Is ILM's interest in new music waning?

I was thinking today about how every year I feel like I know less about current bands/artists, and I figured I'd make a conscious sweep of ILM to see what people are talking about, but I realized almost none of it's new. Has it been like this forever and I just didn't notice? Is it a blip? An aging board? A dying board?

do you read the various rolling threads

I don't know. It feels a lot quieter around these parts compared to the last couple of years. As for new music, I was all over new music last year, there seemed to be so much stuff to soak up. This year, it's felt a little bit slower to me for some reason. I'll hold my hands up and definitely say there's not much new that I've come across this year that's grabbed me. As for "event" stuff from established artists, I guess there's been the Kate Bush live gigs and Aphex Twin making his return. Last year was a bit of a year for comebacks, actually: My Bloody Valentine, Bowie, Daft Punk, Suede etc. etc.

Psychedelic Rock that's not Psychedelic Rock

the metal thread is, what, 90% new music?

Theres lots of music I want to listen to, still. Its my spare time that is waning.

The new answers page has very few threads that are specifically about a new/recent artist or album, but that's a good point that a lot of new stuff likely stays in the "rolling" threads.

Maybe 2014 has just been a lousy year for music.

Well, I have had my theories for a while about how the new music industry is ultimately bad for music and would lead to waning quality, but I know that's not going to go over well here.

i don't think your theories would be received badly. i'm really just an occasional lurker now, but i'd say it may have to do with board participants getting a little older. fwiw, i think 2014's been strong for new music.

another anecdote in the anecdotal-evidence pile, but most people I know think 2014's been pretty weak; for what it's worth I'd agree.

(re: your theories -- I'd venture that it's less a matter of waning quality and more a matter of quality not finding an audience)

one of the main things i miss on ilm is discussion of event records. that seems to have been mostly kept up by poptimists and pop-friendly posters, but i just don't have enough interest to follow that music.

i do think it relates to a lack of coherent audiences. older ilm could still enjoy strong enough shows of enthusiasm (and distaste, hatred, etc) that it could make lively threads for interested people without much of a stake in a record or a musician. a good meeting ground for interaction between different listeners with different interests.

but aside from being less excited by what new music fashions there are now, i do think ilm still talks about plenty of new music, constantly. it just doesn't have as much to say about it, other than that it's there, and it's good (or bad).

(re: your theories -- I'd venture that it's less a matter of waning quality and more a matter of quality not finding an audience)

― katherine, Saturday, August 30, 2014 10:57 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well I think it's a matter of not finding an audience inasmuch as that's part of a larger picture of not getting the economic support it needs to flourish

i think it's been a great year for new music, fwiw. anecdotally, i don't use ilm as a new music discussion board as much as i used to because social media occupies more of that space now.

xxp but even a big historical driver of ilm discussion like pitchfork seems less keyed to new music somehow to me. sure, they constantly review it, and chase and try to foster trends, and yadda yadda yadda, but the narrative isn't there, the sense of discovery. older versions of the narrative were what they were partly because there were large, coherent groups of listeners and readers who felt something was at stake in the narratives, or the music they were about.

put a different way, although pitchfork tries to be authoritative in its way, and obviously still does represent certain perspectives rather than others, i get far less of a sense these days that their editorial voice positions itself as speaking for an 'us'. it's less self-consciously plural in that way.

and something similar seems to be true of ilm. i have no idea what 'we' picture ourselves as being about, other than polls. there isn't that degree of self-conscious coherence (or opposition to it etc) anymore.

i have no idea what 'we' picture ourselves as being about

increasingly, i'd say it's "pop," with smaller communities available for specific genres.

xxxxp yeah i do feel like there are fewer and fewer event records each year and i really enjoy the threads that force just about every ilm regular to register his/her opinion. we need a new vampire weekend or lana del rey.

I also feel a little bit exhausted by the *kinds* of discussions ILM tended to be especially good at -- like there's only so many times you want to go through the race issues raised by the latest white pop star to appropriate some black cultural element in a gross way before it feels a little pat, but that could also be a getting older "seen it all now" kind of thing.

I was gonna post a new music to-check-out list vs. new music already heard list but it looks like actual purposeful diacussion has seeped in while I was away

xxp but even a big historical driver of ilm discussion like pitchfork seems less keyed to new music somehow to me. sure, they constantly review it, and chase and try to foster trends, and yadda yadda yadda, but the narrative isn't there, the sense of discovery. older versions of the narrative were what they were partly because there were large, coherent groups of listeners and readers who felt something was at stake in the narratives, or the music they were about.

put a different way, although pitchfork tries to be authoritative in its way, and obviously still does represent certain perspectives rather than others, i get far less of a sense these days that their editorial voice positions itself as speaking for an 'us'. it's less self-consciously plural in that way.

and something similar seems to be true of ilm. i have no idea what 'we' picture ourselves as being about, other than polls. there isn't that degree of self-conscious coherence (or opposition to it etc) anymore.

― j., Saturday, August 30, 2014 11:16 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this seems to be true of music writing in general across the board everywhere in 2014, but I don't trust that not to be me projecting

yeah i was gonna say, an internet thing no doubt, but the state of pitchfork seems like a useful proxy for the state of ilm given their histories

i think it's been a great year for new music, fwiw. anecdotally, i don't use ilm as a new music discussion board as much as i used to because social media occupies more of that space now.

Same, although I'm not quite as enthusiastic about this year's crop.

The past several years I've found a lot more singles/individual songs to go wild over than albums, but even songs this year have been a mild letdown. I'm using the opportunity to listen to older music, but not because I'm old and set in my ways. You can basically keep finding old music you've never heard before for the rest of your life because there's simply so much of it.

I believe the premise of this thread to be 100% true.

there was a classic rock poll

You know what's NOT new? People talking about how people's interest in new music is waning. We've p much had one of these threads every year since 2001.

ILXors' interest in waning is in fact waxing?

lots of good new music that was talked about here with specific threads:

spoon - they want my soul
war on drugs - lost in a dream
morgen felt
also: swans, sun kill moon, ty segall, white lung, mac demarco etc

Is new music by bands that have been around a long time still "new music"?

Well, I have had my theories for a while about how the new music industry is ultimately bad for music and would lead to waning quality, but I know that's not going to go over well here.

― 'arry Goldman (Hurting 2), Saturday, August 30, 2014 10:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^^^^^

also, "poptimism." garbage in / garbage out, etc.

ILM just not that into EDM

ILM's interest in competitive taste-making may be waning, but that doesn't really say much about individual users' interest in new music.

^ in this game, claiming not to play the game is still an attempt to win it

The Afrobeats 2014 thread

Bunji Garlin

i don't think your theories would be received badly. i'm really just an occasional lurker now, but i'd say it may have to do with board participants getting a little older.

Looking at my ongoing list of best albums, I noticed it's a smaller list than last year at this time but the singles lists are about even.

Age has little to do with enthusiasm unless you weren't terribly interested -- financially or otherwise -- in the first place. I tend to think if you're a casual listener when you were young you'll remain one later.

There are over 400 posts on a thread about a Nicki Minaj album that hasn't been released yet

Age has little to do with enthusiasm unless you weren't terribly interested -- financially or otherwise -- in the first place. I tend to think if you're a casual listener when you were young you'll remain one later.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn),

If as a result of age, one is busier with raising kids or a dayjob then you will have less time to discover and listen to new music

Well, you know, that's to do with having kids or your dayjob. Not ageing. Neither of these things are guaranteed parts of the ageing process for everyone!

those two items (kids; day-job) are a large part of what i meant. you're right, of course, those factors won't apply to everyone.

I already resent this thread for prompting me to listen to that Sun Kil Moon album.

Yeah Sun Kil Moon is garbage and I usually love corny self-pitying indie bullshit

2014 is like the first year i've actually kept up with new albums

nigeria is clearly running the table on dance music in 2014

― rap steve gadd (D-40), Sunday, August 31, 2014 9:05 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

From the Afrobeats 2014 thread

Deej OTM.

apparently ILM's interest in what synth did they use on that one song is waxing big time.........

Actually I've just seen the challopy first half of that quote and I withdraw my OTM.

I think Matt said in another recent thread (reminiscing about the original rolling electro-house threads I think) that 10 years ago the ILM discussions about new music could be really healthy in part because while it was by that time possible to access music for free and quickly, it wasn't possible to access it immediately. The fan of X new track or album wanted to talk about it in such a way that other readers would be motivated to track it down, download it, listen to it, and so on.

Youtube and etc. has squashed the space for describing music to people who haven't heard it - because it's so much easier for those people to go to youtube and hear it immediately. This has had a broader impact than just ILM - it was really only post youtube that a lot of music magazines/zines started issuing injunctions to writers not to spend too long describing what single tracks sound like, given the reader can check that out for themselves so easily.

This is one reason why, on the one hand, the rolling threads move so quickly - you really need to be checking a lot of the tracks mentioned as you go to keep up, and that knowledge is assumed - while on the other hand the threads that tend to generate writerly-enthusiasm are the ones that turn on issues beyond what the music sounds like (e.g. Lily Allen this summer's biggest racist).

THAT is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come

xpost That's really interesting. In hindsight, Youtube and later Spotify have probably changed the way I listen to and read about music much more than Napster, et al. Like, on some recommendations I added the Charli XCX album to my Spotify and listened to it a few times, maybe mostly the first half, and I can still hum "Nuclear Seasons." If it was 2002, the recommendation might have led to me downloading the one recommended track, digging it, and taking it as a sign that I should buy the album. Then I would have played the record a lot and probably gotten to know it better, and discussed it on ILM, rather than just deleting it.

But it's hard for me to separate this from the specific chronology of my own "growing up" problems - CD era, versus select MP3s plus vinyl, versus streaming.... this is, for me, teenagerhood, then college, then post-college. And post-college is also when I got into ILM in the first place, and I've gotten tons of great recommendations and listening out of this place, though almost always tracks and not albums. I always get the sense looking at SNA that there's just tons of new music that other people are excited about, enough to start threads about, though how it compares to a few years back I couldn't say for sure.

Lol deems

everybody should buy this record:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyPAwhykML4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qa23wo14hs

this one too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KFzv5y6fgQ

as long as good music is still being released, there will be ilxors voicing their confusion at how people can listen to it when there is other good music being released

I think a point is also after you get exposed to so much music, you got a whole world there to explore and there isn't as much time or interest to go map new territory. Being a bit nuts, I have kept track of every album I have listened to since like October of 1996 and have heard over 3400+ albums, many of which were new finds or explorations. I've already got hundreds of records I have heard once or twice to dip back into for another listen. I know also for me as a listener, I tend to get into a particular style or sound and really explore it out.

It's come up in jazz writing that current players biggest rival for being heard is the past. I tend to think this is becoming true for most any music now. Even for enthusiasts of a particular style whether hip hop, punk, metal etc. - there is a challenge to both keep up with such a wide array of new groups along with the various reissues and explore the back catalog one might have already acquired, let alone investigate various styles. There is just a TON of music out there and once you already have a TON, I just don't have the same radar bandwidth I did when I was younger. It's not that I don't find new music, it's just a smaller slice of my listening time.

A lot of the dialogue regarding "no money in the industry" has focused on the point of music-creation, the idea that musicians aren't paid, and then (somehow?) won't produce or will produce lesser work. This might be true (probably not) but what is true is that "no money in the industry" has forced labels, publicists, the admin end of things, to scale way down on what they can and cannot do. There is no way to sell music, is what I mean. And the stuff that does imprint itself on global consciousness is the stuff that has a tonne of money behind it, Live Nation or whatever. It might seem music is less exciting but the music is still great, it's just not being sold as well.

Also: Untold "Echo In The Valley", Total Freedom "10,000 Screaming Faggots", Under The Skin OST, Drew's metal-disco record.

I can't think of anything that would make me want to listen to music less than someone just posting a YouTube link (or worse, embed) with no context, not even a name of artist/song or description. I feel very much "fuck you, tell me *why* I should invest my time and my limited bandwidth in this."

crisis of context

cosine, with the exception of certain niche genres where the context is assumed and understood implicitly

xpost

bangin choon

A lot of the dialogue regarding "no money in the industry" has focused on the point of music-creation, the idea that musicians aren't paid, and then (somehow?) won't produce or will produce lesser work. This might be true (probably not) but what is true is that "no money in the industry" has forced labels, publicists, the admin end of things, to scale way down on what they can and cannot do. There is no way to sell music, is what I mean. And the stuff that does imprint itself on global consciousness is the stuff that has a tonne of money behind it, Live Nation or whatever. It might seem music is less exciting but the music is still great, it's just not being sold as well.

I agree a lot with this and think it relates to how the economics of the industry have contributed to a general feeling of not-much-goin-on, though fiends (the type of people who'd, for example, frequent a Rolling ______ thread) will always feel like there's lots goin on & be right

the fiends-only spaces that this results in are kind of a mixed mag imo

I can't think of anything that would make me want to listen to music less than someone just posting a YouTube link (or worse, embed) with no context, not even a name of artist/song or description. I feel very much "fuck you, tell me *why* I should invest my time and my limited bandwidth in this."

― Shugazi (Branwell with an N), Sunday, August 31, 2014 12:24 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is interesting because more and more I'm finding I prefer *less* context. even just a filename in a huge directory. almost makes it seem like cratedigging.

ahhh the days of FTP and Gopher archaelogy

this is interesting because more and more I'm finding I prefer *less* context. even just a filename in a huge directory. almost makes it seem like cratedigging.

― katherine,

I have become very much this way most of my fav music I usually dont know who its by or when its from, and ive grown to like the lack of stuff 'around it', like the (partial) removal of preconception. I still try track down what things are but Ive definitely no longer mind that I dont know what things are

When i do find out what things are, i usually forget anyway - number of times ive heard something and tried to find out what it is, then realize oops i have that one already

Can a music matter if its fans don't especially want to read about it?

the fiends of the rolling afrobeats thread 2014 made my year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl89MMYoe3Q

i go by the cover art first of all (not kidding)

If as a result of age, one is busier with raising kids or a dayjob then you will have less time to discover and listen to new music

― curmudgeon

Sure, but as I said in my first post if you really want to listen and think about music, there's critics who still do it with kids and spouses.

I tend to be 60-40 when it comes to context-free listening. I do it with K-pop and many of the English acts reviewed by The Singles Jukebox. I certainly don't watch the videos unless I have to, i.e. become Part of the Conversation. When the Lily Allen thing happened I thought the song was dumb and offensive enough w/out watching it.

is hipster interest in "Da Ha" by Rappin' Duke on the wane?

Can we please pause this conversation for a bit and discuss how great Pooley is? No? Well, ok then... sigh.

I've noticed a few threads pop up about a new album or band that get six posts maximum then disappear again. I've think this might due to ILM's taste though - for example, the Grimes thread seems to update every fortnight - a big thread for an artist who only really blew up fairly recently - and the FKA Twigs one is already quite long, whereas threads on indie/shoegaze revivalists such as Fear Of Men, Eternal Summers, History Of Apple Pie etc all sink without trace (those artists are all pretty good and I certainly wouldn't have noticed them without seeing a post here).

I think that, GTFO Worst Music thread aside, ILM is mostly full of praise for good stuff so unless something is problematic/interesting in an evenly mildly divisive way, there's no real need for thirty voices saying in different ways "I like this and it is good" - certainly when I read a thread and I like something I only really bump it if I feel it's been unconsidered at large and I don't think vague enthusiasm posts add to the conversation that so many posters are able to have eloquently.

I find it surprising how little traction certain bands I love get on ILM. Shearwater and Okkervil River are good examples, I've played their recent albums heavily but whenever I or one or two other people bump their threads there's never any interest.

Probably it's now cooler to be into new and good restaurants and to live in a good neighborhood than it is to be into 'music'

I tend to be 60-40 when it comes to context-free listening.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 31 August 2014 18:27 Bookmark

i would say for me it's more 75-40

personally i think it's my interest in ILM that's waning, not my interest in new music

^

Context, to me, can mean one of two things:

-Context in terms of "this is the band, here are some biographical details, here's where they hail from geographically or as part of a music scene". This stuff isn't really that helpful in terms of me deciding whether to listen to a track. Granted, once I am *already* obsessed with a piece of music, I tend to want to know more about its creator. (I have noticed that I respond very strongly to "personality". It doesn't necessarily have to be the creator's personality, it can be a complete construction. But I am aware that "make your personality a work of art" is a heightener for the enjoyment of an artist's music, rather than a distraction.)

-Context in terms of musical context, relating it to musical forms I know I already like. "This song has big swooshy synth parts" or "this track has metronomic, motorik drone guitar" or "this song has intricate, baroque-inspired vocal harmonies (especially with female singers)" or "OMG, it's got this eeeeee eeeeeee eeeeeeeee sample which is just the most addictive, compulsive thing." I mean, whatever. But tell me why I should waste my bandwidth on this thing. This kind of context is CRUCIAL. What do you want me to listen to, and why should I care? (This stuff is doubly helpful when allied to ILM posters I already know share similar sorts of tastes.)

I don't know how much of this is down to my current bandwidth constraints, like, I have to pick and choose because I have limited resources. (I think when I had unlimited broadband and Spotify access, I was prepared to be more crate-diggy and investigate things based solely on listener connections and album art.) But in general, crate-digging isn't really my thing. I want some description of the music, mostly because I get really annoyed by having to listen to crap.

I dunno; I never go in the rolling threads. I guess this is because I find "genre" the way most people use it on ILM completely unhelpful and even mystifying. OK, maybe not mystifying, but I guess my taste just doesn't work that way. I understand why things are grouped into these superficial gunnysacks based on stylistic similarities. But the stylistic quirks on which genres seem to be based are never the ones that make me go "more, more, more of this kind of thing!" They're based on, like, certain specific rhythmic patterns rather than "big swooshy noises."

I read it for the dance music as I did 85 years ago. I skip the indie stuff.

-Context in terms of "this is the band, here are some biographical details, here's where they hail from geographically or as part of a music scene". This stuff isn't really that helpful in terms of me deciding whether to listen to a track

this is how I defined it. Also: "third single from debut," etc.

My interest in new music (whether new-new or just new to me) is as strong as ever. My interest in what other people think is pretty much at an all-time low.

^

it is kind of wild that the band with the No.1 album in the UK had no thread until about 30 seconds ago..

Well done, you.

Collabro had last week's UK #1 album and not even a mention of them on ILM

Not even from Marcello?

Well, I'm not surprised people no longer get excited over "reviews". Whether they're in Pitchfork, Rolling Stone or here, clearly their value has deteriorated.

Anyone can hear anything these days, so music talk or writing has to do better.

Excited about the changes in technology...opinion, not so much.

My interest in new music (whether new-new or just new to me) is as strong as ever. My interest in what other people think is pretty much at an all-time low.

nothing personal but this is a weird thing for a person on a discussion board to say! like, if your interest in other people's opinions is at an all-time low...what are you doing reading a board full of people sharing their opinions?

It could still be at an all-time low for the individual and yet remain at "moderate", if at all previous times it had been high to extremely high.

That ends the shipping forecast.

Ha, indeed.

There are definitely still plenty of threads on new records, and the rolling threads all have their uses, so I would say the answer to this question is "no". But my taste intersects more with the general ILM tastes on older stuff more than it does on newer stuff, so I don't really talk about all the great gigs by new bands I've seen on here, aside from to encourage people in the locality to go, sometimes.

My interest in what other people think hearing the same shtick over and over again is pretty much at an all-time low

or even in contributing with my own shtick

Fascinating thread.

I don't spend anywhere near as much time here as I used to, precisely because of those growing old issues detailed upthread: seriousness of day job, intensity of freelancing, parental stuff, life stuff, etc. And when I am on this site, for some reason I'm more often drawn to ILX than ILM, though from time to time I do scan the threads here and leap into one that has to do with an album or artist I like or have some interest in.

(A big part of the problem: as I age I've found that it's harder to wrap my mind around a piece of art well enough to feel comfortable writing about it, so a considerable amount of time is dedicated to that.)

Lately - or maybe for the past year - I've found myself consulting ILM/X when I watch or hear or read something canonical because almost INSTINCTIVELY I wanna know what youse guys thought about it.

That happened immediately after I saw Boyhood on Friday.

Plenty of great new music, btw - I could make a top ten albums list right now. But I find that as years go by I definitely listen to fewer and fewer new albums.

Back when I first was trying to get into P&J I remember Chuck saying that one of the requirements was listening to 80+ albums a year, which seemed like I pittance in 2003 or 2004, whatever year. Now? Maybe I get there. Maybe.

(And yeah, the Rolling threads move a bit too quickly for me.)

i'd read a rolling new stuff that emil.y is listening to thread. i'd read plenty of rolling [ilx poster] threads. everybody needs to be more egotistical so ilm's implicit diversity is made more explicit.

fortunately ilm's interest in projection will never wane

i'd read a rolling new stuff that emil.y is listening to thread. i'd read plenty of rolling [ilx poster] threads.

yep, for sure

I would third an emil.y new bands thread.

But the problem is, the people who are egotistical enough to start their own listening threads tend to be the ones with the most boring opinions and easily predictable tastes. While the other ILMers whose threads I would actually read are unlikely to ever be confident enough to start one. :-/

It's felt like a relatively fallow year for me too, especially compared to 2012 and 2013 when the pursuit and consumption of new music occupied such a massive part of my life, there'd be times when I felt overwhelmed by quality and exciting new releases. 2014's had some really great stuff, but on the whole it's felt like less of a wild rush. I'm still just as interested in hearing new things, but the ILX new music 2014 thread has been suspiciously quiet and looking at release lists on music sites I generally trust reveals less and less in the way of stuff I'm desperate to hear. In a way it's nice - I can better absorb the new releases I am interested in, as well as re/discovering older music. I'm still listening to music as much as ever, I just don't feel as swept up in the rush of new releases as in recent years.

Yes yes, there's no denying we're all getting older. And maybe perhaps the crop of new releases this year is slightly less exciting than last year. But I think a big part of the reason is a mismatch in my own listening habits and the way new music gets disseminated on ILM and the wider web.

I've never been a big fan of watching dozens of YouTube videos at a time. Much of my ILM time is spent at work where I can't listen to YouTubes anyhow, and sitting at home and watching vids back to back feels a bit like a research job as opposed to something I'd do for fun. Increasingly I find the rolling genre threads to be made up of people posting videos with little follow-up discussion save for a few in-jokes among the >10 people who frequent them. Checking social media and blogs, there's a lot more in the way of linked content and a lot less in the way of writing than there was even a few years ago. Even really good blogs like Dangerous Minds tend to focus on reposting interesting YouTube content, which is fine, but I kind of start to miss the longform rambling of traditional blogs. Opinions don't seem to matter as much online any more so much as the passive spread of content - 'check this out', 'now check this out', 'watch this, it's awesome' blah blah blah, but never 'Do you like this?', 'I think this is great - but what do you think?' - these questions don't matter as much.

And yeah, there are still great blog posts going round, many of them dealing with the social justice side of the music biz rather than whether a song or album is classic/dud etc. As mentioned above, opinion matters less and less now because it's so easy for someone to just stream something and make up their own mind about it, so why care about what other people have to think?

The rolling genre threads serve a great purpose and some genres (dance music for example) do benefit from having a lot of recommendations all in one place. However I just don't feel invested enough in any one genre to get as involved in these as others might. I love metal, dance music, 'outernational' stuff, indie stuff, jazz, experimental music, and I'm always interested in discovering some great pop and r'n'b nuggets. But I rarely find myself in the active mindset of 'wow I really want to discover a whole load of new house tracks right now', whereas when discussion of tracks/albums were more consigned to individual threads it felt less like an active pursuit of one genre and more about a communal discovery of something which could then be picked apart. With rolling threads, there's more a feeling of 'everyone likes this, great, let's move on...'

ILM has started to feel like lots of little music departments beavering away at their own genres before coming together on one big EOY project. It's always at EOY time that I realise how much stuff has come out and passed me by, but for others were huge event records and it's mostly due to discussion being kept to rolling genre threads.

Someone upthread asked what ILM's audience 'was', or what 'we' are. Someone else said 'Mostly pop with some other genres circling around', but that's not how I see ILM until EOY rolls around. Essentially I think ILM is a lot of different things to a lot of people and it's how one chooses to browse it and what discussions they participate which will dictate it.

I've probably listened to 100 new albums this year and haven't posted on ILM about more than a couple dozen of them, usually just one or posts in passing. A lot of stuff I listen to hasn't warranted discussions on ILM or I don't necessarily have anything to contribute to the discussion. there's probably a warped perception of me as someone who listens to only popular music because I don't really give a damn to start threads about obscure stuff I like or shoehorn mentions of it into unrelated threads.

i wish people would though... i get that in many cases it doesn't feel worthwhile, but if something's good/interesting/not sure, it's still worth bringing them out of the rolling threads i reckon.

Collabro had last week's UK #1 album and not even a mention of them on ILM

― Iain Mew (if), Sunday, August 31, 2014 8:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not even from Marcello?

― Mark G, Sunday, August 31, 2014 8:45 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The TPL Collabro blogspot will be minimalist at best, that is, if I can still be bothered to write it up in my old age.

I've found this year to be particularly lacklustre. I can think of 10 decent albums but nothing outstanding. Parquet Courts and War on Drugs are good but derivative. Owen Pallett, Real Estate, Warpaint and Sun Kil Moon are good but I don't go back to them much tbh. The best music I've heard this year has been older stuff. Although I felt the same about last year so maybe I'm just getting old.

it concerns me slightly that most of my favourite albums this year are by established acts releasing things that are among their best work. Either that or it's established acts I hadn't previously paid attention to.

FWIW, things I can think of that came out this year that I think are good-to-great in no particular order: Spoon, St Vincent, OOIOO, Owen Pallett, Swans, Sun Kil Moon, Tinariwen, Triptykon, the Soft Pink Truth, SD Laika, Plaid, Horrors, Eyvind Kang, Future Islands, East India Youth, Arabrot.

same as some dude for me, i used to post about almost everything i loved somewhere on ilm but it seems less worthwhile these days. it's not cuz i'm less enthusiastic or the music is worse but writing an articulate post that effectively sells a song or artist that isn't already established or in the wider hype cycle takes effort and time that i'd rather put elsewhere, particularly as actual conversation is increasingly centred on established/hype cycle artists to a pretty disproportionate degree.

i wish people would though... i get that in many cases it doesn't feel worthwhile, but if something's good/interesting/not sure, it's still worth bringing them out of the rolling threads i reckon.

why should anyone do this for you? i've done it a couple of times in the past year or so and those threads have received, like, one answer.

i'm not asking people to do it for me, I just think it's a nice thing to do, especially if something has potential appeal beyond the rolling threads.

i don't like to make threads for albums, but i will make a thread for a band who i think will be interesting to people
i think it's a nice thing to do for the band, so they can possibly get a wider audience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twix375Me4Q

does she say "disproportionary" actions in that song? that might not be a word.

oi i already done that joke

big trace eroding the social capital again ffs

my fave recent rock record. so good. don't know what rolling thread it belongs on. rolling noise rock i guess if there is one:

http://murderedman-cleveland.bandcamp.com/album/love-in-danger

2014 has also been a bit slow for me, but not more than 2012 was. 2011 had big albums, as did 2013. Perhaps 2015 will as well. I've spent most of the year listening to single tracks and old stuff, and it's been fine. I'll make a list, and it'll be fine, but there's been no masterpiece for me this year.

Can we please pause this conversation for a bit and discuss how great Pooley is? No? Well, ok then... sigh.

― Frederik B, Sunday, August 31, 2014 6:04 PM

^^^ Afrobeats

I'm still trying to keep up with afrobeats, old-school African 'outernational', southern soul (chitlin circuit & old-school), carribbean, zydeco and various miscellaneous rock, rap,& country but its never easy. Plus there have never been many folks posting on some of the threads I enjoy. The Afro-Latin thread is kinda dead with Rudiph gone

i do have to say, even busy boutique tastes are still a little disappointing from the 'wot abt new music??' perspective. i like the new music that gets mentioned at an exhausting pace in the tompkins square / faheyesque thread, but it's never going to make me feel like 'ok this is something that's happening now' like a rock or rap record pitched at the appropriate level of fame/obcurity, as long as it's somehow 'relevant' and 'timely'.

it was such a good joke it deserved another airing but i should certainly have given a h/t r|t|c, my bad

i still hear great great new techno/house/weird cassette stuff all the time in 2014. I guess I should post about it more and "give back to the community". Neither my shitty laptop nor my ipad can handle embeds here so i kinda ignore all the rolling threads. Also I'm afraid someone will say "that track sucks" or "do we really need a [insert 90s artist/label] ripoff in 2014? what a noob".

same as some dude for me, i used to post about almost everything i loved somewhere on ilm but it seems less worthwhile these days. it's not cuz i'm less enthusiastic or the music is worse but writing an articulate post that effectively sells a song or artist that isn't already established or in the wider hype cycle takes effort and time that i'd rather put elsewhere, particularly as actual conversation is increasingly centred on established/hype cycle artists to a pretty disproportionate degree.

― lex pretend, Monday, September 1, 2014 11:17 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

exactly -- I can write the most beautifully worded writeup on an unfamiliar artist (which itself is rather difficult these days), and then you look at the playcounts (if it has playcounts) and only like four people bothered to listen and you wonder what the point was. it's less that I'm not interested in new music, more that new music just happens right past me

it doesnt need a lot of listeners

I guess I should post about it more and "give back to the community".

― brimstead, Monday, 1 September 2014 21:36 Bookmark

haha loving the palpable menial drudge of this statement. civic virtue 4ever the preserve of supplicants and egotists

It is Proven By Science (i.e. the EOY polls) that ppl who make the effort to give back get a pay off. Not every time, but often enough.

I ignore the rolling threads for much the same reasons as others have said. But I still think there's a decent amount of discussion about new music I'm interested in hearing. The one thing that seems to have largely disappeared from ILM in 2014 are threads about event singles. But maybe there are fewer of those...?

I recently revived a thread from 2007 called 'Track of the Week' that felt like a well of great music from areas I'd previously not explored. Might make a nice, 'slower-listening' alternative to the '11 Favourite Tracks' thread?

it doesnt need a lot of listeners

music doesn't need a lot of listeners but a conversation needs more than 4 people going "this is alright yeah"

a lot of my favorite records this year commanded only 5-10 posts in their respective artists' threads before sinking back into the abyss. one of them doesn't even have an artist thread yet despite receiving BNM on pitchfork a few months ago. so yeah i'm kind of feeling this too, though ilm's always been a little bit out of sync with me on attitude toward indie music.

Maybe too much music?

I just started this thread: Rolling 'One Track Per Week' Thread 2014

Figured it would be nice to have a rolling 'this is the one track I'm digging this week' type of thread as an alternative to rolling genre threads or list threads... Feel free to post yours...

I can write the most beautifully worded writeup on an unfamiliar artist (which itself is rather difficult these days), and then you look at the playcounts (if it has playcounts) and only like four people bothered to listen

Sadly true. A common complaint on the Guardian site, and many others I'm sure, is that there's too much coverage given to a handful of big artists and their attendant controversies and too little to great new music or niche stories that deserve attention. Then you look at the stats and realise that those smaller stories you work hard on get tumbleweed while the tiniest tidbit about Miley/Beyonce/Rihanna/Taylor/whoever goes ballistic. The gap between the two is vast. Similar pattern with ILX - "Is [big name]'s new song/video problematic?" will roll on for days or weeks, while "Hey, listen to this new record I love" gets a couple of OKs and a couple of mehs and crawls into a corner to die.

BUT every year there are a few new artists who capture the imagination and bridge the gap, like YG/DJ Mustard and FKA twigs.

the issue isn't really publications not giving enough time to niche shit, it's that very few places have the trust/authority w/ an audience where they can cover some random shit and people will want to check it out.

The gap between the two is vast. Similar pattern with ILX - "Is [big name]'s new song/video problematic?" will roll on for days or weeks, while "Hey, listen to this new record I love" gets a couple of OKs and a couple of mehs and crawls into a corner to die.

OTM though it's not particularly surprising this always happens.

xp That's true. I'm thinking of Ben Frost and the way publications have been riding so hard, writing so well, but he seems to remain "niche" wrt ticket sales

I don't think Ben Frost is ever gonna be anything other than niche tbh

£17 to go see him in brighton so more riche than niche imo

it's certainly telling that a thread taking the piss out of some random idiot has 160 new answers and shows no sign of slowing down compared to threads talking about new music

x-post

Ben Frost's not exactly pop.

Re other stuff that is closer to pop (and is pop to many):

the issue isn't really publications not giving enough time to niche shit, it's that very few places have the trust/authority w/ an audience where they can cover some random shit and people will want to check it out.

― rap steve gadd (D-40), Tuesday, September 2, 2014 2:22 PM (10 minutes ago) B

Re Afrobeats pop dance music getting attention in the US, without 1 new album or big track being marketed in US to both the crossover club world and also to critics who can then review (Pitchfork, weeklies, Sasha FJ at New Yorker; NPR; Spin, New York, websites, etc.) it remains a small niche here despite popularity with emigrees & a tiny number of chattering folks in UK and here seeking stuff out without having a pr person emailing about it

ben frost?? fuck i really am on the wrong board

the issue isn't really publications not giving enough time to niche shit, it's that very few places have the trust/authority w/ an audience where they can cover some random shit and people will want to check it out.

― rap steve gadd (D-40), Tuesday, September 2, 2014 10:22 AM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this doesn't strike me as unique to publications -- radio, for instance, reports the same results (and they have more captive of an audience)

As Marcello tweeted earlier: "Hasn't anyone thought that the reason why nobody talks about new music on ILM any more is for fear of being laughed at and shouted down by its blowhard regulars"

I think nobody was expecting huge pick-up on Ben Frost after he got the coverage he got, I just think the entirely minor effect that the positive coverage had on his tour schedule is telling wrt what deej was saying

I love these people, I love the people but they never seem to want to talk.

I want to talk.

there is a very good chance that if someone is expressing enthusiasm about some music they will be met with "why are you wasting time on X when you could be listening to Y instead?"

Why would this terror of hard blown laughter be any less when talking about old music?

there is a very good chance that if someone is expressing enthusiasm about some music they will be met with "why are you wasting time on X when you could be listening to Y instead?"

i've actually never met this attitude on here, personally. but i waste a lot of time on x.

xxpost yeah, but isn't that all part and parcel of music fandom/dorkery?

xxpost

ILM is much more receptive to old timey music now than it used to be. See, for example, the epic Classic Rock and 70s polls. It takes a lot less convincing than discussions about music that is new or unfamiliar.

I want to talk.

― Evan, Tuesday, September 2, 2014 10:59 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that was a reference to a new song I actually liked and tried to post about that I assume is trying to make fun of it

I wonder if there's a certain sense underlying all this of "mission accomplished" -- when I first came to ILM there was this very strong politically poptimist strain that I found both invigorating and infuriating at times, but now it kind of feels like poptimism "won" or at least made significant gains, and maybe people are just less fired up to that end now.

katherine this song is one of my favorite songs this year. couldn't find any discussion about it on ilxor.

I wonder if there's a certain sense underlying all this of "mission accomplished" -- when I first came to ILM there was this very strong politically poptimist strain that I found both invigorating and infuriating at times, but now it kind of feels like poptimism "won" or at least made significant gains, and maybe people are just less fired up to that end now.

Largely true.

ah, ok. part of that was my not being sure where to post it; the rolling pop thread is basically dead. there's the "not indie not pop" thread but it's pretty quiet (which is odd, given how much of it there is) and I'm not sure whether it's someone else's thread I'd be hijacking.

actually, a lot of music I've discovered falls under that category. the one thing I have listened to more than anything this year is Alexandra Strunin's EP from 2013 (there was supposed to be an album this year but I guess it's gone, maybe forever, who knows [I'd know if I spoke Polish]; see "new music happening past me"), and I don't know where the fuck that would go.

Or its been so distorted that it has made people *sad*. xp

ILM is much more receptive to old timey music now than it used to be. See, for example, the epic Classic Rock and 70s polls. It takes a lot less convincing than discussions about music that is new or unfamiliar.

― odd proggy geezer (Moodles), Tuesday, 2 September 2014 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There have always been quite a few of those. Plenty of Steely Dan type threads (and their ilk) and other types of old timey has been a noize board staple iirc.

all poptimism ever wanted was Live Nation

I wonder if there's a certain sense underlying all this of "mission accomplished" -- when I first came to ILM there was this very strong politically poptimist strain that I found both invigorating and infuriating at times, but now it kind of feels like poptimism "won" or at least made significant gains, and maybe people are just less fired up to that end now.

True to an extent, but I'd also say post-zing, post-cause ILM has been neutered largely by the existence of genre threads. Any arguments or controversy on these would boil down to the smallest differences because everyone's roughly on the same page. You'd never get a thread on ILM now where, say, a poptimist comes barrelling into a thread about some indie rock band (or vice versa) and attempt to take everyone down with it.

idk I feel like the only kind of music I care about that is better-represented elsewhere is "indie" (do we even have a Rolling Indie 2014 thread yet?). It's an obvious hole but apart from that I'd say that ILM is as dynamic as anywhere else is, from interzone to outernational. Always wish there were more time travellers though. I'm happy that there's an equal focus on older music - there isn't really a present day for music listeners anymore.

Consider that an invitation, everybody! xp

Steely Dan threads are kind of indirectly poptimist though -- Steely Dan was always the classic rock band that "real rock" heads dissed.

there isn't really a present day for music listeners anymore

This is a great point.

i'm still not sure what the time travellers thread is supposed to be about.

It's a ~vibe, man~/dumping ground for the "weird stuff" that never shows in EOY/unauthorised sequel to lamp's rolling into the forest threads/whatever you want it to be

Re Afrobeats pop dance music getting attention in the US, without 1 new album or big track being marketed in US to both the crossover club world and also to critics who can then review (Pitchfork, weeklies, Sasha FJ at New Yorker; NPR; Spin, New York, websites, etc.) it remains a small niche here despite popularity with emigrees & a tiny number of chattering folks in UK and here seeking stuff out without having a pr person emailing about it

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, September 2, 2014 9:44 AM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

doesnt this strike you as a problem w/ publications ... if only pr would tell them what to write about!

that said i didnt mean for this to be exclusively about afrobeats. i'm even speaking on a song-for-song basis

this doesn't strike me as unique to publications -- radio, for instance, reports the same results (and they have more captive of an audience)

― katherine, Tuesday, September 2, 2014 9:51 AM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

radio breaks songs all the time?

iirc PPM data consistently shows most listeners fucking hate new/unfamiliar music unless it's practically been browbeat into them. what I'm getting at is I don't think this is a failure of publications to cultivate an audience so much as a general aversion to unfamiliar music across the board.

iirc PPM data consistently shows most listeners fucking hate new/unfamiliar music unless it's practically been browbeat into them. what I'm getting at is I don't think this is a failure of publications to cultivate an audience so much as a general aversion to unfamiliar music across the board.

― katherine, Tuesday, September 2, 2014 10:41 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well of course. another word for 'browbeat' is 'expose,' and its how hits are made

i mean that's no different than it's ever been. but there are places people will go to discover music, and that's become a more nebulous thing w/ social media

all poptimism ever wanted was Live Nation

my man!

it's certainly telling that a thread taking the piss out of some random idiot has 160 new answers and shows no sign of slowing down compared to threads talking about new music

― lex pretend, Tuesday, September 2, 2014 7:43 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lots of good recs in that thread tho!

Not enough people listening to gangsta boo tho so he's very upset

Steely Dan threads are kind of indirectly poptimist though -- Steely Dan was always the classic rock band that "real rock" heads dissed.

Not sure I agree. SD was always highly respected by critics (much more so than e.g. the Eagles). The reverence for them often has to do with things like technical proficiency and audiophile production/engineering values. They don't strike me as especially 'pop' in the way that, say, Journey is.

Anyway, I'm actually having a good year, much of which has to do with music that is probably not of interest to you, Hurting 2. Jute Gyte x 2, Botanist, Zorn (Gnostic Trio), Panopticon, Origin, Zvi, Thantifaxath all great imo and there's plenty (incl whole genres) I still intend to look into. Pretty much all of this has been discussed on ILM.

Reading that katherine, lex and some dude are disappointed by lack-of-pickup on the stuff they ride for is disappointing because the three of you are directly responsible for four or five of my favourite new artists/albums this year

responsible for the introduction, that is.

And to be fair while not everyone might comment there are probably a fair few who take the time to listen

relevant text!

http://pitchfork.com/features/tpr/reader/worth-their-wait/

There is an element of everyone reacting to new music all at once, a big din, vs. a few people formerly reacting first and sparking/directing the discussion. The only way to achieve the latter anymore, really, is to dig deeper and deeper, go more and more obscure, which takes oodles of effort and almost inevitably leads to a point where only a handful of fellow travelers are left interested. Or try to talk about the same stuff everyone else is talking about, but differently/better. Plus, death of monoculture, exploding genre proliferation, etc.

this is one of the best years of music

xpost

I was just coming here to link to he same thing. This part rings true for me:

In romantic love and in music fandom, absences and delays create the space in which desire grows. The remoteness in space or time of the “unattainable” or “yet to come” fills the present with exquisite tension, a forward-directed propulsion. In an “always on,” instant access world, the flooding nowness and nearness of everything unavoidably smothers and stifles these impulses. It kills not just yearning, but eventually appetite too.

i think the whole thing of the internet speeding everything up and makes it faster to hear music

I am exhausted with new things. I realize that almost everyone has dealt with the ramifications of internet on culture consumption at some point, or will, and now that time has arrived for me. I cannot keep up. The fork, it is in me

also did you ever stop and thing if there is just too much music?

It's not music's fault, or the internet or "people" or the music industry or whatever. It's that ILM had an unusually high quality of posters back in the day and they almost all bailed 3-6 years ago. ILX now mostly reflects the typical preoccupations of the internet and new music is just a marginal interest to the majority of the posters.

god this thread blows

thanks again hurting 2

...also the deeply dull hardmen that police the site kinda spoil things.

you're a fucking idiot

It's not music's fault, or the internet or "people" or the music industry or whatever. It's that ILM had an unusually high quality of posters back in the day and they almost all bailed 3-6 years ago. ILX now mostly reflects the typical preoccupations of the internet and new music is just a marginal interest to the majority of the posters.

― everything, Tuesday, September 2, 2014 2:08 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

would rather be a deeply dull hardman than be deeply unaware of how ignorant i am

Perhaps you're both?

there is a lot of great posting on the rolling threads, people who whine in threads like these are the fucking worst

It's that ILM had an unusually high quality of posters back in the day and they almost all bailed 3-6 years ago.

― everything, Tuesday, September 2, 2014 4:08 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

Name names

otm

"my friends"

Newgod

I haven't bailed..

oh wait...

TBH after your spirited performance in the PC Music thread I'm starting to wonder if you're not a Marcello sock xp to everything

every year music gets better than the previous year

Huh? I've been here long enough to do a better Marcello impersonation that that!

spotify really changed things for me
i feel like i check out more "new to me" music but there's so much amazing stuff in the past i never heard and now i have instant access to all of it

guys? can we get back on topic please? i think one of the main things is how the internet made it faster to hear great music and the whole social media thing had a big effect

my god this threeeeead

my eternal debt of gratitude remains with 'everything' for introducing me to the most important single cultural thing in my life, but dude this isn't a winning fight

ilm is fine in small doses & has rolling threads for all tastes. you'll mostly find me in the glenn branca metal thread and the cardiacsy prog-pop thread. they're sufficient for me. others have their own niches

can't believe this thread is so big, and yet i can

imagine if all the posts on this thread had been made about new music instead, really makes me think

lol

also toenut

i mean i've heard so much great music this year, yet because the internet is so fast it's almost like "w o a h" let's take a breather and slow things down a little here, buddy. and then the whole industry thing plus the social media makes it faster, it's crazy!

q tempted to barrage this thread with toenut videos

Did you know they say vinyl is coming back? I've got a bunch of old records in my attic do you think they're worth anything?

cool music buff w the right angle here

ILX now mostly reflects the typical preoccupations of the internet

This is surely false?

guys? can we get back on topic please? i think one of the main things is how the internet made it faster to hear great music and the whole social media thing had a big effect

― missingNO, Tuesday, September 2, 2014 9:31 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i see what you're doing here but no one here's really been saying this (other than in that Simon Reynolds article).

All said, this thread can be split into two questions -
a. Has ILM changed in that its contributors are less interested or less likely to talk about new music for one reason or another?
b. Has this been a 'bad' year for new music, and if so what are the factors, and is this why it's not being discussed as much ATM?

a. Has ILM changed in that its contributors are less interested or less likely to talk about new music for one reason or another?

I'm unsure if the Rolling threads contribute to balkanization, but my UI into ILX itself (bookmarks + Site New Answers) certainly attenuates my overall attention and likelihood to post. Most of my posts about new music are outsourced anyway - links to YouTube, band camp sites, etc. so my talk about new music is basically carnival barking. Look over there (assuming that you even see the thread).

I've *cough* been on ILX long enough to see demographic shifts cycle through and does feel like we're in the middle of another one now. *insert boiler plate about changing listening habits, ways of listening etc.*

b. Has this been a 'bad' year for new music, and if so what are the factors, and is this why it's not being discussed as much ATM?

Depends on the p.o.v./what you like to listen to perhaps? 2014 has been great so far.

I don't know, are we maybe not feeling 2014 because there hasn't yet been an album to rally around like HAIM or Beyonce last year or Miguel the year before? Or I don't know, maybe there is one and I haven't heard of it yet.

Have the Billboard changes to the American pop charts lessened some folks interest here in the US to pop music and the pop music threads? Maybe

it's nice to mix things up from time to time and check out 4chad's /mu : more likely i will hear something new over there, that i will like or would have never heard otherwise ... but it's relative: stay too long and the same stuff keep on poping up/their odd "fundamentals" creep up and eh... there is also discovering new music dad mode: http://yearendlists.com/ http://www.albumoftheyear.org/lists.php

xpost to PK - yeah it feels like there have been fewer 'event albums' so far this year, or if there have, I haven't really noticed one. The closest I can think of (but then this is only from my own perspective) are Aphex and the Owen Pallett albums, but they're not really that much of a deal outside muso, and specifically ILM, circles

feel like the idea that new music is inherently more vital than music that's fifty or a hundred or two hundred years old could bear a little more rigorous interrogation - this affording of some special stature to newness, it kinda gets this weirdly asked-and-answered treatment. of course engagement with new music is vital! of course it is! but I'm not really sure that's so

"rallying round an album" is ILM at its worst

i'd like to know what DJ Martian thinks about this question

xxpost sure, if you're interested in, say, afrobeats, is it really important that you listen to tunes that came out this year, or does it make equal amounts of sense going back and listening to stuff from 2012? Of course you run the risk of having people shut you down for wanting to talk about songs that had already been discussed two years ago. I know a while back the same happened to me when I came round to disco edits about 2 years after ILM had, and had the piss ripped out of me for it.

i'm most interested in new music when it's part of a genre/scene/single musician that makes something happen and it really works for me without having to give it a try : it is not a job for me. i got aware of a lot of these "moments" over the years thanks to ilm; in some cases it's possible i would have heard of it from somewhere else when it was happening but not in all cases. what would my life have been without that Optimo shit you know what i'm saying? 10 am and i am still a bit drunk damn. where i was going with this, yeah, new music/fresh take on old music/being a newb at some old music: it's all good. he last few albums i gave a try have all been from that "what are you listening to" thread that i couldn't spot right now on the front page. maybe a bit too challenging to me right now, new composition stuff i... am not feeling super involved /excited about it. last time that would have happened was a few weeks ago when i started to get into DJ SCREW , that stuff is fun. it's like meeting hip hop again that i have known since i was a kid but we lost touch and we are both tripping .

never change, Sébastien

wait a minute i mean ALWAYS change, Sébastien

new board description in a big way:

"it's like meeting hip hop again that i have known since i was a kid but we lost touch and we are both tripping"

feel like the idea that new music is inherently more vital than music that's fifty or a hundred or two hundred years old could bear a little more rigorous interrogation - this affording of some special stature to newness, it kinda gets this weirdly asked-and-answered treatment. of course engagement with new music is vital! of course it is! but I'm not really sure that's so

― Now I Am Become Dracula (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned)

writing about music that's older than last week puts you in competition with better writers

or, if not that, whatever chance you had of somebody paying for it surely plummets. as far as plummeting goes.

not necessarily true - mojo is the highest selling music magazine in the uk afaia, and that covers mostly old music

also the whole social media thing makes things move faster

Right now the biggest event albums I've seen this year were a couple of albums recorded by some Canadian guy in the mid-80's.

bryan adams?

lol

this is actually the year of Mike Cooper. don't know if you knew that. all the hepcats are raving.

actually, Mojo, Uncut, Classic Rock, AND the hepcats are raving. although uncut still prefers this kind of cover boy. he's dreamy, he's dead, etc.

http://www.uncut.co.uk/sites/default/files/imagecache/magazine_cover/2014/08/u209-nick-drake-cover-lr.jpg

i still love the brit mags so much. someone brought in a huge stack of them recently and it was like christmas. so many nick mason interviews. i can read them cover to cover. add the wire and flashback magazine, man, there is nothing like it here. ugly things. that's about it. and even ugly things can be an endurance test when you are halfway through a 40 page article on blossom toes or whatever. classic rock also puts out my new favorite magazine on the planet:

http://www.newsstand.co.uk/i2385671/Zoom/CLASSIC-ROCK-PRESENTS-AOR_9-HEART.jpg

this fall looks pretty exciting:

Grouper - Ruins
Aphex Twin - Syro
Roomrunner - Separate
Dope Body - Lifer
Ariel Pink - new LP that apparently is the best thing he's ever done
Panda Bear - Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper

Smashing Pumpkins - Monuments to an Elegy

"Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper"

it's like that dream i had once...

a Smashing Pumpkins record certainly stokes my interest in new music

Had no idea there was a new Panda Burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb album on the way; last one was underrated imo.

i do miss nabisco, john d, mark s, some other folks

i think too many ilx posters are allergic to the longer posts that used to be more common

perhaps it's just that all of us have had that many more years to have our brains reshaped by the internet, and lack even the minimum amount of patience and capacity for sustained thinking we had ca. 2001-5.

i even kind of miss momus

I did not underrate that last Panda Bear seandalai. It's better than 90% of stuff AC have come out with in the last several years and that includes Person Pitch

John D is still around, love his posts.

I miss Bimble's enthusiasm, he was always reviving great obscure threads.

I've noticed there seems less interest in the random post punk threads I revive, but maybe there's not much left to say. After all, many threads are over a decade old.

I agree with many of the we're-getting-older and things-are-cyclical points.

Every year is full of new and new to me music, not all of it has staying power. Every year I worry I won't find anything to get me excited, but I always do. Same as it ever was.

OTHER john d

I know John D
The REAL John D
He owes me a hundred favors

J0hn D = Doran, right?

John D Rockafella

I'd make longer posts more often, but I'm sadly addicted to validation and if the conversation just continues around it and the giant post of mine gets ignored I get bitter and feel like I've wasted time and energy. I love how basic this board is but in those cases I'd appreciate something like a stupid "upvote" or "like" button as dumb as that sounds so I'd at least know someone read it.

tl;dr

yeah, if I'm moved to post about any new music it's usually going to be some bluegrass or pop country that even the guys on Rolling Country would roll eyes at, so I'm fine posting about Dire Straits or Cheap Trick on the classic rock threads.

Though, I will say that the Owen P is album of the year imo

not going to bother reading this thread but, assuming the thread title hypothesis is true, i'd chalk it up to aging ilx membership, fewer new members, plus everyone talking about music on social media instead of here

otm

there is a facebook group i frequent on a daily basis. music-related. don't need much more than that. but i wasn't really any good for new music on here anyway. for the most part. though i have gotten some good tips over the years from others. now i get tips on facebook.

What group is that?

Ward Fowler otm to me, thought the FKA Twigs album thread ws a good example of current ILM at it's um most extant

is it blog fatigue, given that it's usually not difficult to preview pretty much anything these days?
i'm usually happy to leave people to LOVE awful garbage & diss the good stuff (unless i'm half cut & ingenerously post like a presumptuous condescending self righteous patrician arse lashing out at innocent bystanders), but it becomes ever more apparent to me that opinions are (as the idiom would have it), very much, like arseholes: everyone's got one, but you wouldn't want to hear about it.

I mostly rely on forums for new music recs, as my IRL friends aren't into keeping up with music, and they basically constitute my social media circle as well.

Jeez, didn't mean to bump a long-dead topic. Working through some of my bookmarks :)