do mean purely subjective. Then the time/good-music duality seems thinner and thinner.
Music is great. Great music is whatever you want it to be.
The Pixies are still garbage though. That much is absolute.
Interpol is new? I totally thought it was some band from the 80s I just wasn’t aware of. I had it in my mind that they were on one of the posters in Ferris Bueller’s Day off.
I think that’s what is interesting about not knowing much about what is out there. It could be old, or new, or from the US or not. How can you tell?
But I WAS thinking just today that the stuff I like that makes me happy sometimes doesn’t make me happy and I actually feel the need to find music like Cramer and Claire like. Weird!
it’s like I haven’t had sushi in awhile and though I wouldn’t want it everyday, it’s part of my tableau and refreshes the other music once I go back to it.
I am blabbing on a post that no one has visited in days.
blah blah blah
Justin, I’m going to disagree with you the long tail. Many people get the popular but more people Combined get the niche stuff.
Damn, I’ve built my business on customization and niche-y stuff. Don’t go telling me I’m wrong now brother!
And lastly, on this comment that no one will read, I find it so enjoyable that I can find a band at least several times a year that has a song that blows my mind. I can count on it. That’s all that matters to me.
Oh, and yeah, you’re getting old.
Woah. I came back and there are all these comments I missed after I stopped watching the thread. I’m still re-thinking this whole thing.
Frankly, I think Mr. Anaconda is probably right. My chutes is too narrow. I have got to explore other fields. I suppose I already know that. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been listening to so much 50s and 60s country. So much rich music has been forgotten, that it’s easy to find something new by going back in time.