Just sitting here listening to my copy of Fly Pan Am’s eponymous CD (a Christmas gift along with records by godspeed you black emperor!, A Silver Mount Zion, and Do Make Say Think)… these artists are apparently called “Post Rock.”
I really like these 4 CDs. I am planning on getting other stuff like Mogwai and Sigur Ros, which apparently both fall into the “Post Rock” category. But while I like the music, whenever I hear the genre’s name I always think about this line in a Woody Allen standup bit–“She was dating a painter, a mock-pseudo-post-sub-psychotic-quasi-cretin painter…”
So what I’m wondering is, does this term mean anything to you? Are you a “Post Rock” fan? Can you tell me what “Post Rock” is?
Here’s a link to www.allmusic.com, whose description of Post Rock I unfortunately can’t get a direct URL for… it isn’t terribly helpful anyway.
-Ulterior
I think it’s a really stupid term for some great music, but then again, it’s not any more stupid than ‘post-punk’ or ‘grunge-core’. It’s just as appropriate as ‘pre-rock’, seeing as it describes music that was most popular in the late nineties, and the latest music to be the darling of the music press is … rock.
Maybe it’s post-post-rock, if you think about the precursors to it being in the late 60’s and early 70’s - Velvets, Stooges, Faust, Can, Neu, Captain Beefheart, Suicide, etc - and that came out of the great era of rock in the mid to late 1960’s.
Also, in the early 80’s, the least cool thing you could possibly be was ‘rock’, so most groups then thought of themselves as ‘post-rock’ (even if they didn’t use the term) - think of the New Romantics, New Wave, ad nauseum.
My vote is that we only have two categories of music, as according to Sturgeon: the 90% in every genre that’s crap, and the 10% that’s good.
I guess I am a fan of it, but I hate the tag. The first band I ever heard that being associated with was Tortoise, maybe 5 years ago. Some bands in that vein that I like: Tortoise, The first 3 Euphone albums (don’t like the latest one), The Mercury Program
Heard a couple Mogwai albums, I wasn’t crazy about them. The new Sigur Ros is really good, however.
I say don’t worry about what it’s called…if you like it, go with it.
I love the music but hate the term, as well. First, it sounds really really pretentious. Second, it’s thrown around at any non-conventional music that’s somewhat rooted in rock, and it just doesn’t say anything about the music. Any term which can be applied to Slint, Tortoise and GYBE! is a bit too vague in my book.
On the other hand, the people who like GYBE! generally like Slint and Tortoise too, even if they’re very different, so maybe it’s not such a bad term anyway.
Other (dare I say it?) post-rock bands worth checking out are Slint, 90 Day Men, Cul de Sac, Explosions in the Sky, Dissolve, Gastr del Sol, Clogs, Fridge, Dntel, Hella and Múm. There’s tons of good stuff out there if you look for it.