Minotaur029 wrote:Steve V. wrote:rocker654 wrote: Nu-metal failed abosolutely and miserably.
I hope you didn't call nu-metal we younger folks' musical revolution.
If anything, in this age of ripping off 80's fashion, of being subjected to '80s-ish censorship and conservatism, and of making dated, bland, recycled, and boring music in our hip Urban Outfitters t-shirts, don't be surprised if the music we make is similar to the music y'all made.
It's amazing how "normal folk" can so easily find the underground, in comparison to the age of fanzines and word of mouth and actual dedication to existing outside of the mainstream. It's a scary, bland, boring, stupid, meaningless, boring, trendy, hip, boring, bland, stupid...uh, you get the drift...time to be involved in music. Even bands called "progressive" or "avant-garde" are doing watered down versions of what actually can be considered progressive or avant-garde.
I don't know, maybe it is the pain medication for my hand that is making scattering my thoughts so, but I feel like there has never been a worse time in music than right now.
Ummm...while most music I listen to tends to be from the '90s through to way the fuck back when...I have been
blown away by
lots of bands from this decade. Many of these bands are doing really great stuff that stands up to anything else I've heard.
Many of these bands are right here on this very board. Often, they are relatively unknown.
The "outsider" culture is not the culture that the Pitchfork-type sites work so hard to cultivate. There is another layer to be discovered...at least in the Midwest...(I'm sure I can speak for other parts of the country...certainly the coasts).
To give up on "new music" is folly. Complaining about it instead of seeking out the culture you desire is ignorant. Don't you think things looked just as hopeless in the '80s? The only difference is that now there is mainstream, a no-fun phony indie movement, and an outside culture that is practically
giving its albums away.
"Popular music" is far more fractured than ever before. The touring game seems far more regionalized now (which is smart) but the capability for D.I.Y. on a large scale is just as possible as ever (higher gas prices though...shit).
I definitely haven't given up on new music whatsoever...and I know this is going to make me sound like a Spin Magazine or Pitchfork Media correspondent...but there's not much that I've heard musically this decade that is interesting at all. There have been more than a handful of great records, but do any of them have the intensity or the perfect execution of an album I find immensely important personally, like PiL or I-Spy? No. They don't. I've paid a lot of attention to new music, and I've searched and searched and just haven't found many "new" bands that make truly timeless or worthwhile music. Some good albums, but nothing that won't sound dated or boring in a couple of months. There are a few bands that are incredibly good that I've found recently, one of them is Bear Claw and the other is STNNNG. And they're from this board. There's a band in Atlanta called Irreversible that most of you motherfuckers would probably lose your shit over. I recommend checking them out immediately.
I don't know what it was like in the '80s, because I wasn't even born for most of the decade. I only go by what I've read, what I've heard, and what I've discussed with older folks. From what I gather, it was a bleak, confusing, politically conservative and ultimately bland time. Sound familiar? But I think there was definitely something fresh and relevant going on musically, that was in DIRECT CONTRAST to the dated and shitty fucking mainstream music being made at the time. For example, the Minutemen would've never ended up anywhere near the mainstream, because their music was against the commercial grain with such intensity that there was very little chance that a casual fan of Duran Duran could even find out who this band was. Now, because of the commercialization (Hot Topic, MTV2 and even worse: MTVU, etc. etc.) the independent music scene is poisoned. Since commercial success can be had through a few concessions, a lot more bands are coming into the mainstream conciousness. Shit, fucking bands on "indie" labels like Merge and Sub-Pop are showing up on television and on t-shirts at the mall. Just like everything else, there was a chance to make money, so corporations stuck their dirty dicks into a "sub-culture" and developed a product.
Because of Myspace and the internet in general, there are now endless opportunities for bands, so they don't have to struggle as much to get out of state or country shows or to draw a crowd (it's still nowhere near easy or simple, but come on, what the fuck do you expect?) which is on one hand excellent and on another hand bullshit. I am not an old fellow, and I can even remember the time before myspace when you had to talk to bands from out of town on the phone instead of through MS messaging, and you had to talk to promoters to get them shows instead of sending them a few mp3s in an email, and you had to pass around assembled press kits and had to come up with scratch to even book the fucking band. And then there was flyer campaigns where you'd go anywhere you knew people would be interested to hand out sheets, or glue them to windows...come on, 90% of this board has been somehow involved in this sort of thing. I lived in a little dumbfuck coast town most of my developing life and this was how it was done. Now you can find a venue on Myspace, send them a link to your band and get a show. That's a great tool for a touring band, sure, but think about how many bands would actually go through the trouble of going to Kinko's to make flyers for an upcoming show instead of posting a bulletin? Where's the drive and the passion? Just like everything else in this country, there's this "need for ease" at the expense of quality.
There's a lot to be said for doing the things the old-fashioned way. I haven't been involved in that much of it, but from what I can gather when bands were doing it this way, the music was a lot better. Now that anyone can book a whole U.S. tour in a week after being together for month, that is fucking weak shit right there. With Mp3s as opposed to mailing demo tapes, bands are getting deals over email! Indie rock is getting a boring and mainstream as the boring and mainstream music I've been avoiding on the radio all my teenage life.
For the past I would say almost thirty years, there has been enough of an underground that pretty much ANYONE could put out a record. That's not some new thing. That didn't come into the picture just recently. But the fact that now anyone can start a record label by offering .zip files that are immediately emailed to you after you pay through PayPal at some "record label"'s website...I think that's kind of shitty. It's cool for bands so they can get their records out and make money I guess, but music has become so fractured and despondent from people that it seems like there's this barrier between passion and execution. It can be so easily done that the quality is going considerably down. When people had to actually work to do something, it was a lot better, because you couldn't be a week-old shitty punk rock band and be signed to a "label." You had to put a lot of work in just to get a crowd at a show in your hometown. You had to get involved locally to see bands you wanted to see. Now everyone knows everyone and bands are suffering because of it.
I'm rambling. I don't know if this made any sense. But I tried.