― Ronan, Monday, 31 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Nicole, Monday, 31 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― bnw, Monday, 31 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Tim, Monday, 31 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
But I get no excitement out of watching someone tilt at straw men of their own making. The article falls into the very same cooler-than-thou trap that is implicitly at the heart of most problems with the indie scene -- or for that matter with any scene, since the real problem is a self-congratulatory way of thinking that's common to nearly any obnoxious, inbred milieu, and has nothing to do with horn-rims and single-sided 7-inches. The narrators' voices [1] don't convince me that they're particularly more insightful or interesting or free-thinking than the people they're critiquing, so the whole thing comes off as a nasty bit of sniping between groups who, from the article, would seem more alike than either would like to admit: they just have different signifiers. (Why trade one set of scenesters for another?) I can't help but think that the people who like this article like it because it's telling them what they already want to hear. But the problem with this article and the problem with indie and the problem with any scene are all one and the same, at heart.
To make a litany of contempt worthwhile, you have to offer an attractive alternative to what you're mocking -- otherwise it's just a series of cheap shots, really. And once you've seen a few of those, they're no longer interesting, and end up seeming like the kid at the back of the school bus who brilliantly picks apart everyone's faults but who never actually does anything of his own: once in a while he's funny, but usually all he succeeds in doing is to ensure that everyone else has less fun. People like that are a dime a dozen, but they make very little of what's worth loving in the world.
[1] (as expressed in this single piece, without regard to anything of theirs I've read elsewhere -- this isn't intended as a slam of the piece's authors)
― Phil, Tuesday, 1 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
That would be a year or so ago. Now, re-reading it and bearing in mind this revitalised thread, it just looks as offensive as the stereotypical comments that the (trolling?) bloke above made about fans of rap music. Actually it would be a much better piece if it was updated to describe the 'IDM' lovers who use "indiekid" to describe all music outwith their own narrow tastes.
― Alexander Blair, Tuesday, 1 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― bnw, Tuesday, 1 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― jess, Tuesday, 1 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
It's not that good a piece - some of the charges stand up (generally the good points come from Maura, who knows the lifestyle better than I do), some are just cheap, most as Phil points out are true of any scene. The "pretending to like" jibes are intentionally unfair in a frothing "see how you like it" way. But I'm glad I did it - it was a good way to lance a couple of boils that had built up over the course of a year when FT and NYLPM had got attention and criticism from just these kind of people, and I like to think that my comments on indie *since* writing that have been more intelligent and inclusive. Some may disagree. ;)
― Tom, Tuesday, 1 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― toraneko, Tuesday, 1 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ronan, Tuesday, 1 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I don't know if Britain is different from Ireland in this respect, but the people buying the sort of middling crap that seems to go under the "indie" label here are not really part of any scene at all. the markers have been changed so much with the huge growth in the pop industry, that popular (ish) rock is very very accessible to the average 18, 19, 20 year old. So we're talking alot of the Coldplay clones, aswell as Coldplay, U2 perhaps, Charlatans, that type of thing, Travis. the fans are just your average lad types. I get the impression Britain might be like this too from magazines and the like.
― Rob A, Tuesday, 1 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Tim, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I disagree the mocking is healthy - quite the opposite - it's lazy and now very monotonous.
I like glam, mod and northern soul. Liking all sorts of things is a good thing.
― Alexander Blair, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I'm glad we agree on something.
― Tom, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― g, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Rob A, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
i'm just asking.
also, makeoutclub.com, one year later, still offers proof that not every point made in the piece was off. cheap? sure, some of them were. but none were based in anything 'obsolete' at all.
― maura, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Mark, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Sean, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― jess, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
gee whizz - I have not seen that makeoutclub for about a year - there are some laughable sad American girls on there, cliched beyond belief - horn rimmed glasses, pasty faces because they don't eat meat, i am so sensitive, alternative and unique statements, surprising a lot of bible followers - i suppose the christian right particularly in the south has a stronghold on culture/life in the US, straight cut fringes, naff emo/contemporary punk bands listed by the dozen - some of them have so narrow AND LIMITED music tastes!
― DJ Martian, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― ethan, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― bnw, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― gareth, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Rob A, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― dan, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― electric sound of jim, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Rob A, Friday, 4 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― JM, Friday, 4 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
This is just daft.
― N., Friday, 4 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Phil, Friday, 4 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― dan, Friday, 4 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― toraneko, Saturday, 5 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― elizabeth anne marjorie, Tuesday, 5 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― cottonboll, Monday, 18 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I grew up in a suburb of Georgia and removed completely from any scene at all, until high school when i made the periodic trips to Athens to see Olivia Tremor Control or Elf Power and started making pseudo-Flaming Lips songs on my 4-track at home. I had read alot about my parents' 60s revolution and was in love with the music; the way people dressed at these shows felt good, Mr. Roger sweaters and all, like a cheerier, more fun version of Nirvana. At school i wore ties and blazers and t-shirts cos I saw a picture of Syd Barrett and he looked so dandy and experimental at the same time. My parents thought I was crazy and/or on drugs, and asked me several times in fact.
Around this time I started hanging out with people in Atlanta, who had impeccable thrift store post-Grunge fashions and were making improvizational music with old synthesizers and cheap guitars and stuff. They referred to each other as 'kids' and this was the first time I ever heard the term. It seemed to ecompass a lot of the musical/stylistic ideas i was pursuing at the time.
My little brother was into hardcore and screamo and i would drive him around to all these shows and i looked weird enough to fit in and get into the pit and all that. I moved into a punk rock house with some kids that were members of a band that is now A Small Victory, and they were nice guys, we stayed up late nights dumpster diving and listening to Bjork and all that. I met and fell in love with a goth girl and died my hair black, which has since then morphed from a shaggy-haired George Harrison '68 look to an Oliver Twist look to a Classical Greek cherub look. I never thought that i should imitate others but i did like the look of black and ran with it.
I tried to listen to At the Drive In and couldn't get into it. My roommates also had a lot of non-ironic pop around like the Dirty Pop of N*Sync and Britney Spears and all that. Anyways, over the years I bounced between hanging out with different scenes (mostly the local punk scene), becoming increasingly conscious of the Stylism that worked its way into them.
It's funny cos today maybe I would be a stereotypical indie kid; last week my mom called me up to say that she went to a department store and all the styles looked exactly the way i dressed in high school.
Nowadays I go to school for art and live with two private art-school kids, and they constantly look like models. It seems like that whole group kind of stems from the indie kid elitist model (especially since they're all at the right age) but more elegant and self-defined. Sorry for the long post.
Oh, and I do love The Smiths and The Cure (go ahead, cruxify me).
― Adam Bruneau (oliver8bit), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 21:34 (nineteen years ago) link
#15 (plus 16 and 17) articulates something I've been sensing for some time. This shrinking of the genepool is progressive, such that you can't possibly have too many more generations of some of these strains of indie before the perpetual inbreeding between simplicity and amateurism results in collapse into demented whimpers. It's like generation 0 offered a refreshing DIY reaction to the most ornate popular music of the 70's. But by generation 23 or whatever those living in the self-referencing cave so long without allowing themselves to appreciate a truly swinging brass arrangement first hand or, I dunno, even a genuinely driving or complex or funky rhythm, are going to have too few tools to construct even the most rudimentary pop song. Presumably most have broader tastes, it sounds like it in fewer and fewer cases, and I can feel my brain cells dying.
― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Wednesday, 23 February 2005 22:51 (nineteen years ago) link
― lurk, Thursday, 24 February 2005 02:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― Stupornaut (natepatrin), Thursday, 24 February 2005 02:41 (nineteen years ago) link