"Indie"
 

Someone wrote this in a thread and for some strange reason it was locked, but it's actually a very good question. What's with all this electronic Animal Collective crap, this poor man's ambient Eno imitations, these pathetic attempts at trying to steal Brian Wilson's brain? It seems that most "independent" music, music on the fringe, is either metal-based or indie explorations in pop. Nobody plays truly electrically loud anymore, it's either heavy metal/hard rock or softer "indie pop"/"neo-psychadelia" without the solos, whatever - what happened to people who listened to the Stooges, Hendrix, MC5, the Who? They're gone. Not to mention those who are truly influenced by the late 70s - Clash, Ramones, Television, Smith, Hell, Damned... everything with a shred of punk influence is candy-coated and reduced to top 40 plastic. (Though, strangely, I respect Green Day, but not necessarily musically as much.)

It was locked because it was shit. Funnily enough....

shut the fuck up.

...and welcome to MusicBanter. :)

I'm sure there are plenty of indie punk bands if that's what you're referring to. It's just that nobody gives a fuck anymore. We went through that shit in the 90's....:\

Maybe you should give Christal Antlers a go though...they're pretty loud, although also slightly psychedelic...*shrug*

ya basically all good music stopped being made after the 80s i agree completely

Grunge 4 Lyfe.

Whoah, big surprise, I'm completely misunderstood. It must have been me not liking Animal Collective that did it. I'm not saying that "all current music is crap" or something like that, good heavens no, I'm not one of those people. Just because, say, Broken Social Scene sometimes sounds like they are trying to be a poor man's Brian Eno doesn't mean they're not a good band. Just because I say that everything nowadays is either heavy or intensely melodic doesn't mean that that music is bad - I'm just commenting on the fact that there seems to be little balance. It's the indie scene and the metal scene, and that's pretty much all the independent scenes out there, with the exception of a small Garage scene which is pretty much dead by now. I wasn't even saying that we should have more of that, but I'm wondering where it all is by now. It seems like it's time for a new musical movement, but the music scene has sort of stayed in place for the last 6, 7 years - some great music has come out, but it's not progressing as rapidly as it seems it should. I'm not surprised, though, that because of that namedropping earlier which I now see has caused all this trouble, I'm getting all these cries of musical... Rip Van Winkleism. Which is sort of impossible, considering I'm a teenager.

Yes, lets blame the modern indie scene because you can't find anything worth listening to.

qft.

I'm hoping you didn't read my last post... there is not a shortage of great music out there today, I repeat NOT. Read my last post, please.

Yes, yes, yes. There is no balance between light and dark. There is a disturbance in the force blah blah blah.

Yes. Do you have a problem with balance? Would it harm you if there was a larger variety of music?

Edit: And by the way, this is not light v. dark, not emotion-wise at all. I was not referring to the typical subject matter of each musical genre, just the music itself.

I don't think your mentioning Animal Collective is the reason for the backlash, don't worry.

Music can't progress as fast as it once did. It's all been done before. If it's something new, it takes a while for people to get used to it. But it's out there. Somewhere, and I don't really care at this point. I'm content with the music I am finding and listening to, new and old. It spans many genres and there is more to discover.

Ah, thank you, a coherent response from someone who understands what I'm saying. I would pretty much agree with you, and like I said, there is no shortage of great music, so I'm happy discovering new music every day - but I guess this has to do with two things - A) seeing good people live, so that as it stands now I have little chance of seeing a great band that doesn't fit into certain genre lines live, but that's not too big a problem since there are some great bands, just not a large variety genre-wise, and B) just sort of my thoughts about rock'n'roll community - that there should be a scene in every city, that there should be a large variety of music across the world geographically so that when the limits of a genre do run out - it's going to come eventually - it will be easier for music to progress so that there won't be sort of a lag period.. there've been small ones throughout history, in my opinion - 73-74, 83-84, 02-03 maybe... of course the "lag" is completely subjective, but hopefully you understand the concept rather than the specifics, something which a few earlier posters have had a hard time doing.

I think part of the lag is from the majors latching onto and exploiting the genres that they see becoming popular. They suck every penny out of those genres (grunge, emo, for instance) as possible until everybody in their right mind is ready to blow up the whole damn world they are so sick of hearing it. So this feeds all those millions of minions out there that can't find music on their own (the radio and MTV listeners), who in turn feed the labels by buying and loving it, enabling them to continue pumping out this bullsh1t stale stagnant stuff...and the cycle continues. They just bleed it dry rather than looking for new and creative stuff to market. They wait for the next big thing and grab onto it when it's nearly dead in the indie scene, pushing it to the mainstream for years to come.

I hate Animal Collective...

and it's a well known fact sonny-Jim that the only way to listen to good music nowadays is to destroy the halo thus opening up the Crack Of Doom which must devour Emperor Palpatine as a human sacrafice.

Every now and again a newbie steps forward and expresses his opinion.

He is kicked into the pit of death.

Anyway, I'm not sure I quite understand. Are you saying you just want something wayyyy different to be considered indie and be hailed as the one true God of Indie or... what?

That's not what you were talking about.

I know.

There are a ton of bands in a huge variety of genres. I have no idea what you're talking about. What do you mean "I have little chance of seeing a great band that doesn't fit into certain genre lines live?" That makes no sense.

Great albums and bands come out every year. By chance, some years will be better than others. Oh well, nothing you can do about it. And you want a different "scene" (I'm interpreting this to mean genre, almost) in every city? Good luck with that lol.

haha I'm not really understanding what your point is.
There is TONS of music and there is a HUGE variety of it everywhere, constantly, all the time, 24/7. Just stick around MB for a while and you'll realize how dumb you were when you first came here.

Oh and no, the garage scene is not dead, in fact it's rising back.

I think he means that every band out there fits into a certain genre. And he wishes he could see some bands live that don't fit into a certain genre. Something that will blow his mind. Make him say woah. Not that I understand the quest for this. The quest for woah, sure. But the quest for something unclassifiable. Nearly every time I make a new discovery I have a hard time saying whether it's this genre or that genre, because it crosses the line from one to another, blurring the line. Sure it may combine elements of various genres, so it's not truly original. But I think that's how new genres are born, probably since way back when. Maybe it was transparent then, you didn't hear about a lot of bands in the underground. Now there are a gazillion bands out there and the transition might seem smoother, less abrupt...you can't tell you're being wowed because it's happening bit by bit over time. I can see how this could be frustrating, I suppose. You want to be smacked, not rubbed gently.

You think I don't know this? The last three people I listened to on iTunes were Fela Kuti, Albert Ayler, and the Fall. What I'm trying to prove here is that my musical tastes are not somehow "narrow," which again, people are misinterpreting my statements as saying this. What I meant by "I have little chance of seeing a great band that doesn't fit into certain genre lines live" is that, though this is true for every era, it seems maximized lately: that if one wishes to see a band live - i.e., a band that currently plays and makes music, not one from history - the band tends to fit in a few categories - namely "indie," "metal," "emo," what have you. Yes, great bands come around in at least one of those genres (I'm not a big fan of metal, but I do respect some of the work), but what if someone wants to see an ol' fashioned loud blues band that actually knows how to play? Or if one wants to see a real non-bull**** country singer? Or a soul act not caught up in nostalgia? Not going to happen unless you live in a huge city, and even then, it'll be limited. What I'm saying is that it's all about diversity. Has this been different in any other decade? I don't know, I haven't been around that long. But even if it hasn't, I can hope it will happen.

No, again, you don't understand what I'm saying. I know that great albums and bands come out every year, but what I'm saying is that when a genre expands so much that it has little to do but burst, there creates this huge musical void, and I fear that that will come soon with the typical "indie" genre. And there is something we can do about it, a lot. You could start your own band, but not everybody's musically talented. Fans make music go round, and if there are fans who want great music, it'll happen. lol. This has been actually true for pretty much the entire history of rock until the internet and mass communication which has diminished the role of the rock community geographically, turning it into something going over oceans perhaps. I can't exactly say what this has done to the "quality" of music - probably little - but I do know that this has greatly reduced the role of the actualy city, the neighborhood, on bands, creating a lack of scenes - everyone becomes molded into one big amalgamated mess. Throughout that mess comes some great music, but I think it's possible to create some organization - useful organization, mind you - but organization nevertheless from this chaos, which, hopefully will reduce that "lag" period, caused when one genre goes and everyone's waiting for another to come in, causing, as I said, this void.

so that's like a cool idea and all and I definitely know what your getting at now, but why put this under "Indie"? Is this genre at fault for all of your musical trauma?

personally, i don't know what you're getting worked up over. the indie thing has been around for a few years or so, and it'll continue to be around a few years later, but it all falls within the broader scope of the changing face of music. and this pontification you're referring to? that's just a falsehood, the entire 'indie' label is just something that musicians use to work with emergent music fans. suggesting that it's a one-sided die is pretty silly; the whole concept of new music is to take existing styles and blend them until the boundaries for generalization become arbitrary and the distinction between genres fades. that is what encapsulates the beginning of new music.

and while you might consider there to be a 'lag' (which i don't really agree with at all), it's been years since music has entrenched itself in a particular style. what's out there today is one of the most diverse scenes in music.

yeah but wut about hendrix n stuff lol

Well I agree that Animal Collective are objectively the worst thing to happen to music in the past 20 years.

But nothing else you said really makes any sense. Nobody listens to The Stooges? The Stooges are shoved down peoples throats all the damn time. And they're a really popular band to rip off nowadays.

These boards are rough on the new guys, so congrats on handling what will be the first of many hazings.

I would mention though, on topic, that indie folk is always going to box themselves into a corner. With the exception of Devenda Bandhart, I think everyone wants to be the love child of Nike Drake and Paul Simon even if that isn't immediatly apparent.

But indie is not subject to folk alone, and when it does get electronic it is, as someone pointed out in the original thread, some of the best music out there.

They're a popular band here. People only get to the Stooges out there by way of Iggy, and since they stopped showing the cruise commercials with "lust for life" in them, iggy's not even that high profile.

let's not get ahead of ourselves.

if you're referring to bands like Caribou/Manitoba, then yes. i don't know if i've seen any more than two or three good bands to come out of that movement.

As you well know, I exist in a constant state of "ahead of myself", aaaaand that depends on what we're claling indie. I happen to think YYY's, My Morning Jacket, TVotR, and DBT are great.

I also include the alt-country folks since their appealing to the same artistic sensibilities. So Ryan Adams, Neko Case, Sarah Borges, Lori McKenna, Wilco.

The first 2 pages of this thread are failblog.org worthy :)

Really? Really? Funny, I think you're having a hard time distinguishing complete ignorance with simply a different opinion than yours. It would also help if the poster had no ability whatsoever to validify his/her statements with clarification or expansion on the topic for you to be able to make that statement, but I'm pretty sure I did do those things to an acceptable extent. If you'd actually like to debate with me on this - or anything - let me know.

Try not to get pissy.. you'll make alot of friends if you just laugh things off.

I'm not trying to get mad at people, I just think people are taking advantage of this sudden onslaught of "LOL U FAIL" towards me when, as far as I can see, I actually tried to make people understand my rational for my original statement instead of sticking to substanceless biases and a refusal to acknowledge any other opinions. I don't mind laughing it off, but it seems a lot of people are laughing at me, thinking they are a higher musical authority, they could do better. Maybe they can, I don't know, and I have no problem with that. Like I said, I have no problem with people disagreeing with me, I love that, and I have no problem with joking around with people about those differing opinions, but when someone attempts to claim that they are superior and not just different in terms of musical opinions, then I get sorta pissed.

I'd say you might be over-analysing just a touch, I don't think anyone finds themselves superior to you. But I completely understand and unfortunetly when people see others joking they think it's a free-for-all and spam it up.

I'm WAY superior to popsounds.

Never mind, I guess you were right :rofl:

I feel for you man. One of the things you've got to realize about this place is that half the people here go into threads they like, give a decent opinion, and try to enjoy the debate.

The other half thinks its a jungle gym to try out their defeatest one-liners and couldn't care less about the topic at hand. Its not that they think you're opinion sucks, its that they don't have one and they respond with douchey-comments.