has ilm gotten more indie lately?

idk. feels like it. 500 new answers by the end of monday.

it feels more emo these past weeks

hey

i wish but sadly no.

it would help if there was better indie music these days but there are not that many exciting indie bands right now. Future Island? please.

oh they are called Future Islands, anyways they have one song...

The 1995 to 1997 period was one of the freshest and best periods in British music. Sure it was insular and probably overhyped by the media but it gave a sense of belonging that wasn't there with grunge or the soulless dance music of the later 1990s. The music and the time mark out a significant period in my own life - having the freedom of being away from home, starting my first "real" job, having music and an aesthetic that I could identify with. The summer of 1996 was the peak of this with Euro 96 on the TV and Oasis at Knebworth. A fantastic time of my life that I know I'll never have back.

i guess we could say something about this objectively depending on what the EOY poll results are like vs. previous years. if anything i think it's just that the non-indie rap/dance/etc. sects of ILM were always relatively small cliques and their participation fluctuates more than the steady stream of discussion of indie and canonical rock.

Mainstream music today keeps us partying, forgetting about troubles, and overall not sending a message. Not that it’s a bad thing because music is supposed to take us away from troubles or help us to identify ourselves with the artist. However, radio play is not giving us much substance as it once did before . But consumers gravitate towards these feel-good songs in which advertisers take notice and invest money into these stations by buying ad spaces to get these listeners to patronize their products. So once again, Are consumers to blame? Are we running towards mainstream music to party/feel good and using indie music in secret to get the true art of the craft?

^responsible for ilm being more indie due to his campaign for the return to real gaz goombes rock

It's been indie for years

IDK, I think there's always been an indie substrain, but maybe the poptimism has died down a little or migrated elsewhere? I used to feel like indie was constantly derided here, less so now, which has probably emboldened the indieness.

Poptimism feels less like it has a sense of mission today. Maybe it more-or-less accomplished its goal.

I used to feel like indie was constantly derided here, less so now, which has probably emboldened the indieness.

just wait for the poll results

you guys realize that stuff noodle's posting is copypasta, right

not just that but of gaz coombes

Ha I assumed so but wasn't sure xp

I havent noticed any change fwiw and rather than being more indie I think ILM in general has perhaps become more tolerant of modern mainstream rock?

bands like Haim arent 'indie' for instance but mainstream rock and 10/15 years ago Im not sure they would have been so liked here

indie stuff always does well historically in the EOY albums polls and then every year people react with 'wtf where did all these people who are voting for indie albums come from?' and then the same mysterious people vote for indie albums again next year and the cycle continues ad infinitum

the penrose stairs of ILM indie popularity

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Well it’s all true, so stay where you’re safest
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you guys realize that stuff noodle's posting is copypasta, right

― tremendous crime wave and killing wave (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Sunday, January 17, 2016 3:35 AM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

flagged post anyway

thank you for taking a stand

there's no room for that kind of stuff here

i feel like this thread is gonna see a lot of action after the top 77 albums/singles are posted.

more like sebadohn't

xpost

probably. It does seem like the parameters of indie have gotten more diffuse. Is Grimes indie? Is Joanna Newsom or Julia Holter?

yes, yes, yeah

Do you feel like a lot of the rap being ahowcased here is indie, Rev?

ILM has been getting steadily older and male-er but that process has been going on for a very long time. It doesn't feel more "indie" but it does feel a lot more and more "classic rock".

I don't know that there's a corresponding "classic pop" mindset for old poptimists who have become too old to keep up with new movements in popular music.

I have also noted before (and my point got lost in the fuzz of people's usual reactions to me) the tendency of critical discourse to head towards "authenticity narratives" and more "plain" or "rootsy" music in times of world economic distress. I haven't thought this through fully, and it would require someone cleverer than me (and better at pulling people back from diversions) to put it together and confirm or deny. But that's my feeling of what the critical drift is right now.

can't believe i got FP'd, this is typical of the bullying carried out by PC thugs on ILM who can't abide the fact that some of us will continue to rep for authentic music made by real artists

ILM has been getting steadily older and male-er but that process has been going on for a very long time. It doesn't feel more "indie" but it does feel a lot more and more "classic rock".

This seems about right. Lots of retrospective polls, lots of threads about records from 5-30 years ago, relatively little on new indie rock albums that came out last year.

Paul Draper released his first album since Mansun today, just thought you should all know

Maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention five years ago, but I think there are better "indie" albums being released than, say, five years ago.

Also I think that 90s alt-rock and shoegaze being the two main influences on a lot of contemporary indie helps - that's all far away enough to be fond nostalgia triggers.

This seems about right. Lots of retrospective polls, lots of threads about records from 5-30 years ago, relatively little on new indie rock albums that came out last year.

Let the 'Bowie is mortal' thing sink in k tx.

ILM has been getting steadily older and male-er but that process has been going on for a very long time. It doesn't feel more "indie" but it does feel a lot more and more "classic rock".

This seems about right. Lots of retrospective polls, lots of threads about records from 5-30 years ago, relatively little on new indie rock albums that came out last year.

― On a Raqqa tip (ShariVari), Sunday, January 17, 2016 9:59 AM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes this rings really true. it means ilm is no longer as much of a timesink, so there's that!

indie stuff always does well historically in the EOY albums polls and then every year people react with 'wtf where did all these people who are voting for indie albums come from?' and then the same mysterious people vote for indie albums again next year and the cycle continues ad infinitum

This isn't really true. Some people maybe just notice indie more despite its relatively well proportioned presence. Albums probably perceived as indie (rightly or wrongly) to place in ILM end of year top 10 so far this decade:

2010: Sleigh Bells, Ariel Pink, Vampire Weekend
2011: Tune-Yards, Gang Gang Dance, PJ Harvey, Destroyer
2012: Goat? Grimes?
2013: Vampire Weekend, mbv
2014: St Vincent, War On Drugs, Owen Pallett

an average of 3 out of the top 10 per year is "doing well historically" imo

Also I forgot HAIM. But the term has no meaning if any one person even thought it covers more than handful of those acts, if any. And 3/10 just isn't noteworthy at all.

it's not disproportionate but I don't think the post you were quoting was suggesting it was

I don't think the new Built to Spill record is going to show up in the albums roll-out.

it's not one of their best, but v enjoyable and the songs work well live

For real the Mojofication of ILM is worse than any number of people repping for Dirty Projectors or whoever. At least the proliferation of sub-New Jersey threads has levelled off, but right now the board feels particularly dominated by people who would rather make lists than actually talk about stuff.

If grimes counts as indie there's been a lot of good grimes talk past year

the only good ilm threads are the ones with almost nobody on them

the curse of #Retromania

The new Shearwater album is kind of a big deal but there has been nary of a mention of it on ILM

what is indie now

ilm

I have also noted before (and my point got lost in the fuzz of people's usual reactions to me) the tendency of critical discourse to head towards "authenticity narratives" and more "plain" or "rootsy" music in times of world economic distress. I haven't thought this through fully, and it would require someone cleverer than me (and better at pulling people back from diversions) to put it together and confirm or deny. But that's my feeling of what the critical drift is right now.

this is an interesting theory imo! though I've sort of come around on authenticity narratives, which I used to hate but which I now prefer strongly to the alternative i.e. governing pop discourse - what the hell, I say, we've been opposing "here's who the artist was and here are the forces that shaped them culturally and here's the music they made and here's what it meant to them" as a hermeneutic for so long that it's kind of a interesting one to try on - more interesting to me, anyway, that the nth iteration of "here's how the music makes me feel and a few stray sociocultural points, please RT and share" anyway

Do you feel like a lot of the rap being ahowcased here is indie, Rev?

Naw not really but if we're going by ILM poll results, no more than one rap album has top tenned in each of the past four years.

2010 Kanye West, Big Boi
2011 DJ Quik
2012 Kendrick Lamar
2013 Kanye West
2014 YG

Maybe Vince Staples or Future or Young Thug will get in as well as Kendrick this year, who knows.

I feel like Future and Vince are likely candidates for top 10

Well if ILM has gotten more Indie it certainly isn't reflected in the track poll nominations.
Going through that, I felt like every second song was something that belonged in the hip hop, afrobeats or R&B thread or it was Carly Rae Jepsen song.

And has Courtney Barnett really been getting lots of praise around here?

Yeah its been modified for sure; otoh ppl seem p invested in obfuscating the undeniable "indie"-ness of Grimes, which us kind of a telling sign imo

I do think the albums poll promises to have one of the least indie, or even rock, top 10s in a while

If Sufjan Stevens and Courtney Barnett finish really high on this year's album poll, I'll be surprised. Or am I missing something and that there are other strong indie candidates, just not those obvious ones?

And not Tame Impala either.

Julia Holter.

Sleater Kinney is probably the big one.

this is an interesting theory imo! though I've sort of come around on authenticity narratives, which I used to hate but which I now prefer strongly to the alternative i.e. governing pop discourse - what the hell, I say, we've been opposing "here's who the artist was and here are the forces that shaped them culturally and here's the music they made and here's what it meant to them" as a hermeneutic for so long that it's kind of a interesting one to try on - more interesting to me, anyway, that the nth iteration of "here's how the music makes me feel and a few stray sociocultural points, please RT and share" anyway

― tremendous crime wave and killing wave (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Sunday, 17 January 2016 13:45 (1 hour ago) Permalink

You're talking about *something* but you're not actually talking about what I brought up, so I guess I should stop trying to get people to talk about that.

Because what you're talking about here is subjectivity versus objectivity in music discussion, which is kind of a mug's game. (True "Objectivity" does not exist; etc. blah blah objectivity is just a certain kind of subjectivity which people pretend not to notice. Even "who the artist was" is open to interpretation - how many different David Bowies have you read about in the past week?) The Subjective tone (blog voice, where one acknowledges the subject) is, I feel, more honest, but it's much easier to do really really badly, especially if the person writing isn't that interesting or is a bad writer. But isn't that true of all writing. I feel the second approach you describe, the Objective Biographer, is even harder to get right, easier to fuck up really badly, and much more open to projecting all sorts of nonsense (who gets to define what shaped another human being "culturally" especially the further away the writer is from that "culture") and when it goes wrong, it's not just boring and self-obsessed (the criticism of blog-voice) but actually dangerous in terms of opinionated people with unspoken agendas presenting their cultural biases and opinions dressed up as "This Is The Objective Fact" which gets canonised and passed down as true.

When you read totally subjective Blog-Voice done well - I was just reading Sabina Tang on the Singles Jukebox this morning, writing about China Girl, a song I have always disliked, and opening up a completely different viewpoint on it, which split the song wide open for me - it provides a necessary counterpoint.

None of my top five albums of the year are indie, and as one of the historical ILM defenders of (certain strains of) indie, I think that conclusively proves that it is *not* getting more indie. QED, case closed, lock thread.

I'm curious; what non-rap, non-indie albums made the top 10 each year?

I never voted in these because music sucks

Also I forgot HAIM

From the past 5 years:

2014
TODD TERJE - It's Album Time, APHEX TWIN - Syro , TINASHE - Aquarius, FKA TWIGS - LP1, TAYLOR SWIFT - 1989, D'ANGELO AND THE VANGUARD - Black Messiah

2013
KACEY MUSGRAVES - Same Trailer Different Park, PARAMORE - Paramore, THE KNIFE - Shaking the Habitual, SKY FERREIRA - Night Time, My Time, BEYONCÉ - Beyoncé, DAFT PUNK - Random Access Memories

2012
FRANK OCEAN Channel Orange, JESSIE WARE Devotion, TAYLOR SWIFT Red, DAWN RICHARD Armor On, JOHN TALABOT ƒin, MIGUEL Kaleidoscope Dream

2011
Katy B - On A Mission, Beyonce - 4, Kate Bush - 50 Words for Snow, Pistol Annies - Hell on Heels, Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust

2010
Lindstrøm & Christabelle - Real Life Is No Cool, The-Dream - Love King, Janelle Monàe - The ArchAndroid, Robyn - Body Talk, Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh

Thank you very much good sir :)

Some of these might still arguably be considered Indie, like Sky Ferreira, I'm not too sure.

Daft Punk has that indie guy on it

Yes, Paul Williams, right?

wow ilm likes some radical stuff, didn't see those albums in any other lists anywhere - it's amazing we're resisting indie whatever that is.

"ILM year end polls" != ILM

I'd venture that more ILM users do not vote in those polls than do.

Oh, do shut the fuck up, you tedious cunt. ― Turrican, Tuesday, January 12, 2016 5:36 PM (3 hours ago)

"For real the Mojofication of ILM is worse than any number of people repping for Dirty Projectors or whoever. At least the proliferation of sub-New Jersey threads has levelled off, but right now the board feels particularly dominated by people who would rather make lists than actually talk about stuff."

if by "talk about stuff" you mean "make bitchy snide comments" then yeah, i'm totally in the "make more lists" camp

ur self is so righteous rushomancy

this whole argument is so weird when you realize that even the most shambolic 'indie' act has a much more potent promotional infrastructure than 75% of what major labels put out

like i mean you can say that the explosion of indie-leaning blogs was in large part a function of knowledge workers' dominant class, but the complete professionalism (and willingness to work with 'smaller' outlets) of pr types at both independent labels and independent promotional agencies, at least in the states, helped it attain a dominance not seen even during the go-go-alternative '90s

was odd future the first proof that said infrastructure could really work well with hip-hop artists? (chris?)

anyway i look to ilm for a refuge from the blind SLAYYYY QUEEN discourse that's all over social media and it's still working on that from my perspective

also sorry about using variations on 'dominate' in that last post, i'm distracted by jarvis on bowie

srsly though there's this weird undercurrent to the anti-nostalgia brigade where they seem to be saying "why don't people don't get excited about new music the way they did in 1974?"

let's all pretend the back half of the 1975 album doesn't suck

wait are they indie now

nobody knows what is indie anymore. But generally anything labelled indie that gets in the eoy ilm poll *isn't* indie

rushomancy, someone called into a radio appearance i did on friday saying that he (he, of course) wasn't as excited about new music as he'd been when he was a teenager (in the '70s) and i was like 'uh... you know that's just LIFE, right?'

like yeah shit seems bleaker as you get older, it's called 'life experience'

indie is dead, everything is indie

the only good ilm threads are the ones with almost nobody on them

― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Sunday, 17 January 2016

tbh this has always been true

When you read totally subjective Blog-Voice done well - I was just reading Sabina Tang on the Singles Jukebox this morning, writing about China Girl, a song I have always disliked, and opening up a completely different viewpoint on it, which split the song wide open for me - it provides a necessary counterpoint.

this is probably a how-do-you-take-your-coffee q, but, for me, subjective blog-voice (well-named!) doesn't provide counterpoint: it's the governing trope, it's what everybody does. I think people accepted "there's no such thing as objectivity so let's not bother" a long time ago, and I think the result's been a governing critical discourse that's basically a running livejournal of people's musical opinions, and it's exactly as interesting as that sounds. nb I'm hugely guilty of participating enthusiastically in the subjective revolution, no zealot like a convert, etc

enjoying yr thoughts on this, sorry if I stray from the point it's in my nature

I think indie has come to just mean stuff that fits the Pitchfork sensibility a
other than the handful of mainstream pop/rap records they review. Definitely no illusions about the "DIY"-ness of it.

as i said its mainstream rock/pop now. Not indie not even vaguely alternative.

Someone upthread said ILM has gone classic rock and soon music from the 00s that pitchfork/nme championed will be seen as classic rock.

'out on the road today/ i saw an anco sticker on a white tesla'

maura otm on the weirdness of this discussion.

not sure the right thread for this but i've been thinking about how my own music listening has changed. like i just have other things going on and i don't _need_ to feel engaged in the same way, and i don't interact with other people in the same way where i felt like being more engaged with music would help with that (and maybe it didn't, and i just thought it did) so instead i just sort of graze randomly through soundclouds and occasionally if i want to actually hear an album that's _way_ more effort (christ i haven't been in a record store in years, i guess some still exist) so i tend to be lazy and only hunt it down if everyone is talking about it or if i know i'm going to want to hear it anyway -- and i basically very seldom music crit because its either "here's someone i'm just going to disagree with" or "here's another review of someone i've never heard of" and somehow the "well, you _should_ have heard of them, so learn now" voice in my head completely stopped.

and there's definitely an element of getting-old-music-listening in there too w/r/t incrementally more classical, and incrementally more classic rock -- things i hadn't paid attention to the first time round, but which seem more likely to have a good payoff, and worth spending time with individually as opposed to collectively (i.e. where certain new music really only pays off enjoying and thinking about in the context of everything surrounding it and there's so much effort, while other genres can, despite the inter-discursive stuff happening from the authorial voice, still produce artifacts that are more self-contained, and have the room and luxury to build up their own discourse over a broader span of time). and i think i have a longer attention span as well, but can't let it disperse as much. so just the way my brain has organized itself over the years makes it hard for me to listen to lots of music like i used to.

part of the thrill was also sort of the creation of this canon of "holy shit" bangers and i feel like there's certainly less conversation about singles that have that quality (taylor swift and crj being notable exceptions here).

none of which really has to do with indie, whatever that is anymore. i listen more to 90s indie because it was good and i stopped for a long time, and i sort of miss it, because it reminds me of younger me, which i've come to terms with being ok with.

i don't even know who contempo indie artists are, and they feel more disposable than contempo-pop artists in terms of who anyone else will remember or care about two years from now, fwiw.

this is probably a how-do-you-take-your-coffee q, but, for me, subjective blog-voice (well-named!) doesn't provide counterpoint: it's the governing trope, it's what everybody does. I think people accepted "there's no such thing as objectivity so let's not bother" a long time ago, and I think the result's been a governing critical discourse that's basically a running livejournal of people's musical opinions, and it's exactly as interesting as that sounds. nb I'm hugely guilty of participating enthusiastically in the subjective revolution, no zealot like a convert, etc

enjoying yr thoughts on this, sorry if I stray from the point it's in my nature

― tremendous crime wave and killing wave (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Sunday, January 17, 2016 12:14 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think that subjective voice was pioneered by rock-crit back in the 70s tho -- it was always a give-and-take between how you made the music work and where it came from, and the latter is innately harder and more high-wire because you can be actually wrong, and to be rignt, i mean how will you know -- you need to like go and do research and shallow interviews don't help, and even then 2/3 of the time you don't get a real answer so you just spin some bs theory anyway, but what the music does for you, that you _know_.

but the new thing i think is the dominance of the _fan_ mode of reception rather than the _critical_ mode. its like if some people went around in school with "metallica rules" on their backpacks and some people with "slayer rules" but nobody had a "metallica rules / slayer sucks" backpack or something. there's no sense of context and conversation, not a musical unpacking, not a broader engagement with "where is this genre going and why" -- all things that aren't the same as the vastly more difficult bio-focused stuff you're describing but all of which are _about_ subjective/social response not just _the act of_ subjective response, and consequently also take some effort to work through well, and can in their own ways fail.

yeah the '70s rock crit's subjective voice was definitely there, it just came from people whose station in life rendered them more 'objective' (cough)

(also a lot of the writing was very bad, please let's not forget this)

Joan Crawford (dude I can't call you that!) - it depends on your frame of reference. Because I don't really engage with the blogosphere at all. When I engage with music journalism it tends to be stodgy Brit muso press (you know - the publications where you are not even allowed to use first person in your pieces. Seriously, I quit jobs like that because I could not type "HardRockMagazine went to see Hawkwind" because it felt so awkward and so wrong) or critical theory types I follow on Twitter writing academic pieces, or Wikipedia and archives and rock biographies at the moment. Because I am old.

So the few times I run into Subjective blog-voice it tends to feel like a corrective - especially because it tends to be things that have been reposted by people with good taste.

I know ILX is really down on Tumblr but for me, Tumblr fandom is like the great corrective for aging populations who can't get excited about anything any more. I *love* seeing how excited my younger friends get about the artists they love - whether that's some young person's band of today that I've never bothered hearing or some Sparks record from 1974 that is new to them.

I also remember being a teenager in the 80s, and older people from the 60s who had lost their excitement sneering at me saying "why are you listening to The Church, this is just The Byrds sped up, nothing new under the sun" and thinking new music IN THE 80s (which is now considered a golden era by the next generation below me) held nothing new because they had lost their shiny newness of excitement. So I try really hard not to do that to other people we are just aging.

But this has become me talking about a thing I don't engage with (rather than me chewing over the thing I've been pondering) so I should go back to painting but no one will tell me if the gold version or the silver version is better.

Every year that passes feels like I listen to less brand new music than I did the year before, but when the end of the year comes and I look back on what I've absorbed over the last 12 months I find I'm either holding steady or am actually listening to more. It's probably 60%-new/40%-old favorites in any given year, or thereabouts.

I'm about to turn 42, so I don't know how much longer I'll have the energy, but I don't see why I wouldn't like to discover good new music for as long as I live.

part of the thrill was also sort of the creation of this canon of "holy shit" bangers and i feel like there's certainly less conversation about singles that have that quality (taylor swift and crj being notable exceptions here).

― Option ARMs and de Man (s.clover), Sunday, January 17, 2016 12:36 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there are two options basically:

1) that "holy shit" blends into the same ambient internet roar of "holy shit" that accompanies most major singles, particularly if they're good for memes ("hotline bling" compared to, say, "fight song")
2) pop single gets a weak attempt at canonization but for whatever reason ("whatever reason" = "these are really just twenty people on the internet" and publications have no interest in this unless it's part of a sponsored deal) it doesn't take. not sure what 2015's would even be -- "Cool for the Summer"? Susanne might qualify here

call him 'smithy'

and possibly

3) the market is just so fucking flooded with alt-pop and the quality bar is reasonably high (like, not *high*, but at least OK) that finding the HOLY SHIT among the "sure, this is OK" is harder and seems less rewarding. obviously there are worse problems to have, but

also, it's been said but the definition of "indie" is so fucking weird. courtney barnett? (I know this isn't actually the case, and her name keeps coming up because she is consistently near the top of whichever list or canon is being shat upon at the time, but I'm always wary of "blunt female artist becomes successful, MUST DISCREDIT")

I also remember being a teenager in the 80s, and older people from the 60s who had lost their excitement sneering at me saying "why are you listening to The Church, this is just The Byrds sped up, nothing new under the sun" and thinking new music IN THE 80s (which is now considered a golden era by the next generation below me) held nothing new because they had lost their shiny newness of excitement. So I try really hard not to do that to other people we are just aging.

YES YES YES

xp the guitars on that Courtney Barnett record certainly code as "indie" to me (I like the record a lot).

"For real the Mojofication of ILM is worse than any number of people repping for Dirty Projectors or whoever. At least the proliferation of sub-New Jersey threads has levelled off, but right now the board feels particularly dominated by people who would rather make lists than actually talk about stuff."
if by "talk about stuff" you mean "make bitchy snide comments" then yeah, i'm totally in the "make more lists" camp
― diana krallice (rushomancy), Sunday, January 17, 2016 10:28 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Courtney Barnett is great!

Haha like I dunno the New Jersey thing was just some half tossed off idea that I had at work sorry I ruined this Algonquin round table.

Ilm is always at its worst when contemplating the state of ilm. I really valued it in the last week, the Bowie and Blackstar threads have so many lovely posts

not sure the right thread for this but i've been thinking about how my own music listening has changed. like i just have other things going on and i don't _need_ to feel engaged in the same way, and i don't interact with other people in the same way where i felt like being more engaged with music would help with that (and maybe it didn't, and i just thought it did) so instead i just sort of graze randomly through soundclouds and occasionally if i want to actually hear an album that's _way_ more effort (christ i haven't been in a record store in years, i guess some still exist) so i tend to be lazy and only hunt it down if everyone is talking about it or if i know i'm going to want to hear it anyway -- and i basically very seldom music crit because its either "here's someone i'm just going to disagree with" or "here's another review of someone i've never heard of" and somehow the "well, you _should_ have heard of them, so learn now" voice in my head completely stopped.

and there's definitely an element of getting-old-music-listening in there too w/r/t incrementally more classical, and incrementally more classic rock -- things i hadn't paid attention to the first time round, but which seem more likely to have a good payoff, and worth spending time with individually as opposed to collectively (i.e. where certain new music really only pays off enjoying and thinking about in the context of everything surrounding it and there's so much effort, while other genres can, despite the inter-discursive stuff happening from the authorial voice, still produce artifacts that are more self-contained, and have the room and luxury to build up their own discourse over a broader span of time). and i think i have a longer attention span as well, but can't let it disperse as much. so just the way my brain has organized itself over the years makes it hard for me to listen to lots of music like i used to.

This is all massively OTM/relevant, from my perspective. I turned 44 last month and also kinda turned a corner w/r/t my own writing in the last year, in that I now have a full time job that's completely disengaged from music and journalism, so literally the only time I have to think about music and what I think about it is my "spare" time (nights, weekends, and my morning and evening commute). This has led me to re-prioritize my listening in a big way - more classical, a lot more jazz, a lot of classic rock, and only the metal that I'm pretty sure is gonna push my pleasure buttons instantly and hard. I don't have time to experiment or gamble. I've also cut way back on the amount of writing I do - two jazz outlets, The Wire, and Burning Ambulance are the only places I publish anymore. I haven't been able to break the habit of hate-reading music criticism yet, but I'm working really hard on that.

I don't have time to experiment or gamble.

This is pretty much it for me. I'm 42 in a few months, working full time, and also outside of my current job I'm trying to re-train so that I can make a career change. I just don't have time to seek out new stuff.

I also remember being a teenager in the 80s, and older people from the 60s who had lost their excitement sneering at me saying "why are you listening to The Church, this is just The Byrds sped up, nothing new under the sun"

Bizarrely, I didn't know any older people from the 60s in the 80s.

'out on the road today/ i saw an anco sticker on a white tesla'
― maura, Sunday, January 17, 2016 5:21 PM

lol

it depends on your frame of reference. When I engage with music journalism it tends to be stodgy Brit muso press (you know - the publications where you are not even allowed to use first person in your pieces. Seriously, I quit jobs like that because I could not type "HardRockMagazine went to see Hawkwind" because it felt so awkward and so wrong) or critical theory types I follow on Twitter writing academic pieces, or Wikipedia and archives and rock biographies at the moment.

yeah no doubt about this and I hadn't thought of it & shame on me for my myopia - the British music press is something I really only ever engage at all at a very specific level, e.g. specialized metal press or when I'm personally engaged somehow - my own frame of reference is so overwhelmingly "online American discourse," which for me comes across as an absolute tyranny of the subjective; like, if you dare to talk about the musical qualities of something, like what's actually going on at the songwriting/tech level, ppl read it as 'what's this got to do with talking abt music?' (or, rather, editors and other writers see it that way, I'm not convinced that people here wouldn't love to read people describing how music gets made.)

if indie is a non-musical term/genre based on fandom (& associated marketing strategies) or sensibility then the question of whether or not ilm has become more indie is not a q of what music ilm discusses

it also means lots of artists who predate indie can be retrospectively deemed indie, which might have something to say for it given modern listening habits, but then 'indie' becomes a p unique term not really comparable with any other genre

and it means the ppl I know who are into what i have historically understood to be indie (sebadoh, hefner but def not grimes or w/e) cld do w a new name

the musical qualities of something, like what's actually going on at the songwriting/tech level

this is kinda off topic but one of the really delightful things about finally going through the bowiesongs blog in the past few weeks is how it incorporates this approach in every entry, along with 1000 other contextual approaches. really ideal music writing imo

Describing how music gets made on a songwriter / tech level - basically unless the person doing the telling was actually in the studio (or listens to those tedious track by tracks on box sets) this is about 80% fan fiction unless it's a first person interview with the person who did it. And a whole lot of that "this works to create a tension by use of the dominant tonic seventh" is a serious snoozefest like piano or violin lessons all over again. (I only learned to read music from a very early flute teacher who used colours on the notes and by the holes. This song is in the key of yellow.)

It's weird, because I *love* the "show don't tell" versions where a producer will sit onscreen with the mixing desk or ProTools and *play* what instrument is on each track and what processing has even done to them. I could watch that happily, but there is something about the specific music teacher vocabulary with which people discuss music that make me want to dig my eyes out with a semi-crotchet.

But this is where I think fan fiction is actually more honest - if you are imagining how a piece of music was written or constructed, admit that this is fiction and write it that way! (Sorry too much time spent on producer forums and the Aphex Twin forum.) But not gonna talk about how I prefer fan fiction to 9/10 of music journalism, blog-voice or not, because at least it's honest about what it is.

And a whole lot of that "this works to create a tension by use of the dominant tonic seventh" is a serious snoozefest like piano or violin lessons all over again.

this is basically all I wanna read any more! potato, po-tah-to

I dunno. ILM though, like 2/3 of the way I use ILM these days is like Wikipedia - as a resource of "wow this artist has 8000 albums; I wonder if there's a thread about which ones sound like that. And back into the archives I go. That kind of discussion (this was their early experimental album; this is the one where they worked with a pop producer; this is the one where they got their first sampler) is invaluable as an archive, in a way that endless ballot polls and ILM's favourite pastime of putting numbers next to records is not.

But with newer artists those archives are less likely to exist and less likely to get made. 3 out of the 5 new records I listened to the most, I saw no discussion of them on ILM at all and the reward for starting a thread on a new artist is no longer worth the bother. That has changed. More splintering, and I don't really get the rolling genre threads as I've said before. So.

Dude how many years of music lessons did you suffer because that stuff was unbearable by the time I was 10.

if you dare to talk about the musical qualities of something, like what's actually going on at the songwriting/tech level

i've just finished a piece on this and i found the willingness/ability of various artists to talk about the detail is wildly, wildly variant

I didnt like the idea of rolling genre threads in general because there are too many posts and too many unlistenable records but I wasnt sure where to put a record elsewhere...unless a thread for each record perhaps. There is something soothing about a concise thread, but I also like the idea of the diamonds being in communal outhouse not in the fancy chair

1) that "holy shit" blends into the same ambient internet roar of "holy shit" that accompanies most major singles, particularly if they're good for memes ("hotline bling" compared to, say, "fight song")

yeah i def feel this - new music/music news gets reported so breathlessly immediately (OH MY GOD YOU GUYS NEW MISSY ELLIOTT or w/v) that it becomes impt (personally speaking) to distance yourself from it, i hate even tweeting about a new song before i know whether i *really* like it which tends not to be the first listen? but by the time you have your own OH MY GOD HOLY SHIT FOR REAL moment you've missed the wave

my own frame of reference is so overwhelmingly "online American discourse," which for me comes across as an absolute tyranny of the subjective; like, if you dare to talk about the musical qualities of something, like what's actually going on at the songwriting/tech level, ppl read it as 'what's this got to do with talking abt music?' (or, rather, editors and other writers see it that way, I'm not convinced that people here wouldn't love to read people describing how music gets made.)

― tremendous crime wave and killing wave (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Sunday, January 17, 2016 1:54 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

see, I'm not sure this is true. the problem is that this sort of thing is either boring ("how did you write this song?" "well, I wrote the guitar riff, and then came up with some words...") or so hopelessly obfuscated that it takes celebrity-level access, Sean Penn on El Chapo level, to know what's really going on, and the outlets with that level of access tend to have incentive not to do that kind of reporting

i will stand by my "oh my god" by and large, missy included. i am happy i am not active on social media.

Are there any good sites out there that review only indie or mostly indie?

It's like talking about grammar. It requires a specialist vocabulary (even more specialist for music because I don't even know if music is taught at school like that any more) and access.

To writers or people who are seriously interested in writing as an artform, talking about grammar is hugely important and really interesting. But you do not need to discuss it, to still have a fairly in-depth discussion of a book.

I never got any answers on silver v gold and I have not done any work on my next illo. ILM still a time-suck I guess.

Talking about what music does on a technical level is nothing at all like imagining what an artist was thinking about when he was writing it, that's silly.

intentional fallacy

You have not spent any time on Aphex Twin and/or production forums have you.

Music theory is often, if not always, a post hoc attempt to describe what is happening on a technical level, and any decent music theory teacher will tell you that on the first day of class. So is art theory, or literary theory, or natural science for that matter.

idk if writers discuss grammar either ("I used an intransitive verb deliberately in this sentence"). Punctuation for sure though.

I only say "often" because *sometimes* music is written with specific music theory concepts in mind. Other times it is not explicitly so, but intuitively -- musicians learn just from listening to what other musicians do and imitating it.

As a music school dropout, I certainly relate to the desire to not overdissect anything and maintain a sense of wonder, but OTOH since I was a little kid, whenever I heard something that sounded particularly musically cool I wanted to know how it was done, so I can't fathom finding it boring. I guess if you had a particularly oppressive piano or violin teacher (or parents)

Also often music is written from a combination of internalized theory and intuition.

*takes a deep breath, counts to 10, moves on

Tape Op is p much the only music mag I care about anymore

or so hopelessly obfuscated that it takes celebrity-level access, Sean Penn on El Chapo level, to know what's really going on, and the outlets with that level of access tend to have incentive not to do that kind of reporting

I think this is true, but I think this is in part because of the...what do I wanna say...superstructure??...the accepted mode of discourse, the way people think about it, the way the press cycles work around a record and everything: all this is geared up to "I just gave you a record! Do you like it, having heard it? express your feelings about this music, hope they're good!" and then there's this incredibly weird performed "talk about the music you made a year or more ago as if you, too, are hearing it for the first time instead of speaking across a gulf, or like you only just recently thought it up" ritual...and it's not just compositional chops I'm talking about, it's everything. poetic chops. production in terms of the machines/plug-ins used, preferred, rejected. approaches to making music: recording basics and overdubbing all in one or two long sessions (the classic rock album model), or going piece by piece? instrumentation: is it a "what happens to be in the studio and feels like it might sound cool" mood, or are people thinking about what instruments they use specifically for the material they're using it on? what got rejected? I consider these all "technical" questions which are more interesting than "why," which I feel like is in the clickbait age the W of the five Ws that gets the most weight when it's the one that interests me least. that's just me, and in part as I think I said this is an overcorrection on my part, I used to be much more interested in how well a piece of music writing was written as vs. the information it gave me, now the opposite is true and I want to think about the whats and hows.

I had like...four years of music lessons. my own deal w/this thing is probably the same vibe of the parochial-to-secular-school transfer that I also have: always looking back at the more rigorous model with a combo of relief & longing

Just that one thing you just said sparked the thought of wondering how how of my mixed feelings about "muso" language and theory is because it was stuff that was heavily associated with parochial schools, church choirs and choirmasters - so much of my training came through the church. That does make me wonder, that I still love religious music and spiritual sentiment; but I'm wondering if music theory is something I jettisoned in the same process of jettisoning theology and organised religion and the church, while keeping the bits that were life-changing and awe-inspiring.

I am constantly in this space of being fascinated by theory but repelled by the hierarchies and structures erected around them. I have the same misgivings about Academia in general.

My memories of being interviewed were that people who weren't musicians asked stupid questions about the actual music. And people who were musicians or knew some small or large bit about music theory asked boring questions.

The stuff that's interesting about being in a band, about songwriting, about recording, no one ever asked me. That is the stuff that I ended up putting into fan fiction because there was nowhere else for it to go. (Hence how I ended up with the only fan fiction story that has ever, as far as I know, been reviewed in Sound On Sound, ha!)

I think this is true, but I think this is in part because of the...what do I wanna say...superstructure??...the accepted mode of discourse, the way people think about it, the way the press cycles work around a record and everything: all this is geared up to "I just gave you a record! Do you like it, having heard it? express your feelings about this music, hope they're good!" and then there's this incredibly weird performed "talk about the music you made a year or more ago as if you, too, are hearing it for the first time instead of speaking across a gulf, or like you only just recently thought it up" ritual...and it's not just compositional chops I'm talking about, it's everything. poetic chops. production in terms of the machines/plug-ins used, preferred, rejected. approaches to making music: recording basics and overdubbing all in one or two long sessions (the classic rock album model), or going piece by piece? instrumentation: is it a "what happens to be in the studio and feels like it might sound cool" mood, or are people thinking about what instruments they use specifically for the material they're using it on? what got rejected? I consider these all "technical" questions which are more interesting than "why," which I feel like is in the clickbait age the W of the five Ws that gets the most weight when it's the one that interests me least. that's just me, and in part as I think I said this is an overcorrection on my part, I used to be much more interested in how well a piece of music writing was written as vs. the information it gave me, now the opposite is true and I want to think about the whats and hows.

This is exactly how I think lately, and exactly what I hope to get at when I'm writing about an album, or interviewing someone, for Burning Ambulance. It's also the reason I prioritize music over lyrics when analyzing a record.

The endless delusions of people who think they are music journalists and what it is they think they do.

personally I think I fill content-shaped voids with letter-shaped pixels and languish in a holding pattern, but that's just me

<3

three facts about ilx:

1) the ilx community is aging (few new young posters)

2) high rate of attrition (people stop posting)

3) lower posting intensity (people who stay post less)

IF ilx is becoming more indie, i'd suspect it's due to some combination of these three trends

maybe the indiest among us are the least likely to attrite, or maybe when musically omnivorous posters reduce their intensity they cut down on non-indie music first, or maybe as people get older they become less invested in keeping up with non-indie music, which often has less established distribution channels (point made by maura above).

this whole argument is so weird when you realize that even the most shambolic 'indie' act has a much more potent promotional infrastructure than 75% of what major labels put out

― maura, Sunday, January 17, 2016 11:00 AM (6 hours ago)

this sounds completely absurd to me

NYC trust fund indie often gets more coverage than it warrants by dint of the acts being friends with the writers or the writers being born into financial and social access but outside of the media echo chamber nobody actually cares about that stuff. there's not a groundswell of interest in that kind of music within the media or outside of it powerful enough to draw attention to similar acts in other cities or to even land any of the most blogged-about names on billboard charts or major festival lineups

US indie as a commercial/cultural force is completely moribund - the conversation about the most relevant and progressive music coming out of the US is almost entirely about rap at this point and whatever american audience remains for indie-coding sonics is having their needs met by exports from countries like canada, sweden, australia, and the UK, where there's government funding propping that stuff up

ilx probably not more indie, probably just less opposed to it now bc it is too pitiably destitute to be taken seriously as a threat or menace and whatever indie boosterism remains in the media gets zero pageviews and usually only exists in the first place as a favor to the subjects

(Hence how I ended up with the only fan fiction story that has ever, as far as I know, been reviewed in Sound On Sound, ha!)

this is awesome!! I was gonna reply to upper mississippi that Sound On Sound is another fun mag.

kind of a cynical viewpoint there, bud.

there's a lot of great indie music coming out now, and pitchfork is covering none of it because those little bands aren't from nyc. in terms of conversation and "wow this new band is doing something for me" pitchfork is completely not on the ball in that regard.

they can write about parquet courts or whatever else but nobody is having an emotional response to this stuff. so it remains a niche subculture as it once was, in punk circles and diy circles and whatever else.

agree and disagree at the time

NYC trust fund indie often gets more coverage than it warrants by dint of the acts being friends with the writers or the writers being born into financial and social access but outside of the media echo chamber nobody actually cares about that stuff. there's not a groundswell of interest in that kind of music within the media or outside of it powerful enough to draw attention to similar acts in other cities or to even land any of the most blogged-about names on billboard charts or major festival lineups

major festival lineups are like 60% landfill pitchfork BNMs of years past

like, if you're still looking to pitchfork for indie rock that's exciting, you're not gonna find it. go to bandcamp or trawl google or whatever else... there's stuff out there that's right under your nose.

I don't really care for parquet courts but the claim that "nobody is having an emotional response to this stuff" seems off. just because you personally don't like a band doesn't mean that no one else does

maybe the indiest among us are the least likely to attrite, or maybe when musically omnivorous posters reduce their intensity they cut down on non-indie music first, or maybe as people get older they become less invested in keeping up with non-indie music, which often has less established distribution channels (point made by maura above).

not that I have any personal self-interest in the consequences of this postulate but one other possible explanation is that as people grow older, they grow wise, and gain discernment, and begin to really enjoy some of that outstanding, mature, really quite buy-able indie music, especially lyrics-focused American indie rock

good point and i wasn't really trying to claim that. but i'm basically saying that the indie stuff deemed "exciting" by pitchfork is not necessarily the indie that people in those circles are getting really into.

a few years ago that was completely the case but this year barely any of it is landfill blog runoff

percentage of festival lineups dedicated to internet buzz acts has been shrinking rapidly, percentages dedicated to nostalgia/reunion acts, major label baby bands, and rap/r&b/edm have seen corresponding increases

blogbuzzindie was a blip, not an institution

bands playing coachella this year i would consider blogbuzzindie

health
ibeyi
savages
grimes
unknown mortal orchestra
bat for lashes
chvrches
courtney barnett
sia
major lazer
deerhunter
rhye
alvvays
badbadnotgood
ex hex
sophie
matt and kim
cold war kids
death grips
deafheaven
girlpool
sheer mag

i left out a bunch of stuff that borders on edm and about a third of the acts' names i didn't even recognize

james if you want to look at my inbox be my guest!

oh god, chvrches.

haha deafheaven

xp JCLC: lol :)

like a certain strand of music that is (sometimes correctly, sometimes not, often confusingly either way) referred to as 'indie' has definitely established a hegemonic stronghold in music culture that looks and feels different than the way alternative functioned in pop music two decades back. look at any festival lineup's lower reaches - particularly those that don't have the built-in audience of coachella, which actually skews less indie than its compatriots.

and let's not get started on commercials (signed, have had football on in the background today for whatever reason)

sia and major lazer have billboard top 10 singles to their credit

majority of the other acts are on major labels and/or are from canada/australia/sweden/UK

you might as well have put halsey and twenty one pilots in there

Trumans Water x CHVRCHES (Dj Set)

it is possible to consider "landfill" music exciting. value is not determined by A) how much media and/or PR infrastructure is currently around a band B) how much that band appeals to the 18-24 demographic/youngs/passionate millennial males C) how much they appear on your friends, timeline and/or dashboard

i wasn't arguing any of those things but okay

i'm not saying blogbuzzindie did not happen, it did, and certainly there are some indie acts putzing around in 500 cap venues that managed to make a career out of it

but that infrastructure, from the media outlets and publicists right on down to the labels, has been violently hemorrhaging whatever power or access it ever had over the past few years

the fact that there are so many publicists out there trying to hawk the shit to journalists doesn't mean there's any real power behind it - it's just a function of the fact that promoting blogbuzzindie was too easy during the period where the outside world seemed amenable to the idea that it might matter. people were getting paid 1000/mo to send a bunch of emails. the more people used that approach, the less effective it became

if you could soundscan the lower rungs of NYC boutique record label and PR company rosters the vast majority of them would register sales numbers in the mid two figures

maura the hegemony is still pop. there's more pop in ads than indie, you just don't notice it because it's so omnipresent as to be background noise. it's undeniable that there's an indie strain within ad culture but pop is not exactly marginalized by indie there

well i actually don't notice it because i skip past shit on my dvr but thanks for explaining my blindness to me

and yeah james i totally agree with you about sales impact, but there are other aspects of the music economy to consider

anyway this thread is becoming sort of useless and i'm going to use my energies to talk about albums and songs elsewhere on the board!

when these not rock but classified as "indie" bands get into upper reaches of charts/radio play aren't they just pop now? Pop has always changed over time

sia and major lazer have billboard top 10 singles to their credit

and they started out as blogbuzzindie, a pipeline you just said had dried up

majority of the other acts are on major labels and/or are from canada/australia/sweden/UK

you said BBI couldnt make it onto majors anymore, too! it's true a lot of them are from those countries, but the US ones aren't from NYC (only deerhunter). lots of LA, though

this thread is becoming sort of useless

lol i thought it was just getting interesting! couldn't see any use in any of the discussion upthread about "describing how music gets made", or any connection to the burning question of "is ilm more indie?" enjoyed your contribs as always

zero 7, blogbuzz indie

i think it's true that blogbuzz has less bite now, since the mp3 blog bubble popped and everything kind of re-consolidated. like even bands with minor cache in mid 00s are still visible now to a greater degree than bands that came up 5 years ago.

have you heard of trip hop, flopson

blogbuzz ohio

n/m ignore me

ha, i feel no shame at talking about this stuff. sorry!

Flopson otm that this convo just became interesting at the end

James brooks otm that press media around blog buzz has never had less influence than it does now, IMO. And that doesn't just mean indie aesthetically, but the actual indie business path that allowed, say, Asap rocky to be propelled to magazine covers without any real street buzz

Social media buzz means a lot more....I find it worse than blog buzz personally, despite being marginally more democratic it's still a really arbitrary and random "tastemaking" mechanism

Although I do like metric/social driven rappers like keef and shmurda more than odd future and rocky....but I guess I just miss Tastemakers, sentimentally. DJs haven't taken up the slack, instead you just have Bryson tiller types getting a few influential Twitter accounts to promote them.

Which isn't even to say Bryson tiller is a Bad product he's just a very boring one

my fear of social media driven hype is all new music buzz being driven by the kinds of people who post the why do i hate that artist thing that people keep posting on my facebook so much? why am i such a jerk? thread stuff to facebook

I can already feel ppl pushing Jazz Cartier this way, a few important Tastemakers will cosign him, naysayers are of negligible influence bc the dominant critical process is "ppl I know are talking about it so it matters"

maybe the new tastemakers are hipsters who write noisey articles about their friends bands, except there are too many of them so they each have extremely little influence individually, in the end it's all up to which one floats to the top of social media clicks

i'd like to think good music floats to the top eventually but there's so many loopholes going on right now that it has to be kinda discouraging

I haven't gotten through the whole thread but picking up on some earlier discussion itt: As I get older, I don't find myself any less interested in new music, but I do find myself much less inclined to evangelize about it? Maybe DJing has become the outlet for me that writing or posting about music used to fill.

For the 100th time: Indie is not a genre, people.

it wasn't then it was. c.f. "Alternative to What"

maybe the new tastemakers are hipsters who write noisey articles about their friends bands, except there are too many of them so they each have extremely little influence individually, in the end it's all up to which one floats to the top of social media clicks

― flopson, Monday, 18 January 2016 01:25 (4 hours ago) Permalink

Right instead you just get influential ppl who have nothing to do w music shaping what music is talked about: it's still a bottleneck but oriented around, like, snapchat celebrities and ppl who have strong online Brands. And maybe know nothing about music

I'm still flummoxed at sia being "blogbuzzindie" as opposed to "singer-songwriter with the holy grail, i.e. a sync on six feet under"

Doesn't sia write like huge pop records?

off with her head

I mean, if you're going to define "blog buzz indie landfill music" you can at least define it accurately

sia has clearly taken advantage of the entrenched pop machinery that ignores everyone under 40

off with her head

― mookieproof, Sunday, January 17, 2016 11:50 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What do you think I was saying?

that chief keef secretly wrote and sang her songs

wow ok

...save us gr8080?

Mookieproof is bad at ilx

Let's turn an interesting thread into a clusterfuck for no reason

"turn into"

Hello. I just clicked on this thread by accident and have no idea what the topic is but based on the few most recent posts I can see I will just slowly back up and out and gently close the door in front of me. Nothing to see here. Cheers.

Oh wait it is the more indie thread? Then I guess I will just stick to the plan outlined in my prior post.

"turn into"

― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Monday, January 18, 2016 12:53 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Who are you quoting ? You really thought it was a "clusterfuck"?

My point about Sia was in agreement with you :thinking face emoji:

"has ilm gotten more indie lately" packs a remarkable amount of clusterfuck into six words. it's the for sale baby shoes of clusterfucks.

It was a pretty interesting conversation when I went to bed last night. What happened? Actually, I'm not even going to look up beyond the cut to find out so I'll never know and just back slowly away from the thread trying not to make any sudden moves.

ilx has gotten more indie since, say, 2001

that's the internet. any discussion can randomly go toxic at any time, particularly in pseud-friendly fora. trying to have a meaningful discussion about issues is the most dangerous thing you can do.

since i'm typically one or two days behind whatever's actually being discussed anyway, i'll redirect. while i sympathize with the mainline protestants always asking why the yoof never show up at their churches, asking the question never seems to bring about a useful answer. so i eventually am becoming convinced it's not a useful question.

ILX threads are like being on a flight... as soon as there is just a little turbulence everyone on board starts panicking and talking about how it's "all over now" when in reality that reaction is very premature and everything would be fine if it was ignored.

Meanwhile the plane has been flying in circles for days.

days? I dunno, outside the window it looks like 2012 to me...

To get to a def ans we should do a best albums ever poll and if we get a Beatles/Beach Boys/Van "The Man"/Dylan/MBV top spot then we'll require the Khmer Rouge to sort it out.

Haha

Were there ever "The Van" fans here?

I don't recall..

*raises hand*

love Van Morrison and will go on & on about "Common One" for days

Assumed everyone here liked at least some vm songs tbh

There is no excuse for Van Morrison and his voice is the vocal equivalent of sand in your bumcrack #ControversialOpinions

Sounds pretty indie when you put it that way

I dont think "indie" is an alternative to "mainstream" anymore because there is so much overlap in the audiences. And it cuts both ways! I've heard beyonce in indie coffee shops and crystal castles in brooks brothers. i'm just not sure it's such a meaningful category anymore, especially bc the blogbuzz system has collapsed.

Indie is not even really a sensibilty - what does the retrophilia of beirut or fleet foxes have to do with the cyborg fairy electropop of grimes? It's an emptier signifier than hipster now

p much any music which people are all talking about at once (or indeed any other topic) feels like some insufferable hegemony, today.

new guerilla toss on dfa!

https://soundcloud.com/dfa-records/guerilla-toss-diamond-girls-1

Good shout on common one - haunts of ancient peace scares the shit out of me, really it's the one song I can listen to that makes me feel surprisingly okay about dying

now more than ever seems it rich to die and all that

This thread like Lazarus – too soon! has come back to life.

I think people define indie vs. mainstream based on how "groomed" the act appears to be as a brand to reach a broad audience in a variety of ways. Indie acts achieving popularity isn't (always) the result of the same kind of calculation we suspect of those acts that appear to be more mainstream.

the only reason it turned into an actual clusterfuck was mookieproof trolling btw

When everyone so easily declares a thread clusterfucked the trolls win.

I'm still flummoxed at sia being "blogbuzzindie" as opposed to "singer-songwriter with the holy grail, i.e. a sync on six feet under"

― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Monday, January 18, 2016 12:46 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean, if you're going to define "blog buzz indie landfill music" you can at least define it accurately

― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Monday, January 18, 2016 12:52 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

damn, why you gotta be so snarky? i was unaware of the details of sia's career when i wrote that list (now i have skimmed her wikipedia page so i can tell you that "She started her career as a singer in the local Adelaide acid jazz band Crisp in the mid-1990s") but had mentally files her as BBILM because of places i had seen her pop up. i guess i got the order wrong and she was Legit Pop (in Australia) before i saw her name on hipster media. the list still has like 25 artists on it though so even if you ding her off my point stands

btw the best thing to do when an interesting thread becomes "a clusterfuck" is not to droop to meta-whingeing ("this thread was good 6 hours ago" "someone mentioned chief keef") but to keep engaging with the posts you find interesting

the better qn is: has indie gotten more ilm lately?

TS: Chief Keef vs Van Morrison

the better qn is: has indie gotten more ilm lately?

― -san (Lamp), Monday, January 18, 2016 11:55 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

answer is obviously yes

btw the best thing to do when an interesting thread becomes "a clusterfuck" is not to droop to meta-whingeing ("this thread was good 6 hours ago" "someone mentioned chief keef") but to keep engaging with the posts you find interesting

― flopson, Monday, January 18, 2016 11:50 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was all I was saying. Carry on.

love Van Morrison and will go on & on about "Common One" for days

otm and same

A Last Waltz Irishman showgirl kick in the direction of anyone who says otherwise

the better qn is: has indie gotten more ilm lately?

― -san (Lamp), Monday, January 18, 2016 11:55 AM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ILM demands sophistication from their indie but are often apologists for the simplest of pop. I guess it comes down to the debate over the intentions of the artist in question.

Perhaps we should begin marking all threads with genre tags and then do an audit at the end of each week. Then if there are more than say four black metal, skiffle or bluegrass threads at the end of the week, the whole site shuts down for a month.

(Not read the whole thread)

I posted streams for the new albums from Mark Kozelek, Tindersticks and Tortoise on the same day last week and only the Tortoise one prompted much conversation.

Not really sure what this says, though.

did not expect to be directed to new (to me) Van Morrison in this thread

Van Morrison - Signed "Astral Weeks" LP

PRICE IN USD
$1500.00

About this piece: Van Morrison is truly a musical living legend who has long been revered by his peers.

In addition to a musical legend, in the world of celebrity signatures, Van Morrison has created another legend, that he is an incredibly difficult signature to acquire in person. Very protected and quite reclusive, even when on tour, Van Morrison has a long standing reputation for never signing autographs.

Bryan saw this as an ultimate challenge and on a few very fortunate occasions over the last 10 years he has been able to meet Van and have him sign some spectacular items.

Signing description: When Van does sign, he has a beautiful, legible signature. The album "Astral Weeks" is widely considered one of the great albums in rock & roll history; Van Morrison signed this classic album in Los Angeles in 2007. Van signed this album in a black felt-tip sharpie. A true gem...

I want that sharpie!

"In a black felt-tip sharpie" sounds like he was wearing some form of strange black felt British evening wear.

millionaire ink meanie, van morisson

I thought "indie" meant guitars? Otherwise it just seems to mean "music that only ex-bloggers and other hipsters like". Really hard for me to grasp how Sophie or anything on Numbers or similar labels would be considered indie.

Maybe indie is about as concrete of a label as "hipster" at this point. Basically, anything that doesn't fit into any of these other categories and has some vaguely counterculture sheen to it.

Has metal gotten more hipster lately?

...Oh fuck it I'm going to go try and battle insomnia once again.

i wouldve said no to the titular qn like two days ago but all these dudes being 'what even is an indie? can you define it?' making me reconsider

also indie has def moved towards an ilm sensibility imo

I thought "indie" meant guitars? Otherwise it just seems to mean "music that only ex-bloggers and other hipsters like". Really hard for me to grasp how Sophie or anything on Numbers or similar labels would be considered indie.

― viborg, Monday, January 18, 2016 1:22 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sophie is indie but the other stuff on numbers isn't imo

what is american indie in 2016

thats a flat question i dont pay enough attention

i mean i assume its grimes & the fanbase of CRJ fans

Maybe indie is about as concrete of a label as "hipster" at this point. Basically, anything that doesn't fit into any of these other categories and has some vaguely counterculture sheen to it.

Indie is defined more by its audience. Indie is music that indie types listen to.

A Last Waltz Irishman showgirl kick in the direction of anyone who says otherwise

― Blecchstar Linus Must Comp (James Redd and the Blecchs)

There was a debate last month about whether the Northern Ireland football team should drop God Save The Queen to be more inclusive of Nationalists and my first thought was that the full live version of Caravan would make a great anthem. If you do the It's Too Late To Stop Now one You could introduce the team during the quiet bit where he introduces the band. The only problem is the match itself would be a terrible anticlimax.

Are you anything to John Blek and the Rats by the way? Seems like quite a big coincidence.

I contain multitudes.

But no, having nothing to do with and never heard of until your post. Pleased to make their acquaintance.

ha, I remember one time on ILX I tried to come up with an artist that nobody dislikes. My gut answer was Sir Van Morrison. I was quickly corrected.

van morrison used to be hated here in the olden days. not so much anymore. also in the olden days there would have been a parody thread called *has indie gotten more ilm lately?* within five minutes of this thread being created.

damn, why you gotta be so snarky? i was unaware of the details of sia's career when i wrote that list (now i have skimmed her wikipedia page so i can tell you that "She started her career as a singer in the local Adelaide acid jazz band Crisp in the mid-1990s") but had mentally files her as BBILM because of places i had seen her pop up. i guess i got the order wrong and she was Legit Pop (in Australia) before i saw her name on hipster media. the list still has like 25 artists on it though so even if you ding her off my point stands

― flopson, Monday, January 18, 2016 11:48 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

choose one:

a) "indie" is flimsy and useless enough as a term without confusing it further with lack of research -- you might as well call sara bareilles "indie"
b) I suck
c) both of the above

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYa1eI1hpDE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIh2xe4jnpk

the fanbase of CRJ fans

https://www.americanairlines.cn/content/images/aboutUs/ourPlanes/crj-200_gal.jpg

?

15 fucking years of ilm for dudes to come along wondering if indie is a thing beyond guitars

choose one:

a) "indie" is flimsy and useless enough as a term without confusing it further with lack of research -- you might as well call sara bareilles "indie"
b) I suck
c) both of the above

― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Monday, January 18, 2016 3:50 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

none of the above! you don't suck and i am confident in the pure indie-ness of my list of acts playing coachella, contested indie status of sia notwithstanding. i even erred on the side of caution and didn't include a bunch of electronic stuff

xp- lol

the only reason it turned into an actual clusterfuck was mookieproof trolling btw

oops, sorry. not that you or this thread don't generally deserve to be trolled, but i was drunk and just being stupid

i regret interfering with everyone's engagement of these ideas

that lou barlow fella wrote a song about it once

lou AND j. played at my store last year! that's how indie i've become.

Please to post photo

lou and j. AND bob fay actually. also, the sassiest boy in america played too, but i wasn't there for that.

( i still have never heard nation of ulysses...)

What held you back?

i dunno they were kinda past my time. and i never revisited after the fact. i did check out the guy's new stuff before they played here. seemed fun.

or maybe "fun". i dunno. not really my thing at the end of the day...

(now i have skimmed her wikipedia page so i can tell you that "She started her career as a singer in the local Adelaide acid jazz band Crisp in the mid-1990s"

the buzz around Sia's solo records was that she was from downtempo/trip-hop/"coffee bar" w/e band Zero 7... she makes poppier records now. wow so indie

are you guys still going on about the one major botched item on flopson's list

major lazer hasn't been blogbuzzindie for years, and even if those years didn't count "lean on" does. courtney barnett is more rock-establishment than blog buzz indie. cold war kids are radio airplay alt-rock, which "blogs" (what blogs?) generally couldn't give a shit about. of the acts who are blog buzz indie (what blogs?) they are getting their buzz from entirely different sources; someone who really loves SOPHIE isn't guaranteed to really love, say, deerhunter, and that person isn't guaranteed to love girlpool, and that person isn't guaranteed to love death grips.

:)

http://i.imgur.com/Lo0gvej.gif

I was curious how bands/venues even bill shows in the present day and browsed through the next couple months of bookings at a couple local venues. It's the dead, icy winter part of the year so touring is at a low and there are likely more local acts, and fewer shows in general. The two shows I found that had "indie" in the artist bio section were:

- local indie/psych rock (billed as the band's last show)
- "one of the original indie/alternative bands" (it was Guster, lol)

other than that... nobody really throwing INDIE out there as a thing

indie became p mainstream i thought, makes it hard to tell the difference

Guster sound like they could be more windy than indie

guster, o.a.r., dispatch, all the greats

O.A.R. has a secretly huge audience

they're signed to Natalie Merchant's Secretly Huge label iirc

@katherine why does it matter if Sophie and deerhoof have overlapping audiences? Can't they still both be indie ?

Anyway all this said I think flopson's list nonwithstanding it's obvious the press has way less influence real estate than they did even three years ago

major lazer hasn't been blogbuzzindie for years, and even if those years didn't count "lean on" does. courtney barnett is more rock-establishment than blog buzz indie. cold war kids are radio airplay alt-rock, which "blogs" (what blogs?) generally couldn't give a shit about. of the acts who are blog buzz indie (what blogs?) they are getting their buzz from entirely different sources; someone who really loves SOPHIE isn't guaranteed to really love, say, deerhunter, and that person isn't guaranteed to love girlpool, and that person isn't guaranteed to love death grips.

― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Monday, January 18, 2016 5:28 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

enjoyed myself a good lol at this purest vintage narc of sd... ahhh

- "major lazer hasn't been blogbuzzindie for years" well the category was "landfill pitchfork BNMs of years past." my point is there is a zipline from blogbuzz -> play a big festival
- "courtney barnett is more rock-establishment than blog buzz indie" huh?
- cold war kids: ok granted i never actually listened to this band and was unaware that they are bluesy alt-rock but it was one of the bands whose names were floating around in the blogbuzzindie era the same time as like clap your hands say yeah. a point i made later in this thread is that bands who made it (in some limited sense) back then tend to be more established now, which supports james' contention that the indie rock money machine has broken down
- as for the failure in transitivity or whatever... i mean, look at ilm. not only is no one indie fan guaranteed to like any other indie band, they may have weirdly strong negative reactions to bands that sound or look the same to you or i. i personally like sophie, deerhunter and death grips. i don't like girlpool. so close!

i googled courtney barnett and most of her music was self released? what's rock establishment?

ftr i was only really commenting on the difference between major labels and indie labels

a very specific, fact-based, non-nebulous distinction

rest of the thread seems more concerned with the word "indie" as a flimsy catch-all term for stuff that seems like it has what they call in the industry "a very passionate audience of millennial males" and no offense but i could not possibly be less interested in discussing that

not really sure what's wrong with that post but re: courtney barnett -- a lot of this is anecdotal (although it isn't any less nebulous and fuzzy than the rest of this thread) but she is both remarkably out of step with what gets blog buzz en masse these days, and beloved of the nme crowd. as in, people whose favorite bands are, like, foo fighters or arctic monkeys tend to bring her up a lot in conversation.

and as for the "failure in transitivity" it's more a difference in genres so huge that it makes absolutely no sense to talk about even before taking labels and PRs into consideration

15 fucking years of ilm for dudes to come along wondering if indie is a thing beyond guitars

― r|t|c, Monday, January 18, 2016 8:59 PM

Soz didn't realize mentioning guitars was verboten. Brb reading 15 fucking years of ilm threads...

Just to be clear tho I've been using ilm off and on for ~12 years so I didn't just randomly breeze thru if that's what you meant.

and beloved of the nme crowd. as in, people whose favorite bands are, like, foo fighters or arctic monkeys tend to bring her up a lot in conversation.

― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Monday, January 18, 2016 11:06 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ilm's usage of the word "indie" has been two faced, and one is the british use of the term, of which the arctic monkeys were considered to exemplify for a time.

british ilxors can really chime in more here, but historically it was tied up with B&S too, and ilm had a big sinister-influx somewhere.

idk what indie means anymore, but the rift between the amerindie tradition and whatever the genesis is of the brit-usage is was probably back to the 80s? it only acquired currency in the US in the mid-90s as a catchall for stuff that didn't hitch a ride on the post-nirvana alternative train.

but even then its not just a label category thing afaik in any usage -- and not just a demographic thing -- and guitars have a lot tho not everything to do with it.

iirc ilm was purchased by universal music group in 2012 so this question is moot imo

it only acquired currency in the US in the mid-90s as a catchall for stuff that didn't hitch a ride on the post-nirvana alternative train.

I think it was earlier than that.

the reverend isn't british though

pip pip

Gwenno's fit, innit?

Sorry, James Redd not Britishes either

w/r/t the difference between US and UK indie, it makes me think of the Sebadoh joke song "Gimme Indie Rock" from 1991:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTqS7AZ-Z4U

The lyrics cite the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, Husker Du, Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore, and Dinosaur Jr as touchstones, and at various points associate indie rock with noisy, heavy music (and, at the very beginning, with hardcore punk). Is it safe to say that, with the exception of VU, UK "indie" has never really had those associations?

That may not have lot to do with how the term "indie" is used in the US music press now, except as a slightly convoluted historical thing. But maybe it's illuminating in some way.

When I lived in England in 1998-99, I felt like US "indie" was UK "alternative" and vice versa.

i think my point was that artists who got "blogbuzz" in the blog era or the equivalent in the post-blog era, which you can proxy by saying "artists with p4k BNM" (since p4k is somewhat popist this will include some legit pop artists like sia which is why i got burned above) are still a major presence in gross festivals like coachella.

which was a response to james saying that the money dried up and unless you can get your scandinavian government to fund you (owen can speak to this better but from my pov canadian indie artists see SOCAN grants as an at least somewhat corrupted process? also from the perspective of anyone with good taste it funds TONNES of horrible music, so using tax money to land an indie act on coachella comes at a cost) or your rich nyc friends or parents, you're not gonna make it onto that stage. i suspect there's some truth to that but idk how to figure out if it's true, and the fact that there were many acts on that list that came up in the last 2-3 years would seem to contradict it

I don't get a strong Coachella festival vibe from ILM but maybe the year end polls will prove me wrong

http://iread50shades.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/evilplan.jpg

Chapterhouse, Ride and Slowdive all cited The Stooges as an influence. and early MBV is pretty heavy on the Du-worship. think of how many bands started up after the Sex Pistols, too, and it's pretty similar.

what the crap aren't those bands like mad old

"Is it safe to say that, with the exception of VU, UK "indie" has never really had those associations?"

maybe the indiest among us are the least likely to attrite, or maybe when musically omnivorous posters reduce their intensity they cut down on non-indie music first, or maybe as people get older they become less invested in keeping up with non-indie music, which often has less established distribution channels (point made by maura above).

― flopson, Sunday, January 17, 2016 3:09 PM (2 days ago)

I'm sure we've had a thread about the "This is your Brain on Music" book that came out about 10 years ago, but one of the things it talks about is aging and how the music of one's "formative years" tends to be consistently liked, whereas at some point the person stops listening to "new" music and retreats back to that comfort. Anyway, flopson's theory makes sense if a lot of ilxors were "indie-lovers" in their youth. Maybe they are/were? But I doubt I'm the only one who was not an indie person, esp. considering Branwell and lex are also on this thread.

I wasn't an "indie person," whatever the absolute fuck that means, arguably I'm still not, who the fuck knows what I am

you're a music writer, right? Didn't we cover that upthread?

I didn't mean that to be glib or catty -- just that there are posters that are drawn to ilx because they are pro music writers and they use the site to talk shop. I was talking about ilxors that are here to ... forestall death or something.

this isn't meant to be glib or catty, but I don't know whether I qualify as that

how the music of one's "formative years" tends to be consistently liked, whereas at some point the person stops listening to "new" music and retreats back to that comfort

hoo boy I have a friend who recently got divorced and is popping her head out into the world and it's all "hey do people still go to this one place, are people into such-and-such music" and it has reminded me that when you get entrenched in a routine you don't notice how the world has moved on

Death Grips isn't indie, they are rap that indie ppl like.

but adding to flopson's list:
Beach House
Hudson Mohawke
Run the Jewels
Silversun Pickups (maybe they predate peak blogbuzz, but I think their popularity was similar)
Sufjan Stevens

the number of people i know who say the killers are their favorite band

music writers can forestall death too

is that why deej posts so frickin much?

he just loves discourse

Hudson Mohawke - EDM that indie people like
Run the Jewels - rap that indie people like

fun game

i like games!

LOL I had an indie phase to end all indie phases. Thankfully I grew out of it. Or rather it was more like a religious conversion. And it happened when I was in my 30s so I don't know how much stock to hold in one size fits all stories of ~ageing brains~.

(Didn't some Spotify study talk about how female listeners are more likely to keep up with popular music longer?)

i don't know why it bugs me so much that people who don't listen to/hate modern rap love run the jewels so much. i understand that they want to kick it old school like they did back in the day but it still bugs me. people who don't listen to modern rap who love death grips i have no problem with for some reason. makes perfect sense.

http://i.imgur.com/RLcBEjR.png

I think the theory is more to do with the average person. Obviously there are going to be "outliers."

I also don't find that whole music of one's youth thing to be true for me, but it makes sense that there would be lots of outliers here.

"But one of the things it talks about is aging and how the music of one's "formative years" tends to be consistently liked, whereas at some point the person stops listening to "new" music and retreats back to that comfort."

I (partly) attribute a change in my listening tastes to a bereavement and then to study (a degree, as a mature student). I wasn't in the mood for techno (or thereabouts) and then I couldn't write essays to it either. I suppose both of these things are kind of age related.

my music listening took a weird turn in the last year when I cut out most of my reading articles about new music and got a car with satellite radio

I spend over half of my commutes to/from work listening to the rap stations! and the college radio analog they have has mostly "blog radio" with shows hosted by bloggers, which I seldom listen to, but it's kind of surreal

I don't think the book addressed this, but it also makes me think about whether "we" get to a certain age, and the new music we like tends to share more aesthetic similarities with the music we liked as young people.

most enlightening/humiliating moment was realizing someone I met at a music festival had just played a show, at the festival I was attending, and I didn't recognize her name. I was still subscribed to The Wire, and realized there was a full page article about her music a couple months prior that I'd never read because I was just letting the magazine sit there instead of reading it. whoops.

flopson's theory makes sense if a lot of ilxors were "indie-lovers" in their youth. Maybe they are/were? But I doubt I'm the only one who was not an indie person, esp. considering Branwell and lex are also on this thread.

― sarahell, Tuesday, January 19, 2016 3:13 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i believe many were. i was for sure. but i'm still too young to be part of the aging trend

obviously lex is not a contributing factor in the purported increase in indieness

scott, it's even worse when ppl who used to be really up on music not only are about kicking it old school like they did in their formative years, they just discovered this cool new artist Macklemore

"aging" is also a subjective term, especially given how hollywoodized the music industry is in this regard -- I started to feel "aging" by age 24

music writers can forestall death too

― j., Tuesday, January 19, 2016 3:46 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nobody can forestall death, not really.

Well with that attitude.

"I didn't mean that to be glib or catty -- just that there are posters that are drawn to ilx because they are pro music writers and they use the site to talk shop. I was talking about ilxors that are here to ... forestall death or something.

― sarahell, Tuesday, January 19, 2016 3:23 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"

if anyone's wondering (and yes, i know nobody is), i'm here to find new music to listen to without having to read actual music journalism. zero interest in attempting to forestall my inevitable demise.

the new music we like tends to share more aesthetic similarities with the music we liked as young people.

I've wondered about this too, cuz I definitely don't give a shit about a lot of stuff I used to religiously listen to as a teen/twentysomething (sorry Fugazi). As I've zeroed in on particular styles and production aesthetics that continue to interest me in my dotage it's funny how this is true for certain genres (rap) but less so for others (whatever passes for "rock" music these days), and obviously completely irrelevant for genres I didn't listen to at all as a young'un (country, dub). I am kind of of the opinion that sonically nothing sounds better than stuff that was made with tons of money and quality gear in the 70s, regardless of genre. Which is definitely not what I grew up listening to.

i, for one, would like to not die.

I have bad news for you

I'm sure we've had a thread about the "This is your Brain on Music" book that came out about 10 years ago, but one of the things it talks about is aging and how the music of one's "formative years" tends to be consistently liked, whereas at some point the person stops listening to "new" music and retreats back to that comfort.

#notBuyingIt, at least from the 2nd hand accounts I remember reading of this book. The fact is many people (old and young) are still here - I see an attempt to try new things from time to time.

I listen to more things that prepare me for the grim eventuality of my imminent doom

like the Eagles

like death, suffering through an Eagles tune is something everyone has to come to grips with at some point

as a band who were popular among early teens when I was an early teen once said, "i ain't got no soul, but i got more than don henley"

it's probably less "retreating back to comfort" and more "having less time to devote to finding out about new music." shit takes time and is a full-time job

it really doesn't take much time to find out about new music.

takes time to find out about GOOD new music

also takes $$$ if you are at all invested in paying artists

time/$$$ in short supply in middle age ime

it does take a fucking lot of time

my mom really likes fallout boy

xxp - idk I listen to the college radio station a lot, when I'm working from home, or while I'm reading a book before bed. It plays a fair amount of new music. It is free.

what's a radio

that thing people use in automobiles iirc

mine has input jacks to plug in a cd player and record player and then has these things that you connect wires to that go into stereo speakers. it's a really cool product!

that thing people use in automobiles iirc

I thought those were called uber drivers

but seriously - I stopped bothering trying to listen to the radio in San Francisco shortly after I moved here, reception just doesn't happen.

i thought those were called your mom

at least not for anything I want to hear (KPOO, KUSF etc). THE BONE broadcasts loud n clear I suppose

xp

also lol

those bay area hackers figured out how to disrupt radio

I guess radio can work but somehow I don't trust radio with delivering the kind of music I'm looking for.

more like SF's numerous hills and Sutro Tower figured it out

xp

KPOO
BABY BABY

"aging" is also a subjective term, especially given how hollywoodized the music industry is in this regard -- I started to feel "aging" by age 24

― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Tuesday, January 19, 2016 5:14 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i am 24 and i do feel aged lol. mostly wrt my receding hairline though

that was what I was originally going to say but believe it or not I do try not to be completely insufferable

;-)

sorry about your hairline, katherine

working a 9-to-5 also makes me feel old tbh

I've done that since I graduated college :/

yeah, i'm very happy at my job and with my life though, it's more because a lot of my friends like some kind of flaneur lifestyle, and i see my last chance at that routine slipping through my fingers

*live

I definitely feel old at 32. career, marriage, kids and also a receding hairline will do that. new music takes a shit load of time to discover btw, you have to wade through a lot of trash and/or stuff that is good but maybe you don't feel immediately to get to stuff that resonates

idk it is kind of fun feeling old too especially when you connect with other people who feel old but haven't given up

fuck I'm older than marcos

haha that's the second time you've posted that iirc

lol I'll be 50 this year, y'all are kids

this is the first year I've really been feeling the "getting old, less time for new music" thing, if I didn't do a college radio show and frequent ILX I would be even more out of touch

rap can be hella indie

I find new (young) bands every year, though far less than I used to. But I seem to find new (old) bands more often as I dig into genres that I'd previously skipped over, or connect with something that I hadn't before. I'm older than the lot of you (except Sleeve) and, yeah, it does take time and effort. That naturally ebbs and flows, but if the spark is in you and you keep it alive, you'll never become one of those people who stopped listening to music in year XXXX. And since you're on this board, that's likely the case.

Hell, I may finally buy Bowie's Berlin trilogy this year. ;-)

i'm too old to remember i'm older than marcos

there's "indie rap" and rap that is indie, and there are most definitely a bunch of unsigned rappers! or working with local ppl doing distribution and having a 'label' even if that means a couple dudes lining up local shows and uploading tracks. i don't attend nearly enough of those, and there are probably at least a couple shows per month, even in my city

i figured we were just talking from a business pov ... ppl who are making it via blogs -> pitchfork -> pitchfork fest -> lolla -> drake collab

i.e. ... asap rocky

Top Dawg Entertainment?

nah their path to success included those venues at a certain point but was way bigger than that

like an 8.0 no bnm review with 161 facebook likes was not the source of kendrick lamar's buzz pre-good kid
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15653-section80/

rap isn't the best example here

I was gonna say, if you're listening to the radio in SF, KPOO is required listening. Sucks about the reception, in my old place I had a big speaker wire antenna rigged up that worked alright. KPFA also has some great regular shows, one of the highlights is definitely the History of Funk (think it's on Friday nights). Love that guy's voice!

I haven't read 95% of this thread, but a ctrl-f seems to indicate that nobody has mentioned that it was started by a forum member whose current name is mocking the idea that a former member of Supergrass could have made a good LP this year - and nobody seems to mind. That would go down very differently on drowned in sound.

Wait Danny Goffey's made an album?

ilm - not as bad as drowned in sound

Years
Team Apps† (Gls)† 
1979–1981
Wigan Athletic 69 (19) 
1982–1983
Stockport County 63 (39) 
1983–1985
Oldham Athletic 80 (34) 
1985–1988
Portsmouth 121 (54) 
1989–1992
Newcastle United 115 (59) 
1992–1995
Coventry City 64 (25) 
1994
→ Plymouth Argyle (loan) 3 (0) 
1995
→ Watford (loan) 5 (0) 
1995–1996
PAOK Thessaloniki 10 (1) 
Total
 535 (227) 

Ahm Kahn for a Goffey.

it was started by a forum member whose current name is mocking the idea that a former member of Supergrass could have made a good LP this year

I suspect Rev has never actually heard / has no opinion on Supergrass and is just third-wave meta-clowning the meme

gotta say that i was really disappointed when i found out kendrick's 'alright' wasn't a supergrass cover after all

diddy >

glandular lansbury! great name for a band. or a rejected jbr username.

And since you're on this board, that's likely the case.

― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Wednesday, 20 January 2016 02:25 (15 hours ago) Permalink

you mean a lot of ilxors have stopped searching for good new/young bands, right?

because this site is one of the biggest poptimist corners the web has to offer. just look at the top tracks/albums lists.

i assume by new/young bands or old bands, you're suggesting that people don't have the time to listen to that obscure or slightly more obscure album or band that isn't in the top indie/pop/rnb/alternative/metal charts somewhere in the world (including the asian/south american/african continent, etc.)

we can go into a debate on what is good indie music, but i'm particularly surprised there is not a lot of talk of bill ryder-jones's new one, for example. but i guess i'm missing the old ilx

> you mean a lot of ilxors have stopped searching for good new/young bands, right?

No, I meant ILMors, by nature of being on a music discussion board, are much more likely to make the effort to find new bands (young or old). I'm not a poptimist myself so I don't frequent those threads.

> you're suggesting that people don't have the time to listen to that obscure or slightly more obscure album or band that isn't in the top indie/pop/rnb/alternative/metal charts somewhere in the world

Yes, I am suggesting just that, and ILM is very useful in that regard because threads for some of the lesser known bands pop up and can lead to a new discovery. ILM tipped me off to Courtney Barnett well before the rest of the world. And I'm listening to Bill Ryder-Jones right now thanks to your comment. All the Bowie discussion has been very intelligent and helpful for me, never a major fan, to go back and reacquaint myself with his work. It's that aspect of the ILM community that I value the most.

actually, yeah, i see what you're saying and i kind of agree.

personally, i find that these recommendations are usually pretty hidden in strangely-titled threads or just through tangential/off-topic chit-chat, while the big names get their own threads. but better this than nothing, i suppose!

hope you find bill's music at least slightly to your liking

i, for one, would like to not die.

"i don't want to live on through my work, i want to live on in my apartment"

who said it, Woody Allen or Conor Oberst?

/it was started by a forum member whose current name is mocking the idea that a former member of Supergrass could have made a good LP this year/

I suspect Rev has never actually heard / has no opinion on Supergrass and is just third-wave meta-clowning the meme

Correct. I've actually been wanting to ditch the display name for a while but I haven't had access to a computer and I can't change it in Zing.

That dn looks fine to me

it's really funny

Wow this is the most annoying thread

(Sorry rev)

No you're absolutely right.

I stand with Rev and his right to make fun of Supergrass in his display name!!!!!

supergrass was pretty good for a british band

supergrass was british?!

oh wait i'm thinking of superdrag

I Should Coco was a righteous slab of punk infused Britpop, snotty and tuneful in equal measure. The more mature follow-up, In It For the Money, saw the lads grow into their sound beyond the expectations of even their most slavish adherents. While they were unable to consistently sustain the heights achieved on these first two minor masterworks of mid-'90s carefree discontent, Coombes has nearly unleashed their equivalent with his stunning solo album The Matador. And remember, he may just be getting started on a long and fruitful solo career; Gaz still cuts a striking, youthful figure at the mere age of 39!

gaz coombes solo is also british, and super!! xp

I stand with Rev and his right to make fun of Supergrass in his display name!!!!!

her

gah sorry