"Record Collection Rock" - is there still a need for this? Does it still exist?

A term coined by Simon Reynolds to describe music with multiple influences, chiefly worn on its sleeve. This kind of thing was ubiquitous in the pre-internet era, probably coming to a climax in the mid-late 90s.

I guess it was a way for bands to show off their tastes and curate their sound around their influences. You might not have heard an album by the Byrds or Miles Davis or King Tubby (because CDs are expensive) but your favourite band had, and they were going to make a record with three-part harmonies, trumpet blasts and dubby bass echoes so you didn't have to.

I'm wondering if the era of the 'record collection' album is over now? Now that Spotify and YouTube have levelled the playing field, is there a need for acts to try, say, a token reggae song on their album, or to bang on about how they were really influenced by an obscure Magma record for one particular track?

Obviously the factor of influence has and will always be a thing, but is it fair to say that successful acts like to be seen as consistent innovators within their own sound; hitting upon an idea and sticking to it over the course of 12 songs rather than showing off through broad genre-hopping gestures?

Would Bruno Mars' last two albums count? Or are we looking for something where the influences are little more obscure and "hip".

To answer the thread question no it is v bad and because it's v bad I'm sure it still exists

lots of obscure acts are still not on spotify, so there is still some "credit" to be had within non-mainstream "rock" circles

bands whose tastes encompass a wide range of styles and who particularly like bigger name acts within those genres, i would say it's no longer as common for them to genre-hop within a single album, though on occasion, i see really, really small bands do this, probably because it's still a novel idea to them

What are examples of this? Zorn's Naked City or Mr. Bungle? Or more things like the Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs?

This isn't about the music; this is about critics pointing snarky fingers and saying "Ah, you just wrote that song so you can prove you've heard cult album X." (In the process of course proving that they've heard cult album X, too, and they heard it two years before the artist, so there.)

What are examples of this? Zorn's Naked City or Mr. Bungle? Or more things like the Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs?

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Monday, January 15, 2018 5:14 PM (forty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I can't remember who Reynolds was talking about but I always thought it referred to people like Primal Scream.

Or Stereolab.

LCD Soundsystem?

it wasn't really about genre-hopping, it was more just about bands who constantly gave nods to their hip and sometimes obscure influences

“record collection rock” in my usage has a much more specific application than just "the group has precedents" or "they work within a tradition" or "sounds familiar". R-C-R is music where the listener's knowledge of prior rock music is integral to the full aesthetic appreciation of the record ("full" because the creator put the allusions there for you to spot with a smile). Prime exponents include Jesus & Mary Chain, Spacemen 3, Primal Scream, and--to a lesser degree but still part of the sensibility I think-- Stereolab; there's many many more. Oasis are the paradigm case: you get Beatles deja vu flashbacks from the melodies, the title “Wonderwall” is sampled from a George Harrison album and “What’s the Story Morning Glory”, slightly more esoteric, comes from “Tomorrow Time” on John and Beverley Martyn’s Stormbringer (someone I only realised the other day playing the recent reissue, and imagine my surprise!)

^ from Blissblog, 13 February 2006
http://blissout.blogspot.co.uk/2006/02/

Was about to say if Reynolds wasn't referring to Primal Scream he should have been - and he was!

https://image.ibb.co/cq5xhR/weeboab.jpg

Saint Etienne always struck me as this sort of thing.

the fall were maybe the pioneers in this field, they obviously borrowed from a whole host of cool but also not-so-cool influences, but then again they don't really fit because it never seemed like just a shallow exercise in showing off what hip records they were into

Nah, MES had no interest whatsoever in impressing anyone with his record collection.

^ agreed.

brian jonestown massacre otoh can only be described as RCR

There's Alternative TV, with Mark Perry on the cover of the first album surrounded by 'who'd have thought he liked them?' albums from his record collection. However the obvious precursor of this phenomenon is... Nurse With Wound!

thing is lots of times bands like Stereolab actually sort of hone in on certain immediate and pop elements of their antecedents to the point where they can actually be a more refined, enjoyable and modern version of what they are supposedly "ripping off"

even Oasis, like as much as people say they sound like the Beatles, they honestly sound NOTHING like the Beatles to me, like a song like Cigarettes & Alcohol or Supersonic I mean it's so much heavier and the sound of it puts me in a way different headspace than the Beatles (not a huge Oasis fan)

I call bullshit on this whole idea tbh

what? this definitely exists.

i think every musical artists have references and influences and maybe these bands call attention to it but again read the rest of my post i don't think that they are unique, like why does lcd soundsystem get called out for this and not kacey musgraves or as mentioned bruno mars?

Y'see, there's this guy from Glasgow, Boaby Gillespie, they call him...

but like Oasis is a perfect example to me, people say they "sound" like the Beatles and I don't think they actually sound anything like the Beatles, like the actual *sound* and sonic textures of their music is so different to me

being American in the age of Trump is a living nightmare but at least we still don't have to give a fuck about Primal Scream

Oasis aren't RCR, Simey got that wrong.

Oasis' influences were more Slade/T. Rex, "baggy" and maybe a little bit of the Sex Pistols.

or like I'm listening to Stereolab "Superelectric" and while I can def feel the kraut influences there's so much that's not contained in their influences to me

And Noddy Holder isn't exactly Albert Ayler. (xp)

Yeah, I primarily see this as a bullshit weasely way to criticise a band for having influences you don't like. I do think there is such a thing as originality, but the idea that anyone's favourite records aren't awash with influences is obviously nonsense. Reminds me of the shit the beta band got in the 90s for daring to be into hip hop and dub, and I though we had mercifully moved on from that.

remember when simey used to post on here

good ol' simey

Yeah, I primarily see this as a bullshit weasely way to criticise a band for having influences you don't like.

What, people don't like the names Bobby Gillespie drops?

also you can view this from a critic's pov or a musician's pov

cam you're referring to the critics but sr was looking at it from a musician's standpoint, which is a little more subtle or required the listener to actually absorb the influential bands, something nu ilx probably thinks is beneath them now because of it being too rockist

Christ knows I don't like Primal Scream in their cock rock mode, but it's certainly not because they are "Record Collection Rock"

Is it just a matter of whether they wear it on their sleeves? Think many of the suggestions seem to be just that.

Xp

like why does lcd soundsystem get called out for this and not kacey musgraves or as mentioned bruno mars?

LCD blur that line between homage/cover/plagiarism a bit more

Wear it on their sleeves like they were the only people in the world to have sleeves.

Reynolds recently used this term to describe weird 90s rock bands, like Royal Trux and TFUL282 (though he likes those two)

i think the key thing here is that it's almost less about what the music "actually sounds like" and much more about what the music is "supposed to sound like" -- RCR, in my opinion, has as much to do with the record collection of the listener (actually this is parmount imo) as it does the artist. it's less straight up aping an artist, or even genre hopping, and much more about constructing a constellation of small, sometimes subtle signifiers. and the message, usually not so hard to decode, is: you are cool, your records are cool, we are cool too, you will like this music the first time you hear it and it will not challenge you, and you are cool.

Wear it on their sleeves like they were the only people in the world to have sleeves.

― Whiney Houston (Tom D.), Monday, January 15, 2018 1:17 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also this. it's not about having influences. it's a specific way of curating your "influences" and then presenting them in such a way that knowing who those influences are actually "enhances" (or becomes necessary as a precondition to) your enjoyment of the music

If I recall, the Jesus Jones Liquidizer insert had a long list of props, namechecking every hip influence of 1989; James Brown, Sonic Youth, etc.

xp to cam

well there's that and also intent

imo a blatant genre hop like what bruno mars does is not trying to hone in on listeners' music knowledge, it is instead trying to set up a stereotypical image/sound of a genre that can be easily digested by as many people as possible

endless boogie is also this

p sure Royal Trux probably sold their records to cop junk

I can see this is gonna be basically moving the goalposts in response to any argument

No, I think budo jeru has nailed it. I'm just having some fun with Boaby, who made an ass of himself by seeming to want some kind of award for having exactly the same record collection and musical tastes as every other ageing indie kid from Glasgow - ending up as a figure of fun on internet forums the length and breadth of the land, in the process.

yeah i think everyone is kinda working off different ideas in this thread ... for me, "record collection rock" is maybe something like Ryley Walker (who I like a lot) — his first two records were almost wholly concerned (in sound and visual aesthetic) with a certain strain of Britfolk singer-songwriters. but if done right, it goes beyond being derivative and into its own thing.

And speaking of 1989ers, Neneh Cherry's Cherry Thing totally depends on knowing the original, highly coxal songs she covers, but I still love that record to death.

I do think there is such a thing as originality, but the idea that anyone's favourite records aren't awash with influences is obviously nonsense. Reminds me of the shit the beta band got in the 90s for daring to be into hip hop and dub, and I though we had mercifully moved on from that.

― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Monday, January 15, 2018 1:08 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think this is really missing the point, at least as how i see it. for me RCR is derogatory in a way, sure, in the same way as people sometimes used to (maybe still do) refer to things like the war on drugs as "dad rock." but i think this music thrived, and continues to endure, precisely because of a listenership sold on the notion of "authentic" music as opposed to whatever else. it's here that the canon-forming, or positioning oneself within a tradition of rarefied and far-out sounds, becomes the thing.

i use this label primary to criticize what i consider to be lazy music that somehow gets a pass because it's "supposed" to be good, because how could it not if they like coltrane and sun ra and the monkees' psychedelic period and and and

^^If that's the case, I'd be interested in seeing more specific criticisms of artists. Who are the bands with the Coltrane, Sun Ra, and Monkees psychedelic period albums? I don't remember bands with one token or non-token reggae song, one song where they claimed an obscure reference like Magma, or a bunch of references to such a variety of things like the Byrds/Miles Davis/King Tubby formula. Stereolab maybe. They were really good at it, though! Not so sure about Saint Etienne and think they might be considered just because they are more vocal as fans of things. If Royal Trux and TFUL 282 are record collection rock, I'm wondering what those records are.

Meant to say - Who are the bands with the Coltrane, Sun Ra, and Monkees psychedelic period PROBLEMS?

Budo - OK, I see what you mean, but really don't like the idea of categorising music based around "other people give this a free pass"

https://img.discogs.com/6Y0rhNFL7n-L7Caj59IdfzmXb_g=/fit-in/597x597/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-658986-1144413524.jpeg.jpg

^ feat. a cover of sun ra's "nuclear war"

plus a song called "from a motel 6" i mean come on

it's everywhere in YLT's catalogue

i think the key thing here is that it's almost less about what the music "actually sounds like" and much more about what the music is "supposed to sound like" -- RCR, in my opinion, has as much to do with the record collection of the listener (actually this is parmount imo) as it does the artist. it's less straight up aping an artist, or even genre hopping, and much more about constructing a constellation of small, sometimes subtle signifiers. and the message, usually not so hard to decode, is: you are cool, your records are cool, we are cool too, you will like this music the first time you hear it and it will not challenge you, and you are cool.

― budo jeru, Monday, January 15, 2018 1:20 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is just like an insane amount of assumptions about both a huge group of different artists and listeners

first among them is many many times the college aged audience actually hears the newer band BEFORE what they are influenced by, this happened to me like a zillion times

anyway cam, is it so hard to imagine that critics, then or now, would be more inclined to approve of a record because it flattered their distinguished taste and not only justified but glorified their nerdy, expensive record collecting habits?

UMS how am i not permitted to make observation about a certain subset of a particular band's audience without you thinking i'm speaking for the experience of everybody who's heard that music?

like i'm not interested in who ACTUALLY heard the album or even who ACTUALLY made it or even what the band's lived experience ACTUALLY was, in the sense that you mean

this isn't about that, and if you don't get it then this isn't going to be a productive discussion

^ feat. a cover of sun ra's "nuclear war"

― budo jeru, Monday, January 15, 2018 11:45 AM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

plus a song called "from a motel 6" i mean come on

― budo jeru, Monday, January 15, 2018 11:46 AM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So, this is a criticism of Yo La Tengo?

like i'm not interested in who ACTUALLY heard the album or even who ACTUALLY made it or even what the band's lived experience ACTUALLY was, in the sense that you mean

― budo jeru, Monday, January 15, 2018 1:52 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes it's clear you're not interested in anyone's thoughts or experiences that conflict with your own thesis

i remember hanging around waiting see tad or someone like that play and these bozos walked out on stage and started playing this song and tbh it was actually fucking awesome but at the same time it was totally a case of "you are cool, your records are cool, we are cool too, you will like this music the first time you hear it and it will not challenge you, and you are cool"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEYx8whmXiU

I love lots of writing about music but the scorecard of which writer likes which bands just seems unimportant.

i'm not criticizing them. i like them a lot.

i think this is mostly a metatextual thing, a certain grouping of gestures, reverberating in a particular critical echo chamber that privileges dylan, obscuro '60s psych, krautrock, and free jazz, among other things. i don't think RCR is useful to describe a band or a record in their / its entirety. it's more like an attitude of consumption, fortified by a certain kind of social/cultural discourse. it almost exists independently of the music and, often, many of the people who listen to it.

xpost

I love lots of writing about music but the scorecard of which writer likes which bands just seems unimportant.

― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Monday, January 15, 2018 1:58 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i agree with this. but what interests me is the way in which critical appraisals DO take this into account.

New queens for sure. Proudly announces it's a homage to rock n roll on intro and references T. rex, Neil young and other stuff

yes it's clear you're not interested in anyone's thoughts or experiences that conflict with your own thesis

― bhad and bhabie (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, January 15, 2018 1:55 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't have a thesis? i'm just trying to describe something that i think exists but is hard to pin down

i find this particular idea -- "record collectors' records" as i call it in my head -- to be very interesting. i'm not interested in being right about anything, i'm just trying to share my experience with a specific kind of person / cultural reality

Cornelius would be a pretty good example of this, particularly back in the days of Flipper's Guitar when they were influenced heavily by Britpop and Shoegaze records that their Japanese audience wouldn't have heard of. They have one song that is basically a rewrite of Primal Scream's "Loaded".

i see really, really small bands do this, probably because it's still a novel idea to them

― infinity (∞), Monday, January 15, 2018 9:10 AM (two hours ago)

maybe they just like different kinds of music and just want to play what they like?

I mostly associate this with acts like the Gaslight Anthem and the Front Bottoms

Obviously some do better by their collections than others: the Beatles and Elvis come to mind (but/and check The King's Record Collection: sometimes Elvis improves on the originals, sometimes he's equally good from a different angle, sometimes not so much). Usually works better when not begging comparison with the original.
My initial take on Nicole Atkins---the songs I quote, not quite verbatim in the "grooves of my brain" instance---can be taken different ways, but she still seems self-aware about being a popologist, wothout being pretentious or nudge-nudge-wink-wink (from Rolling Country 2017):

Don't want to say too much about Nicole Atkins' Goodnight Rhonda Lee yet, but,
following the opening Laura Nyro-in-Memphis-upside-the-head "A Little Crazy", which is maybe a little too persistent with the swooping, hijacked-countrypolitan strings of the chorus, behold "Darkness Falls So Quiet," which is somewhat misleadingly titled, being very persistently catchy and not that quiet, and she says when things get too spooky, she can rely on her friends and her records, and it seems like her friends might be her records and vice-versa, and if so, that's okay.
For she has not only absorbed 60s Nyro, Dusty In Memphis, Ode To Billie Joe, the production moves of Lee Hazlewood and his prodigious acolyte Suzi Jane Hokum (especially on her own records), Atkins has also seen how other popologists have fallen short, and how so many are just nimbic names now, afterglow halos matter how good they were at certain things---who actually listens that much nowadays to Dwight Twilley, or even Harry Nilsson? It's sad. But the title track is vibrant and stoic: "When they stop listening, that's just the way it goes, don't let it crush you, say goodnight Rhonda Lee."
This track begins or makes more noticeable a recurring Heartbreaker of the Year vibe, in the sense that Whitney Rose and her producer/sometime duet partner Raul Malo drew from the Spanish tinge of late 50s-to mid-60s pop-rock hits (and their influence on some late 60s pop-country), with a Twin Peaks Senior Prom echo chamber.
So: unabashedly plush but well-tymed girlie swirls x restless drums, bass, rhythm guitar, tolerating bits of steel, keys, orchestra (the electric guitar is the orchestra on the last track--waking "from a nightmare to a dream"--- but not too much of one).
Whole thing's here, sounding better than Spotify to me: https://nicoleatkins.bandcamp.com/

― dow, Tuesday, October 31, 2017 12:32 AM (two months ago)

Although I really have no idea how many people still listen to Twilley or Nilsson, just don't hear much about them anymore.

here is my considered contribution to this thread:

❌

okay, true story: i was in a record store a few months back and i made a comment about how boring i thought endless boogie record was. a person responded, "dude, paul major has one of the biggest psych collections in the world. he's like a guru, i think he knows what he's doing."

byron coley's "ass run" series is another good example of this imo. where the appreciation of the music is predicated, to a certain extent, on ironic appropriation and deep knowledge.

and for me, UMS, the RCR mentality is precisely that this subset of listeners aren't particularly interested in what other people (perhaps most people) get out of the music. it seems to me that they might even feel that other listeners "don't really get it"

keith patterson and the whole roadrunner axis in minneapolis is also a good example of this. even though i really like KP and a lot of his music

bud otm

keyword here is record collectors

ums brings up college students, which is another subject, albeit related

we're talking about a certain type of music nerd

and tim i don't really know how to answer your question because, as i've tried to explain, this is more about the perceptions of a certain type of a record collector in relation to the new music they find appealing. i think certain people are willing to do a lot of squinting and squirming to hear "influences" that validate their hipness, whether those sounds are there or not.

and, as NickB's post reminds me, it's precisely this mentality that has lead to a proliferation of countless boring "psych" records

chesterfield kings belong here too i think

This isn't about the music; this is about critics pointing snarky fingers and saying "Ah, you just wrote that song so you can prove you've heard cult album X." (In the process of course proving that they've heard cult album X, too, and they heard it two years before the artist, so there.)

― grawlix (unperson), Monday, January 15, 2018 12:01 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also this

Acid mothers temple come to mind. I mean absolutely freak out your mind was a Zappa pun

Rock-mode Jim O'Rourke is very much this.

Not sure there's more to it than 'music whose influences are overly audible', the underlying assumption being that this is a Bad Thing. Or 'music made by people who are or come across as rock critics'.

I'm open to the idea of a criticism of music where the influences are the most elevated things that one is supposed to appreciate in a record rather than the record's creative accomplishments.

I started this thread just as I was finishing work and promptly forgot about it.

Apparently we all have slightly different definitions of what constitutes 'RCR'. I'm not even sure mine is correct either.

For me, a really good example of an RCR album is also one of my favourites: the Boo Radleys' 'Giant Steps', which is a litany of hip (for the time) touchstones (The Byrd, Davis and King Tubby referenced musically on this album along with the Beatles, MBV etc).

Of course when I first heard this album, I'd never come across any of these artists before. Now I have, I can tell that really this was Martin Carr experiencing music and then filtering it through his own work in a very literal way - 'let's have a burst of jazz trumpet here', 'some Lennony harmonies there'. It doesn't diminish my appreciation of the album mind you, but it is a matter of 'hey these are the records I like, check em out'.

A band like Electric Wizard though, for all the heavy 70s rock influences and Sabbathisms, I wouldn't really define as RCR. Their music is a continuation and an expansion of a heavy metal continuum. If anything they're 'horror movie collector rock'.

LCD Soundsystem are more like a post postmodern version of RCR. They even parody the idea on Losing My Edge by naming as many hip and obscure influences as they can.

One of the last true big RCR albums I can think of is Outkast's The Love Below, again a fine album but one that flirts with Prince, Coltrane, drum n bass and loads of other very direct influences for the enjoyment of the artist and listener. It's not a bad thing, in fact it's a real rollercoaster and shows the artist can turn his hand to all sorts of styles, that they're not rigidly married to their allotted genre.

I think some of my favourite music of all time could be classified as RCR to be honest, but my original question is more about whether this trend is less common now that people can make cool playlists with just an Internet connection.

Fever Ray isn't RCR for example. Sure you could argue that without Bjork or Kate Bush or a lot of disco, synthwave and goth music, she wouldn't be making the sound she makes today, but ultimately it's unmistakenly her sound through the album. That's just a random example really, of an act from the Internet age that forges a path without brazenly trying to reference her influences

Surely Tortoise's "Djed" qualifies as RCR?

lol did i open a door to 2004 when i clicked on this thread?

"and they were going to make a record with three-part harmonies, trumpet blasts and dubby bass echoes so you didn't have to."

you leave the beta band alone!

how does this concept differ from pastiche?

pastiche suggests archness or irony I think. there's nothing but reverence for the reference points in RCR

Just remembered this thread with an eerily similar title and sort of but not quite the same idea: Artists With A Syllabus - is this or is it no longer A Thing?

alternate title: dense rock music you will be mansplained to for not being into

rock music it is trivially easy to adapt the "to be fair, you need a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty" meme to

pastiche suggests archness or irony I think.
― Badgers (dog latin), Monday, January 15, 2018 5:36 PM (fourteen minutes ago)

No, not really.

This isn't about the music; this is about critics pointing snarky fingers and saying "Ah, you just wrote that song so you can prove you've heard cult album X." (In the process of course proving that they've heard cult album X, too, and they heard it two years before the artist, so there.)

― grawlix (unperson)

otm

do Dukes of Stratosphear fall into this category?

the page from rip it up and start again on this topic

alternate title: dense rock music you will be mansplained to for not being into

― algorithm is a dancer (katherine), Monday, January 15, 2018 7:43 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

rock music it is trivially easy to adapt the "to be fair, you need a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty" meme to

― algorithm is a dancer (katherine), Monday, January 15, 2018 7:44 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so otm

What if the only records in your collection are record collection rock? What kind of records would you make?

do Dukes of Stratosphear fall into this category?

hah I don't know, I guess I don't really understand the topic. cuz the Dukes doing an intentional homage to fairly well-known 60's psych acts feels a bit different than say Field Music copping their early 80's sound

it's gotten to the point where even relatively "run of the mill" / MOR / not particularly "hip" rock acts ahve at least some sense of playing with rock history, like The Cribs recruiting Steve Albini to produce a song about Chicago and recording a song suite at Abbey Road studios on the same album.

people never got much hipper than the sufi choir. otis redding and lester young and lamonte young, dude! and a shout-out to chocolate. yum.

http://forums.ssrc.org/ndsp/wp-content/blogs.dir/23/files/2013/11/16_sufi_back.jpg

if you grew up listening to rap music then phil spector + feedback wasn't exactly a revelation when psychocandy came out. sounded awesome for sure though.i wouldn't really consider them record collection rock like simon does. with some bands you don't really need to go beyond the velvet underground to understand where they are coming from. public enemy were record collection rock. people, in general, were better at it in the 60s and 70s though because they could actually approximate lots of different styles/sounds competently or they had a record label who would find the people who could.

i tend to enjoy SHAMELESS ripoffs of styles/sounds/bands or bands who invoke/evoke other people without me sitting there thinking about who exactly they are ripping off. pavement and guided by voices don't really remind me of anyone in particular when i hear them other then themselves but they are obviously grabbing lots of stuff from everywhere.

the velvet underground kinda the premier record collection rock band really. its all their fault.

maybe they just like different kinds of music and just want to play what they like?

― sarahell, Monday, January 15, 2018 12:15 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean the two are not mutually exclusive

It might actually have been reissue culture rather than the internet that killed this as a thing. Like at one point a Neu! or Faust record would have been really quite difficult to get hold of so there was a certain cache in being able to show off that you owned these records. That disappeared well before the advent of streaming, there are so many interchangeable motorik bands out there now, which is fine if you like that sort of thing, but I doubt many of them expect a medal for doing what they do.

italian zombie movie soundtrack bands are an actual genre in the 21st century so i would say that record collection rock is alive and well.

so, a case of reissue culture making something exist.

*80s diy darkwave cassettes ripped off of mutant sounds 10 years ago* ALSO a genre now.

katherine and scott otm

I think the worst aspect of this is people making music that isn't very interesting but fans will justify the music's appeal by citing what bands/albums the work is in the vein of.

I was at a show a few weeks back that felt derivative enough that I kind of wished I'd gone to see a cover band instead

Foxygen is a good example of a current band that does this. They sound like a different psychedelic-era artist on every song

good example, not a good band

I understand the impulse to make music like this but when you're standing there thinking "oh, this is the song that sounds like <classic krautrock song>" it gets tiring

i bring this up over and over but i always think back to the time that i saw The Faint and the only time people went nuts was when they did "enola gay". the only great song they played that night.

i hardly ever go out anymore but i made a point of going to the local bar the other night to see J. Mascis's stooges tribute band because i love the stooges and just wanted to hear really loud stooges songs. and then i left. sorry, purling hiss!

i all for cover bands now that i am old.

*80s diy darkwave cassettes ripped off of mutant sounds 10 years ago* ALSO a genre now.

― scott seward, Tuesday, January 16, 2018 9:29 AM (two hours ago)

for the record, this made me laugh ... so true

this thread makes me question whether there is a need for sneery rock critics a hell of a lot more than it makes me question the need for record collector rock

controversial ilx poster and maker of record collection rock goes long on TOO MUCH MUSIC. someone give me a synopsis. too long for me.

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2018/01/16/578216674/too-much-music-a-failed-experiment-in-dedicated-listening

This isn't about the music; this is about critics pointing snarky fingers and saying "Ah, you just wrote that song so you can prove you've heard cult album X." (In the process of course proving that they've heard cult album X, too, and they heard it two years before the artist, so there.)

― grawlix (unperson), Monday, January 15, 2018 10:01 AM

qft and thread could have been locked after this post

This isn't about the music; this is about critics pointing snarky fingers and saying "Ah, you just wrote that song so you can prove you've heard cult album X." (In the process of course proving that they've heard cult album X, too, and they heard it two years before the artist, so there.)

― grawlix (unperson), Monday, January 15, 2018 12:01 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sounds about right to me

not sure why but i seem to recall this being used about a lot of elephant 6 bands. olivia tremor control, apples in stereo

I keep hearing "Record Collection Rock" as the name of one of those tv infomercial comps
"Hey, is that The Creation?"
"No, it's Dungen!"
"Dungen?! aren't they some band from the *mid 2000s*"
"Yeah! And now the mid 2000s are back!"
"IT'S RECORD COLLECTION ROCK FROM TIME LIFE MUSIC! 32 TRACKS BY ARTISTS THAT WILL CORNER YOU AT A PARTY AND RANT ABOUT HOW SUICIDE IS A MORE IMPORTANT BAND THAN THE ROLLING STONES"

synopsis: ME ME ME ME ME ME ME PAY ATTENTION TO ME

i.e. music made by and for dudes who looked like late 90s stereotypical record collector dudes xps

xxp to scott

lol man alive

what if that guy is a woman?
do women make music like this ever?

I feel like Sonic Youth are an example of this --though I'm still not entirely sure what "this" is ... but Kim Gordon is a woman and was in that band

i am not sure what "this" is either but i see a lot more men doing what i thought it was than women and it made me wonder

Sonic Youth were always going on about records they were into but they didn’t really sound much like those bands

LL, you might like that bandcamp-posted album by popologist Nicole Atkins I mentioned upthread: she's a song stylist w a good ear for drummers.

By "song stylist" I mean she's a stylized singer-songwriter, referring to her records as her friends and at one point mentions wearing out the grooves of her brain but she's into it, building a persona of sufficient realness, seemingly self-expressive and certainly appealing, what with the associations for collectors who like late night headphone music that won't put you to sleep (too quickly anyway)

maybe elastica but that might be an extreme case (uh if you know you know) depending on what definition of rcr we're talking about

you mean that song that starts with the riff from "I am the Fly" by Wire ?

haha ya but wire had huge beefs with them

so that can actually fit into this discussion of subtle nuances, melodies, etc.

subtle melodic similarities, sound nuances, etc.*

joanna newsom def seemed to be harking to a certain type of forgotten 70s folk songwriter like vashti bunyan, linda perhacs, jill st. john etc

My gut feeling is that bands were probably always doing this and what happened in the late 90s/early 00s was that the internet suddenly made so much music available to everyone everywhere that everyone knew every *obscure* band and both the ability of bands to copy them and the ability of everyone else to *know* what they were copying multiplied.

Sonic Youth would qualify if every album they made was a variation on the Whitey album

not sure why but i seem to recall this being used about a lot of elephant 6 bands. olivia tremor control, apples in stereo

― marcos, Tuesday, January 16, 2018 1:43 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there are a few local dudes who were overly devoted fans of elephant 6 bands, and then recreated what was basically a knockoff elephant 6 band! I'd end up seeing them opening for other people and just wonder why

controversial ilx poster and maker of record collection rock goes long on TOO MUCH MUSIC. someone give me a synopsis. too long for me.

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2018/01/16/578216674/too-much-music-a-failed-experiment-in-dedicated-listening

― scott seward, Tuesday, January 16, 2018 1:37 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I didn't initially recognize the name and figured there'd be a bio at the end of the piece that'd remind me of who it was, but I figured it out halfway through.

tl;dr version: Knowing everything about some music you're listening to, from who is in the band, what instrument everyone plays on every track, and the bio of every band member is somehow valuable to your experience of music. But what if there is too much music?

side theme running through the piece: Trying to listen to only one album, for one whole week.

the whole exercise, and the mindset as a whole, seems really joyless. confusing deep knowledge for personal connection

lol remember the time a veteran ilxor started a thread where we listened to one album 20-something times, and I listened to Kanye? It was actually a good thread/good exercise.

Idk - people listen to music for different reasons, and different things, sometimes many things, bring people pleasure. I'm often really lazy and end up listening to only a few albums for an extended period of time, because they are what's in the tape deck in the car/cd changer in my room.

i definitely developed a bond with that Kanye album -- apparently he's having a 3rd kid? ... i don't know that much about Kanye tbh

ha ha ha a friend of mine uses the pejorative "library rock" - there's a certain local band that are very good but very snobby in a really off-putting retrograde way, as if High Fidelity was something to aspire to.

but it seems like the idea and the majority of this thread is focused on "rock" - as opposed to non-rock music that has similar attributes - which is kinda falling into "that thing white ppl do when they disparage white ppl" territory

is which referring to rock or to non rock w similar attributes

The Game's whole career

there it is

i played the first Phoenix album a while ago and i love stuff like that so much. totally evocative/reminiscent of lots of things but never obvious. love that album.

These guys? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsylvania_Phoenix

(To be fair, I had no idea they were known as 'Transsylvania Phoenix' outside of Romania.)

Cherry pick from Phoenix and Zoot Woman's first albums, throw the zoot woman remix of "too young" on the end, that would be one fantastic split mini lp

I've no idea why we're talking about Phoenix and Zoot Woman in a thread about "Record Collection Rock", but praise be to them.

ZW remix of Too Young is the best

The Game's whole career

Big K.R.I.T.'s, too.

What about manuscript collection classical

why are all those songs on the burger/ink album named after roxy music songs?

charles ives actually the king of record collection rock.

"However, this symphony is composed in the late-Romantic European tradition, and is believed to contain many paraphrases from famous European pieces such as Tchaikovsky's Pathétique and Schubert's Unfinished symphonies and especially Dvořák's New World Symphony."

busoni has been called 'the most learned composer who has ever lived'
brahms too had read just about everything you could get in the late 19c including early music
you get into postwar postmodernists and then we can really talk about manuscript collection classical

Just passing by to drop off a Stereogum tweet:

Hear "Severed," the first single from a new @TheDecemberists album inspired by @NewOrder and Roxy Music http://gum.to/U2Ycgx

charles ives actually the king of record collection rock.

it really all starts with Ives

Fat White Family band and all their equally useless offshoots like the Moonlandingz strike me as the most obvious contemporary iteration of this trend. The latter group's borderline plagiarism of '90s hipster reference points (Suicide, krautrock, Velvet Underground) is so blatant it's almost admirable, were they not so insultingly mediocre. Add a druggy air and other edgelord trappings and you've got RCR par execrence.

counterpoint: they're great fun and I like them and fuck off

(Moonlandingz, that is - I don't care about FWF)

I mean, the Moonlandingz are an extremely minor concern and a literal spin-off band from an album by a couple of synth weirdos called The Eccentronic Research Council. It's all a fun little game and really it isn't aiming at anything higher than 'tuneful krautpop fuckaround'. I don't know whether any of the members have personally pissed in your cornflakes but singling them out here on this idiot thread is just ridiculous. They're just playing stuff they like

They got second best album of the year on a certain music website, just bursting that hype bubble.

good on you! because it's important where albums place on other people's lists

They got second place because Doran is a fan and he clearly got a couple of other Quietus types to like it too. Their lists have always been extremely particular to his taste. At least they picked the right #1 eh

I'm a tQ contributor and have a lot of respect for those fine gents, but their love of FWFB et al baffles me. Admittedly, Moonlandingz nowhere as bad as FWFB.

It’s a sad day when we can’t even shit on some unknown indie band without some poor soul getting a crick in their brass neck

imo different groups coming to different consensus picks is healthy and helps break the possibility of all RCR bands of the future sounding the same, at least

Hehe, tbf I think LCD Soundsystem are probably the closest to a RCR band it's possible to get these days. As Dog Latin said above, they're the post post-modern version of RCR, self-consciously making fun of the concept in Losing My Edge. But while that was funny once upon a time, it's become their default mode. They're having their cake and eating it on their latest album, combining their pastiche with this jaded air. At least Bobbie Gillespie's name dropping came from a place of genuine enthusiasm.

speaking of bobby gillespie i was playing my 7-inch copy of "upside down" last night and i was thinking it would be cool to own every color variation. that was my record collection rock moment. i only own the yellow cover version. i did not play "vegetable man" though. in honor of this thread.

for the record, i don't understand the point of Fat White Family at all.

my wife used to like a Fat White Family song (presumably she still does although I haven't heard her play it for ages) but she downloaded the album and didn't think much of it. I thought the song she liked was alright though.

It was easier for eg JAMC in the mid 80s, bcs the stuff they were "inspired by" wasn't readily available. Vegetable Man, Subway Sect, Lee Hazlewood, Dr Mix and the Remix - this was some obscure shit at the time. The journos picked up on the Velvets and Ramones thing, but little else.

They seemed kind of naff to me at the time tbh, not musically, just their shtick - the leather jackets, drainpipe jeans, Chelsea boots, Velvets '66 look with the grown out Goth hairstyles and the songs all called Candy this, Honey that, Sugar the other. Everybody had done the Velvets by that stage plus every group in Glasgow - from the ones who were trying to sound like Al Green downwards (or upwards) - had songs with Candy or Honey in the title, it was like, "What another one! Give us a break!" It was a bit, "So where are they from? East Kilbride? Oh that explains it."

pwei had a song taking the piss out that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI_i_GJK46g

busoni has been called 'the most learned composer who has ever lived'
brahms too had read just about everything you could get in the late 19c including early music
you get into postwar postmodernists and then we can really talk about manuscript collection classical

Yeah I was gonna say Luciano Berio to thread.

concept: RCR, but the only records in your collection are by PWEI

surely one modern band who have picked up the baton : the horrors.

mgmt as well

https://static.stereogum.com/uploads/2018/01/YLT-Theres-a-Riot-Going-On-art-1516225003-640x640.jpg

I guess I don't like the idea - the og Reynolds one - bc it seems to imply that a sort of heroic, isolated genius narrative is somehow a more authentic way of making music, which is ... rockist?

I think there's a difference between synthesis and facsimile but tbh it's a fuzzy line

My Husband's Stupid Record Collection Rock Band

i honestly see Sonic Youth as part of this continuum

i wrote this 19 years ago in the village voice newspaper:

"Even though the post-music crowd is already, as I speak, mining other rich veins of lost treasure (Serge Gainsbourg, Lee Hazelwood, Italian vampire movie soundtracks, rare jug band 78s, King Diamond picture discs), Krautrock is still king for those who will not allow themselves to dance. To simplify matters further, I’m just going to blame Thurston Moore."

"In the almost-30-year career of Sonic Youth, if Thurston only told two people a week to buy a Cluster or Achim Reichel LP, I figure that constitutes about half the U.S. sales of Krautrock to date. And if only half of those people formed bands, that would at least explain why Blur threw away their Ian Whitcomb albums and started experimenting with “sound.”

It occurs to me that the entire post-Blur career of Damon Albarn is the most obvious modern example of this.

he even made a record collection band

Do The Cramps figure into this? Avid record collectors who repurposed their love of vintage rock and roll for their own ends.

Also, I don't think most here are much interested in neo-rockabilly/roots rock etc., but guys like Deke Dickerson are always filling their albums with obscure cover tunes by Eddie Noack, or Grandpa Jones, or Lee Dresser and the Krazy Kats. Don't know if this qualifies as RCR exactly, but it's a fun rabbithole of research for me.

Deke Dickerson veers into Guitar Collector rock, with the whole Moserite cult of twang.

The Cramps were defiantly collectors, but I feel like that sort of revivalist attitude is the opposite instinct - here's something discarded that we've scavenged and will make you love. Yacht rock would be a recent manifestation of the same. Record collection rock is more "we are providing you will only the best influences, are you are smart enough to recognize them as the best influences?"

one of my favorite groups of all time could have been called *Ivo's Record Collection*. and i thank him all the time for turning me on to so much cool stuff in the 80s!

nrbq get hepcat points for covering eddie cochran and sun ra on their first album in 1969. terry adams came in the store and gave me a copy of the new nrbq EP where they cover "happy talk" from south pacific and roy orbison's "only the lonely". it's great.

Yeah, Terry also covers Patience and Prudence. He's all about this.

I'm a bit confused by the Damon Albarn thing really, unless I've kind of misunderstood your interpretation of it Matt DC. if anything I'd have said Blur, with their copying of tropes from the Kinks, Syd Barrett, Pavement, Wire etc is far more RCR than Good The Bad And The Queen or Gorillaz?

this video made me think of this thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG2kcIz2NQ8

(lot's of good recommendations btw)

does Ty Segall constitute RCR?

Re 'MOJO reading lads' Mojo had the first interview before the album came out and the band did a playlist of influences for 'em (Dion, Nino Rota, David Axelrod, Gainsbourg..) so anyone reading Mojo knew before anyone else that the record wasn't a rock album. It's more for 30 and 40-something types Mojo. Lads are more 'LadBible' these days.

― piscesx, Friday, 11 May 2018 15:01 (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Was thinking the exact same thing when I read that post.