"Should we be suspicious of hipsters’ newfound love of R&B?" or "Race and indie music, part 4762"

ouch

it's a horrible world we live in

lemme just say as an early-20something college grad: people my age loooooooooooooove the fuckin weeknd, like he's definitely seen as an example of "good music" in the way, like, mumford & sons is

By the same people?!

Will, I agree R&B is this year’s big aesthetic story. But I want to bring race into the conversation in a more explicit way. It’s been argued that the fantasy of becoming a post-racial nation helped to make Obama’s historic 2008 election possible. But the optimism of 2008 soon gave way to disillusionment as economic woes and increasingly entrenched class divisions came to the fore. It isn’t surprising that indie and indie-sounding R&B became cool again this year. With its emphasis on melancholic confessionalism and interior concerns, so-called “progressive” R&B (far more so than most mainstream club-oriented R&B) delivered authentic blues feeling to a post-affluent culture suffering from collective disillusionment.

sorry, i'm reading this for the first time

& almost certainly the last time

actually this isn't awful

Rev: on a couple of occasions, yes! People who are casually into music but into whatever "indie aesthetic," I guess

It does sort of make me happy that pop sort of ”won” in the respect that everything is now pop in a way, but this victory is making popists act like old school indie grumps

lol @ the idea that pop "won"

tell that to the guardian commenters on the day carly rae jepsen won our tracks poll

Maybe the commenters are angry because they 'lost'?

i do wonder if the slow-burn success of 'adorn' will result in KD selling more than that dreadful weeknd triple-header

indie fans always complained about the wrong indie being over-venerated in the press. now r&b fans get to do the same. progress!

This is one of the more OTM things in the thread.

Didn't realise music was about winning and losing.

^

Yeah it's not but p much everything lex writes has a sort of victim complex about pop suffering under the shackles of the critical establishment that prefers classic rock & indie, so shit like weeknd or I guess the ”wrong” ppl liking Miguel even ppl who - gasp - like mumford & sons is a betrayal

No

i do wonder if the slow-burn success of 'adorn' will result in KD selling more than that dreadful weeknd triple-header

― maura, Monday, December 24, 2012 5:13 AM Bookmark

KD has more total sales at this point, but then it's been out longer, too.

who the fuck even listens to the weeknd?

― Jamie_ATP, Sunday, December 23, 2012 3:47 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i do and think 'house of balloons' is a classic. the backlash on weeknd has been massive

ha speaking of Stereogum here's ONE MORE THINKPIECE YAY

http://stereogum.com/1225571/2012-in-review-the-new-wave-of-rb-comes-into-full-bloom/top-stories/

can someone please come round and physically stop me clicking on that

blog-powered underground

p much everything lex writes has a sort of victim complex about pop suffering under the shackles of the critical establishment that prefers classic rock & indie

otm, it's been what 8 years or something you've been writing/posting with this tone, please evolve

lol you don't even read half the stuff i write! stop being so presumptuous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxkgvvJiLqs

So long as we're talking "truth" about Lex on Christmas I'd like to say that I approve of Lex's victim complex and find it endlessly entertaining and am always agreeing with his outlook whenever I read an English music magazine

<3

i agree with lex's outlook more often than not! that's why it pains me when he couches it in callow rhetorical devices.

Have yourself a joyous twelvetide, Lex. You're still in the top tier of posters imo.

can someone please come round and physically stop me clicking on that

― lex pretend, Tuesday, December 25, 2012 1:25 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark

dying

a weird thing about all these pieces is that THEEsatisfaction never get mentioned despite being one of the better "indie r&b acts" AND being on sub pop

Speaking as someone who came v v late to the DDM/Dawn Richard proceedings, but loves Armor On, is there really no chance that all this R&B cred will lead to Goldenheart becoming a major 2013 buzz album?

that stereogum thing isn't the worst piece i've ever read but it also starts from a base thesis (r&b is finally good!) that's totally weighs it down

Good line about Kaleidoscope Dream: It’s not a feel-good album so much as an album about feeling as good as possible at all times, and to its infinite credit, it never fails to make me feel incredible.

Bad line:

last year’s pleasantly pedestrian “Sure Thing"

also "genre cocktail" or w/e he said

Has anyone written a piece in which the writer, thanks to Miguel-Ocean-Weeknd or whatever, has gone back to older R&B and finally heard what he'd ignored? A much better essay than "Holy shit R&B is suddenly hot."

no

redressing sins vs writing generalizations

How much older rnb was written expressly for a demographic of emotionally estranged post-Internet ppl tho

i feel like a lot of people are really into romanticising that whole ~emotionally estranged post-internet feelings~ self-archetype and it makes me roll my eyes every time

i mean any sort of romanticising some archetype you see yourself as is par for the course when you're a teenager but people over the age of 22, c'mon

Pointer Sisters xpost

p much everything lex writes has a sort of victim complex about pop suffering under the shackles of the critical establishment that prefers classic rock & indie

lex i <3 you to pieces but this is very true of you. I can't say "pretty much everything you write," but your deal is very much a Pop Strikes Back!! deal imo. All genres go through a phase of this imo but you seem p attached to it, into describing the music you're into in terms of what it's "up against" etc.

It does sort of make me happy that pop sort of ”won” in the respect that everything is now pop in a way, but this victory is making popists act like old school indie grumps

fucking killer post imo

not the part about pop winning obv. Sunset Strip metal should still be huge THANKS PEARL JAM.

i've been reading people belittle/marginalize/condescend to/laugh at almost everything i have ever loved in music for decades. since the 70's! fuck everybody, in my opinion.

lord save me from people who read 2-3 articles i write in a year and on that basis profess to know what my deal is

i have some people accusing me of being secretly rockist because i make the outrageous assertion that PR strategies have an effect on artists' success, or because i'm not interested in covering shit just cuz it's ~on trend~
and on the other hand i have people apparently stuck in some sort of 2004 timewarp where they think i'm a shrieking pop harpy

alla y'all need to get out my face tbh and recognise that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxkgvvJiLqs

shipz, aerosmith: you really need to go back and actually READ MOST OF WHAT I WRITE before you can say sweeping or dismissive shit about my work. i highly doubt either of you actually do that, so until you do GTFO

i don't think there's anything wrong w/ lex's tone and reverse-rockism is weird considering that rockism is still very much alive as evidenced by the entire discussion of r&b in the first place!

lex I have been posting on the same board as you for a long time. nobody's being "dismissive," a coupla people are telling you how you come off in their opinion. you can be childish and say "OH BULLSHIT READ MY ENTIRE CORPUS YOU DOLTS" or you can say "hmm, really, that's interesting, why would people who don't know me personally think I come off that way" it doesn't really matter I guess but "pop, the beleaguered genre, under assault from the evil forces of indie!" does seem like yr stance a lot of the time

indie is hardly rock, surely?

indie's just low-stakes-and-production values rock I think and certainly in the press I think they're essentially big-fish-smaller-fish-same-pond