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.

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html

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.
l
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D02E1DE123EF937A35751C0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&&scp=1&sq=gen%20y%20boomers%20workplace&st=cse

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.

As for the post on P P U N C H:

“All a critic can be is fair, honest, and true to themselves. Everything else is ultimately out of their control.”

I suppose I disagree with this, since it assumes that a critic is not, his/herself very much a product of the musical ecosystem you describe. The idea that this is all so much hand-wringing presumes that there’s nothing to be gained from systematic discussion of this ecosystem, which I simply don’t believe. I actually agree with you, 100%, that criticism is only one small part of a greater system of cultural signification — but I also think it is important (and, hey, interesting!) for critics to acknowledge and engage with that system. I’ve certainly found it useful to articulate my perspective, and in turn to have it challenged. If the net result is only that I come to a better understanding of my own aesthetic leanings and prejudices, then I feel like I’m better for it. I’m a bit baffled by the meta-meta gesture of starting a discussion about a discussion about discussions about music, which decries that discussion for not simply being a discussion about music. It seems to me like we’re actually having the same discussion. Which is good.

I think that the tendency of the “consumer” to reject some hyped bands and embrace others IS interesting. Certainly, it is not as simple as “Pitchfork say band good. Now me like band.” But, again, I think that Pitchfork — and ANY critical outlet — often gets swept up in the same musical trends as the people they’re writing for. I don’t think it’s arbitrary by any means; if the moment is right for a band, a good review can seem like an almost-invisible step in the foregone conclusion of their ascent. If a critic happens to really, really like a band that is ill-suited for that moment — or whose moment is about to pass — it can seem like an incongruous mark of praise that either forever ties that artist to that critic, or fails to register at all. What forces conspire to make the “right” moment for a particular band, whether those forces impede or enhance some kind of “real” understanding of that band’s art… these are all things worth debating.

Beyond that, though, the ultimate arbiter of what happens to a band is the band themselves; but in art, as in criticism, I believe that fairness, honesty, and truth are hard-won. The idea that any art, or any criticism, can be somehow unmediated and impervious to these systems seems… well, dishonest. Look, I certainly don’t want to be the guy throwing my hands up and yelling “BAHHHH INDIE ROCK USED TO BE BETTER!” But, in all the truth, honesty and fairness I can muster, I have seen and felt things change in this nebulous (sub)culture, and I have a great deal of ambivalence — as a fan, a writer, and a musician — towards some of these changes. These discussions are important not because they allow us to huddle together in Ye Olde Indie Rock Bunker, but rather because they keep us engaged with our own perspectives, and help us to better ourselves as writers and critics.

I would like this site to be a place where discussions like this (all part of the greater metaconversation, of course) are ongoing. I had intended to regularly post “Open Threads” here on the site, to allow freeform discussion, but I suspect that, at least for the time being, it’s probably better if we can start them with at least a germ of an idea. So feel free to hit me *anytime,* if you’ve got something you’d like to get conversatin’ about.

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…

I completely disagree with the idea that we need to find this line that supposedly exists (if we can only find it!) between Really Good Artists and Local Bands. What is one man’s R.G.A. is another’s L.B. that isn’t worth the hard drive space to download, and that’s okay! I can’t stand anything Bob Pollard’s touched, and most people seem to disagree with me that Viking Moses and Jib Kidder had two of the best records to come out this year. That’s fine with me. What I really can’t understand this weird unity of praise that ripples across indie blogs for certain things when there are SO MANY bands out there that anyone could go to a show and see and decide they like and start paying attention to. Do people really think it will make their blog more popular if they talk about Fleet Foxes or Santogold or whatever? Does it make them more popular? I genuinely want to know, if anyone knows.