Music for white people

A couple months ago I read a really interesting article in the New Yorker about how indie rock music has really gone downhill ("lost it's soul"), mainly due to the fact that there is pretty much no racial or ethnic or cultural diversity whatsoever in the genre. I found this article through Tom Breihan's blog...he's a writer for the Village Voice and has an entertaining blog even though his posts are 75% about hip hop (which, as you'll see, makes his contributions to this discussion really interesting).

I'm sure I've made my disdain for the current state of "indie rock" no secret. But for me, it's more the culture surrounding the genre that turns me off than the actual music. Let's be honest - there are still lots of great indie bands out there. Most of my favourite artists would probably fall into this category. But most of them have also been around for at least a few years. Where are all the new bands?? What happened to the "good ole' days" of 2001-2003, when all these new bands were coming out doing interesting and fresh stuff? To me, the indie rock scene has suffered much the same fate as the rave scene and hardcore scene - it got too big. The original "scenesters" - the people who cared about their art and culture and made it noteworthy in the first place - were joined by the mainstream as more people picked up on the fact that they had a good thing going. All that is innocent enough. But with that comes the inevitable infiltration of less-than-sincere (or even just less-than-talented) new members of the scene. This drives away the purists and drives in the ad agencies who see the dollar signs, and the next thing you know, the whole movement pretty much becomes a parody of its former self. And the art at the centre of the culture (in this case music) really starts to suck.

So that, in my opinion, is why we've lost Mogwai to Metric. The Get Up Kids to Fall Out Boy. Broken Social Scene to Broken Social Scene Presents: Kevin Drew.

But wait, back to my original point. It's not as much the music itself as the culture that surrounds it. And (as the New Yorker article discusses) it's of course that culture that determines how the actual music sounds. This is where I'm the most opinionated. "Indie" culture is the worst!! True, it's the scene that's probably the most in line with all of our cultural ideals, aesthetics, values, and even political opinions and stuff like that. But it's also appallingly arrogant, naive, and smug. I'd also add "annoying" to that list. The indie hipsters may be more intelligent, more aware of the world, and have better taste in just about everything than, say, a country music fan or even just some middle aged mom who likes Michael Buble. But why is it so important to continually assert that?? What's up with the obsessive desire to keep up on all the bad music and bad movies and bad haircuts out there only to have the ability to trash them? (I won't even get into the whole "liking things ironically" phenomenon). I should probably mention at this point that I'm just as guilty as anyone, so this is a self-critique as much as anything. But it does seem to be getting worse and a little bit ridiculous...just go to that Stilepost messageboard and see for yourself.

I guess my point is that it's fun to make fun of (for example) Nickleback and all the people who listen to them. We actually SHOULD do this to a point, as this music is all terrible and clearly deserves to be made fun of. But when it becomes an obsession, it seems like we're the fools. Whenever you find yourself amongst people who are really different from you, watch closely and you'll probably realize 2 things: A) They have really bad taste in everything, and B) They don't really care, which somehow makes them cooler than us.


Wow, this whole rant just because I wanted to post a link to an article about how white people are bad at drums.