The title of this might make it seem like some kind of race-intensive discussion, but I just meant to state the topic efficiently. I just read this article from AP, and according to it, bands like Modest Mouse, Death Cab for Cutie and Bright eyes (doesn’t mention Iron and Wine but I’d throw that into the ‘big 4’ also) are becoming more and more popular.
I think this is good, since I’m a big fan of these bands. Despite an earlier post of mine, in support of File Sharing, which definitely ruffled a few feathers, I’m happy to see that these bands are enjoying newfound commercial success. (I think that a lot of their popularity has COME from file-sharing, but that’s a topic for another time.)
This is going to sound very un-PC and I really don’t mean to be offensive at all, but I think that white teenagers have not really had their “own voice” until indie music. Most of the popular culture (which was and is shared by whites blacks and others alike) is very “black” in that it is largely influenced by hip-hop, rap, and R&B.
One look at the top 40 charts, for the past few years, reveals hip-hop and R&B’s death-grip on the radio. However, “last November, singer-songwriter Connor Oberst’s band, Bright Eyes, had two songs top the Billboard singles chart — knocking out a duet by Usher and
Alicia Keys and sending the indie rock world into a tailspin.” (To quote the article.) This is a major thing, to me.
I am glad that teenagers (of all races, despite my title) are getting away from hip-hop’s uber-aggressive domain and getting into more “sensitive guy” music. A post of mine a long time ago, The Evolution of Wimp Rock, demonstrated my love of “wimpy” music, going all the way back to Todd Rundgren and George Harrison’s solo work and so forth.
When I was in high school, pretty much everyone, white and black, was into hip-hop and rap (myself included,) but I gradually lost interest in it and rediscovered my Beatles-influenced love of melodies and harmonies, and stopped lliking hip-hop. A lot of people love it and are more than willing to reccommend rap and hip-hop to me that they are “sure” doesn’t fit my conventional definition of what it is, but whatever - I just don’t like it.
The other part of this is that I think a lot of it - yes I know, not all - is really just pumped-up, over-macho posturing and haughty boasting. I don’t like the treating of women as utter sex objects, I think sex is a great thing that ought to be intimate, personal, and reciprocal. Not a “game” - as in “my pimp game.” Love is not random blow-jobs which so much hip-hop celebrates (what kind of asshole expects blow-job after blow-job without ever reciprocating and giving the woman a good time for once?) I don’t like hearing about “that pussy” or “hitting that” or any of that, I find it all classless and absurd. Tell me I’m “stereotyping” hip-hop, whatever, you know that so much of it fits the above description to a tee.
I hate the overtly materialistic attitude of a lot of hip-hop also - the shameless celebration of consumer goods, SUVs, women (lumped in as a commodity with the rest of it,) “bling-bling” (how many Africans do you think have to be exploited for rapper’s ‘ice?’) and all that crap. Yeah, yeah, plenty of rappers don’t do the conspicuous-consumption thing in their lyrics, but enough of them do that it’s a real phenomenon.
Whew - does this belong as pit rant against rap? I don’t think so, since I don’t hate all rap or all hip-hop, and even the kind that I’m referring to here doesn’t inspire me to attack it with true venom - I just think it’s a kind of petty, stupid thing. Instead, I’ll explain why I think indie rock is a good counterbalance against all of that.
First of all, it’s making it cool again to be a sensitive, even slightly neurotic guy. A lot of indie rock songs, you can practically see Woody Allen sitting there speaking the lyrics - I have the Postal Service in mind here, but plenty of other ones work too. Indie rock isn’t about being macho, tough, or even about being successful and famous. It’s mostly sentimental content, and that which isn’t is usually of some intellectual variety (and even if no complex ideas are expressed, the words and music flow well. Modest Mouse comes to mind.) It’s not really like some “indie lifestyle” is being espoused by the music. There absolutely IS an indie/hipster lifestyle, but it’s being created by the fans to a large degree.
Second of all, it’s bringing back a lot of good melodic stuff. Someone earlier commented that the Steel Guitar is enjoying a revival in indie music - this is just one of the good things that is coming out of the indie scene. There’s a lot of good guitar playing, specifically rhythm guitar playing, something that seemed to have been getting rarer and rarer. There’s techno-influenced, arpegiatted stuff like Grandaddy. There’s more and more vocal harmonies, something that I have loved ever since the Beatles. Groups like Mates of State and The Thrills are bringing back great vocal harmony big-time. The Kings of Convenience, a Norwegian duo, sound like the reincarnation of Simon and Garfunkel. Ben Folds (who I do consider indie) is bringing back Elton John and Billy Joel’s piano rock. It’s a renaissance of all the stuff I have always loved about older pop rock, and everything that the hip-hop and horrible Creed-type screaming bands of high school made me think was gone forever!!!
There is a lot of great lyricism coming from bands like The Decemberists. Grandaddy may be indie’s science/computer geeks, but The Decemberists and They Might Be Giants are the resident history geeks. A lot of very clever wit, integrated surpsisingly well into the music, is coming out of indie rock also.
Enough of me explaining what indie rock is. You know what it is - it’s awesome!
