Quote:
Originally Posted by joy_circumcision
This silly nostalgia trend that's been going on in underground music since the mid-2000s is insipid at best. Even in the eighties there wasn't such an active regression in music. When the "mainstream" is doing a better job of pushing forward three-chord musicality (via exploration of new technologies, instrumentation styles, syntheses with dub music and moving beyond dubstep even, creating new trends even if they're short lived as long as they are vaguely original, etc.) there is a major problem. Tame Impala continue this weird rockist bent where underground rock "strips down" and goes back to archaic forms for a certain aesthetic. The aesthetic is insufferable in its lack of real ideals beyond venerating "masters" (read: bands that give boomers hard-ons quicker than six viagra and welfare cuts) and continuing this dumb feedback loop rock music has found itself in. It would be one thing if bands like this were rejected, but the supposed bastions of cutting-edge new music are treating these people as visionaries when they're just sycophants. It's not cute, it's not interesting, it's all been done before, and I'd like the 21st Century to start now, please. Hip hop, for all the co-opting and diffusion of its politics that's occurred in the last few years, at least continues to try to grow and expand. Obviously, this isn't to say all rock music is bad "these days" or that there aren't serious concerns to be had with other spheres of music, but enough is enough; let's get some meaningful, contemporary rock music.
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Well honestly man, I think you're reading too much into it, I mean I dislike a lot of contemporary music like yourself, but you are basing your distaste off this kind of "revilalist" music getting more attention than it deserves, and you are not appreciating the quality of the songs, you are just writing them off. I mean seriously, it is music. I am well aware that these guys (well just Kevin) are inspired by the Beatles. But there is a lot of progression in this music as well. I love Avant-garde music, like you, I like listening to weird ****, stuff that feels completely progressive to listen to. But these guys just do it for me, I don't need to think about it. And yes I am a fan of the Beatles and yes, I can hear similarities in this guy's voice to Lennon, but I don't see why this is a bad thing. Lennon himself talked about this very thing in an interview and said that he was directly influenced by blues and jazz from the 50's and that the influence was clearly audible in the music of the Beatles, as well as all early forms of psychedelic music like Country Joe, Captain Beefheart etc. However I think that Lonerism is far less beholden to its influences than you are making out. I love the lack of choruses in some of the songs on this album, and some of the melodies are absolutely beautiful, this music is very progressive in its' own right, it is psychedelic and poppy and synthy, but it is all those things with a modern interpretation, a modern lens of vision.