Offnotesnotesnotes

This is a great discussion. Unsurprisingly, I’m very much with Matthew here. Personally, I’m entirely unmoved by Vivian Girls. Marc, I agree with you that we as critics can’t account for “longevity” per se, but I also think that we tend to get caught up in music that is easy to parse as a collection of ideas and references. The very fact that Vivian Girls (and Vampire Weekend, etc) can spark up such a heated discussion makes them exciting from a critical perspective.

“Playing the studio as an instrument” speaks to the ages-old problem of content vs. form — I am completely unconvinced by this gesture unless A) the content is so moving that it transcends the form or B) the form seems specifically and productively fitted to its content. Times New Viking songs COULD be just as good if they weren’t totally blown out; which, for me, is +1 for the band and -1 for the record. If you listen back to, say, Bee Thousand, the recordings are “lo-fi,” but they’re also considered and exciting. Spontaneity and craft *can* coexist, but it takes a lot of vision to balance them.

Amateurism a la Vivian Girls is fine with me, if it seems like the product of a creative vision that *just cannot wait* to be expressed. But amateurism as an aesthetic, as that-which-makes-a-band-worth-discussing…. feh. I was skeptical of Deerhunter at first but, like Matthew, I’ve come to really respect what Bradford is doing, in part because he’s made it clear that he has the vision and the work ethic to back it up.

Honestly, I don’t have much patience for the very idea of “backlash.” Bands who work their asses off to gradually amass a devoted following don’t really have to worry about “backlash.” With a band like Vivian Girls, who a small number of people seem to get very excited about very quickly, the bigger problem seems to be “sidelash”; in a month, we’ll be having this same discussion about a different band. In a weird way, it balances out the system; the bands who have (again) the vision and the work ethic will keep at it, those who don’t will fall apart when the public moves on. When fandom and dismissal are equally easy and shallow, the net result isn’t much. You either burn out, or you keep at it.

First, Ryan, thanks for re-posting this here. I just re-read the whole thing–now with consistently justified columns and no sneaky replies popping in mid-conversation!–and there is really a TON of ideas to sift through.

Matt, in response to this part of your comment:

>>”I agree… that we as critics can’t account for “longevity” per se, but I also think that we tend to get caught up in music that is easy to parse as a collection of ideas and references. The very fact that Vivian Girls (and Vampire Weekend, etc) can spark up such a heated discussion makes them exciting from a critical perspective.”

Vampire Weekend is a perfect example of this. No Age too, with their whole narrative of representing an old-school, pre-blog-era local scene. Listening to Vampire Weekend this week, after being away from it for a while now, sorta makes all the debate around that record seem silly in retrospect. In a post I did at the time, I noted that the band themselves (I assume, since they weren’t yet signed when they first broke in 07) must have had a hand in defining themselves as “Upper West Side Soweto.” In other words, they created the talking points around their record. It’s really quite savvy in the blog era, where (theoretically) the music must be paired with words written by a third party. So VW and No Age gave us an mp3+talking points, and it worked out pretty well for them.

The irony is that by positioning bands like No Age as “’90s indie” throwbacks, the aesthetic of “’90s indie” is being reified into something much more uniform and uninteresting than it actually was. Listen to, say, the Olivia Tremor Control, Chavez, and the Green Pajamas side to side; there IS no unified aesthetic to “’90s indie.” If anything, the legacy of ’90s indie is/should be that you can mkde due with what you have, REGARDLESS of commercial concerns. Aesthetically, a Chavez song would make sense on the radio. An Olivia Tremor Control song wouldn’t. If you had an advance from Matador, you went into a recording studio. If you had a four-track, you used a four-track. If your friend played the tuba, you had a tuba. Etc etc etc. Not every band sounded like Sebadoh — not even SEBADOH sounded like Sebadoh half the time.

With No Age in particular, it’s an extra-fun rhetorical hall of mirrors: A blog can disavow its own complicity in the system of “hype” by hyping a band that has become emblematic of the era before blogs hyped bands.

Matt is exactly right: The thing that made the 90s such an amazing time for indie, and why it’s basically ruined me for life, is that it was a time when variety, novelty, and vision were valued above all else. Think about all the major indie acts of the period — there may be some common denominators, but they all had distinct aesthetics and singers. To get an idea of the context I’m thinking of: Pavement, Guided By Voices, Helium, Liz Phair, Stereolab, Fugazi, Sonic Youth, The Make Up, Archers of Loaf, Magnetic Fields, Belle & Sebastian, Elliott Smith, Sleater-Kinney, Cat Power, Chavez, Olivia Tremor Control and the Elephant Six bunch, etc and that’s before you even really get into the more mainstream acts, or what was happening in England for the most part. This is an era where being overly “derivative” was a high crime, and pretty good bands would be maligned in rather extreme ways if they were perceived to be ripping off whatever! It’s pretty much the radical opposite of today’s indie world, for sure. I think people genuinely cared more about individualism in that era, whereas now, mostly as a result of the internet, community and conformity is more valued.

I completely agree with Matt LeMay that the ’90s indie sound is being reduced to a formula. What’s more, the formula isn’t altogether that indie. Wavves sound almost exactly like The Pixies to me (to my knowledge, Frank Black has never been in a room at the same time as Wavves–coincidence?).

So many bands right now are emerging that play basic, punk-like chord progressions and distort their guitars such that the music becomes ‘arty.’ The music doesn’t reflect any experimentation–it sounds kinda like indie bands playing early Nirvana material for a nostalgic audience. The music itself can be enjoyable, but the scene seems stiflingly obsessed with cred due to the role of ‘community.’

For me in particular it’s frustrating, because my favorite recorded music ever comes from the ’80s and ’90s. Where are the bands taking their cues from Luna, Primal Scream, Spiritualized, or even inventive pop like Teenage Fanclub?

I’m guilty of the year-end stuff, but personally, I like to read people’s year-end music posts to expose myself to anything I might have missed.

Good point, Scott. The difference, I think, is that the tide has turned in such a way as to allow little room for those lesser bands to exist AS lesser bands. As indie rock becomes more social and, as Matthew says, community and conformity are more valued, there seems to be less and less room for people to have their own “favorite” bands within a particular scene or aesthetic. Some bands become “huge,” some bands have trouble filling a tiny room to capacity in their home towns. The distribution curve of success among “indie” bands is looking more and more like that of bands signed to majors; which, interestingly, suggests that social configurations may be more important than the “ZOMG EVIL MAJOR LABEL” business practices usually blamed for such a model.

I would go so far as to say that there ARE NO local bands anymore, Matthew. *Every* band is, effectively, a “global” band now, and hence the glut. It’s not that there are so many more bands now– it’s that there are all these small bands that, in the past, would’ve been relegated to smal-town hope/hype… but now, instead of just being local also-rans, they clog email inboxes across the globe with their homebrew press releases.

There’s something to be said for “paying your dues,” and “working your way up.” Too bad everyone thinks they should get to go from Phase I to Phase 9000 in one fell swoop nowadays.

Matthew, I think that even more so than the paying vs. free thing, the issue is that there used to be no really clear way of differentiating between the “minor” local bands, aside from the amount of time they’ve been on the scene and what they’ve accomplished (ie, are they on their way to becoming “major” local bands). In other words, you had to decide for yourself which of the “minor” local bands were going to be the ones YOU liked. There was no, say…. hundred-point numerical scale that would pre-order ALL bands, local or otherwise, for you.

This is a great conversation, and the best argument yet for the value of a collective like MBV. Ass-kissing done. There’s a ton to work through here, but I’m really interested in this:

>>”Is it possible that the average music listener just wants a larger volume of music today than he or she did 10 years ago? For some reason that doesn’t seem right to me, but if it’s untrue, how did the racing aspect I mentioned above emerge?”<<

I do think people do want to consume a larger volume of music today than ever before, and i think there’s direct correlation with both the wide availability of free music on the internet and the number of people who suddenly became involved in the conversation.

Maybe digest is a better verb, given the rate of the hype cycle. Longevity, fidelity and physical artifacts are concerns that have gone, in the last ten years, from the central concern of collectors to fringe experiments at keeping a floundering (countless trend stories about the return of vinyl notwithstanding) industry alive. The things that people want from their music has changed, and that in turn has changed the narrative – probably within the art itself, definitely within criticism.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that the number of people who REALLY want to discuss some of the issues of art and culture in popular music hasn’t gone down, even in relation to the number of jackholes who just want credit for typing about the next big thing. Shallow obsession is always a part of pop music. Perhaps those jerks are the same class of user who used to be satisfied by spending too much money on tricked-out sound system for their Duran Duran records.

Yeah, that’s cheap, and harsh – I really don’t mean to suggest that the spread of the low-impact mp3 blog has demeaned the Art of Criticism, just to remind that it’s always been a small club. And just because the rest of the world has moved into your territory doesn’t mean they’re playing the same game. In 10 years, or two, everyone will have forgotten about most of these blogs, too.

Wow, very insightful observation there, Jacob: “Longevity, fidelity and physical artifacts are concerns that have gone, in the last ten years, from the central concern of collectors to fringe experiments.”

And Russ (Tinyfolk), I don’t think you’d find much disagreement here about R.G.A.s and L.B.s and to each his own and so on… I think Matthew’s assertion to “draw a line,” probably has less to do with marking things as “good” and “not good,” and has rather more to do with that “weird unity of praise” you mention. Because the answer to your question about blogs chasing popularity = yes, absolutely; there are legions upon legions of music blogs out there for whom, ironically, the music has very importance. It’s about traffic, and popularity, and social status, and cultural capital, and so on– and the music is merely the wampum they’re trading in. This is, of course, an entirely different conversation…

[...] a comment-thread-cum-post that features way too many miscalculated trajectories and faceplants for my tastes: Hogan: As a [...]

there are so many big ideas being discussed here, and i know this conversation is intended to be centered on music, but i feel like these quibbles/complaints extend so much further, and are perhaps the beginnings of a widening generation gap between x and y. there are correlations to be found within the fine art world, as well as in fashion trends, where this trend of aping rather than reinvention seems to be what “these kids nowadays” are doing. i know i’m sounding like an old lady here, at the ripe age of 30, but i think remaking a roy lichtenstein painting out of dollar bills and slapping your name on it (saw it at a gallery in LA’s uber-hip chinatown today) is simply not enough reinvention. same goes in fashion, for all the kids wearing the styles of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s as though playing a part – those kids buying raybans and stirrup pants @ urban outfitters seem more like they are trying on costumes of an era to me, rather than making any creative attempt to take those elements and breathe new life into them. i’m gonna grow a beard and dress play “laurel canyon hippe in the 70’s” this year!

I think it is something to come to grips with that Y is the first generation to grow up fully immersed in post-modernism and continually bathed throughout their formative years in heavy irony. they are simply redefining an acceptable level of achievement for their generation. If you are an Xer, raised to think a little effort and struggle was still a given for anything that you wanted to achieve, then this regurgitation of genre templates (or niche templates – i love that comment matthew made) is not for you. while i think this old-ish article is a tiny bit out of touch – especially in it’s musical references – i think it has some good points to make about this generational clash. i think it shines a light on the point catbird was trying to make in his “phase 1- phase 9000″ comment – how these kids that have grown up overpraised and underchallenged are entering the adult world with a totally different perspective than previous generations.
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on the side, i think all this also has something to do with our culture’s overwhelming obsession with celebrity – whether you read celebrity gossip religously, or deliberately shun it in an effort to self-define in another way, or come back all the way around to consume it with irony (then you’re hipper than hip), this focus on self-mythologizing and everybody-celebrity is definitely reflected in the generation clash. gen X didn’t want fame! they wanted unique craft and community! the comment about no band being local anymore is indeed part of the issue. as each community becomes more and more specialized – whether it’s in fashion, music, art, literature, or tv-watching habits, the audience become bigger yet narrower, all at the same time. just as the vivian girls in their video said, they can go anywhere and have an insta-community of kids who dress just like them (cause they took their cues from facehunter and blog pics!), talk like them, and share the same interests. but! if you are constantly surrounded by people who agree with you, how are you ever challenged to grow?

as a feminist (and this is a whole ‘nother can of worms), i am frustrated by the vivian girls. i want them to try harder. how have they captured everyone’s imaginations so? i honestly think their gender has a little to do with it, and they aren’t doing us girls any favors by sucking. in a world still dominated by male musicians, and too few women demonstrating their songwriting skills and mastery of an instrument rather than their hotness, amatuerism is not good enough! we are still proving ourselves, believe it or not. but maybe the post-feminists disagree. anyway, I have way more respect for someone well-learned like st. vincent than these half-assed genre-emulators.

anyway, thanks for having such an interesting conversation up there, and allowing me to hijack these comments with my old-lady stream-of-consciousness.

Just wanted to pick up on Catbird’s point about community/every band is a global band: The idea that every band is global is bullshit. Every band has the distribution channel (teh internet) to reach global audiences but without the marketing, they don’t get there. However, what is interesting is that because the influence or reach of bands is not as dependent on the distribution of their music but more on the hype that floats around, bands enter into communities of hype/marketing. Our example here being: The post-modern irony-obsessed indie rock blogging community.

I believe bands still need a bit of a buzz locally to get into this community. But once they’re in, they still have to climb their way up though under more community approval based rules than through building a relatively non-critic-ful/verbose fanbase. So my first guess at what this looks like is:

a) You have an interesting gimmick or sound: You get blogged. (This is the entry.)
b) Bloggers/critics talk about you. I like them. I hate them. Blah blah blah.
c) You get a bonus if either you or one of the early spotters decides to attach a concept or “talking point” to your band/music. (re: scott’s mp3+talking points).
d) At some point, word gets around enough that your band spills over from the critiquing blogosphere and into the greater non-blogging (but still indie-trendy) public.
e) Here you get a bonus for having an interesting twist, but by still being poppy, not over-produced and sounding pleasant, because then the word-of-mouth effect will be smoother — at this point you’re only reaching people who want something that sounds “pretty good” and a bit “interesting” but not game-changing.

(And FYI, I was thinking about Vampire Weekend, Beirut and the Decemberists for this example. Try it out.)

And to follow up on jill’s point about Gen Y… to me the bigger factor for our generation is that indie rock (or whatever you want to call it) is being consumed by a larger audience, and that larger audience are not the music producers, critics/spotters/trendsetters, rather they are people who just enjoy being trendy. I suppose that the line has blurred between trendsetters and trend followers now because everyone can blog, everyone can be a trendsetter/critic… BUT perhaps it’s more that critics now have different audiences. After all, as far as I know, Rolling Stone critics were lame way before the internet arrived.

[...] but it is always important that the songs be present. not just the sounds. I wanted to share an interesting discussion at MBV. Also, how can we give Marc Hogan any props if his blog is invite only? We only [...]