How will this decade seem weird in the future?

what 90's pop music meaningfulness are you referring to, nabisco?

hip-hop engulfed pop and there's no way back
rock n' roll made for one great zombie (zombies are still dead tho, and the smell, yeesh)
dance music made for one good regeneration - it's the Tom Baker era now, self-reverent and quirky yet probably more compelling and technically adept than ever
Radiohead got their swerve on
mash-up culture went supernova thanks to...
the dual file-sharing/blogging phenomenon - THIS WAS the new new punk

Aka "A Stroke of Genius" = "Pac Man Fever"

Why not? Do you think that, at the time, people listening to, say, Grand Funk Railroad or Dollar or Menswe@r thought that they'd be a punchline in 10, 20, 30 years time? Why isn't it possible that T.I. be a cultural bogeyman of 2025?

xpost x 3

I thought Stevem was saying that file-sharing/blogging was the new punk and that mash-ups were one of the results of that.

Stevem you fergot also that the Pixies reunited in this decade.

xpost x 4

because hip-hop is invincible! your puny intelligence is no match for it's superior weapons etc.

my ultra-pessimist view is that the 00s will seem weird because this be end times and/or renaissance meltdown - future gens will marvel simultaneously at our wanton hedonism and self-destruction, or it will be like that Beta Band video and everything will just repeat.

Alba, I’m actually pretty in touch with what I think of as 90s weirdness, though I’m thinking possibly it’s more of an American issue in my head. There was this whole very Clinton-era attempted-seriousness about “issues” that in retrospect was very strange and momentary and passing. Alt-rock is one indicator of this, for sure—notice this was the decade in which a band scored a minor hit thanks to a video that was all pictures of missing children. Another indicator glimpsed in a tape of some 90s stuff I was looking over the other day: this then-meaningful but now weirdly-cheesy attention to what passed for sexual politics, somehow bubbling up into this early-90s people-in-Lycra “use condoms” vibe—note for instance turn-of-90s Latour hit “People are Still Having Sex.” Things in the U.S. at least took a strong turn toward this faked-out college-idealist “we care about things” vibe. Interestingly there was a similar turn in hip-hop toward “reality” and “meaning stuff”—this was the decade that brought us both mass popularity for Arrested Development and even more importantly the big turn-away from pure-commercial hip-hop to claims of gangsta or street-level stuff (“black CNN”) as meaningful/important. In retrospect this is kind of “weird,” insofar as any decade’s stuff—which makes perfect sense if you were around for it—looks, in retrospect, kinda strange.

that said, i have NO IDEA how to comprehensively remember the entire 90's. i have some better idea about the 80s, 70s and 60s...

"oh fuck off, you were an accident you know"

"..."

xpost

The larger question is, will we continue to be exceptionally nostalgic and simultaneously ironic about our cultural legacy. Recently, it seems that identifying the specific qualities of a decade is an effort to make a unified cultural idea of the past, so that the past can be marketed. It's unclear whether that will continue...

50s = streamlined 'jet'
60s = floral bubble
70s = glam bubble
80s = pop art
90s = digital/lcd?
00s = ?

I'd take that a step further and say that you don't just sound like a cock...

I think a lot of the revisionist thinking about the '60s was done DURING the '60s, because the early '60s were a laughingstock by the late '60s. think of the difference between the way the Beach Boys were received in '62-4 and the way they were in '68-9. whereas it took a few years before '70s disco retro-chic took hold.

plus it's the "oughts," innit? "noughties" is for suckaz for sure!

00s typeface = handdrawn faux-naif typefaces?

xpost

if you think 'noughties' are bad do you really think anyone is going to settle for 'the teens' in 2011? tenties or teenties i fear

to answer Nabisco's question, what ISN'T ripe for what-the-fuck-was-THAT?-ness from this decade? NYC retro-rock? Timbaland goes to Bollywood? The Neptunes' sparse weirdness (or weird sparseness, I forget)? Crunk? Grime?! I have a hard time thinking of anything in pop music that couldn't/wouldn't seem bizarre a decade down the line.

Stevem: How about just "the Tens"?

Nabisco: haha, I had a goatee for most of the '90s!

Matos basically OTM when it comes down to it.

ALl of those won't seem like What-the-FUCK if pop continues to eat itself.

Agreed Matos.

xpost

Neptunes rough duide #2

1950s = Harlow Solid
1960s = Parade (early) or Westminster (late)
1970s = Hobo or Cooper Black
1980s = OCR A Extended
1990s = Comic Sans or Curlz
2000s = Enviro or Andy

But aren't all them beards kinda itchy n sweaty?

proof my spiritual home is the 80's:-/

"Dad! I heard that Ashlee Simpson Orange Bowl thing! She was on a stage, singing, and she couldn't sing! Like, at all!"

"I know, son. I heard her on a small stage in 2004."

"But people said she got booed because of some prejudice called rockism?"

(Shrugs)

P.S.: 1980s font = Mistral! Think "Purple Rain"!

I always thought the 90s typeface was the one you see in the X-files. You know, it looks like a typewriter but it's kinda grungy and dirty. It screams "be extreme" or "rock out". Sadly this is still used a lot of places (my local 'alternative rock' station 99x for one) but it will forever be tied to GenX and grunge rock for me.

Are we any closer to being able to answer this?

(At least the fashion part seems settled: one day people's kids will be laughing at hilarious 2000s pictures of them in skinny jeans, Vans, striped shirts, and neon hoodies; one day people's grandkids will find those photos and go "wow, I think my granddad might have been kinda cool when he was young.")

People haven't really started to laugh at 90s trends yet, other than 2 Unlimited and Haddaway, because the 00s have been very like the 90s in a lot of ways.

People of the future will probably see baggy jeans and sagging as extremely weird and funny though. To a much larger extent than mullets and shoulder pads.

Buncha observations here (more on music than fashion): Defining the 00s

People haven't really started to laugh at 90s trends yet

Rave pants.

frosted tips!!

!^^^!

this decade will go down as crap. people were insecure more than usual and the music was mostly attempts as rock and hippieness being blended together at the indie end. at the other end is rap that takes itself too seriously. and people tried to act much harder in the 00s. also, the hard personality has become a horrible trend since white people felt the need to represent.

basically way too many fake softies and hardies.

this decade will go down as crap.

OTM. 40 years from now, people will look back and go, "fuckin crap." Just as we now do w/ the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.

Captain Lorax

people were insecure more than usual

go on

^^ meanie

mostly attempts as rock and hippieness being blended together

grunge? psych rock?

neither terribly '00 type things

I think I might actually agree with the bulk of what CaptainLorax said here, though I would put it differently.

people were insecure more than usual

the ascendancy of Gawker-type culture

I think what he really means is TOO MANY BOY DEM WANNA PRETEND

I would have put things differently also. But many people don't agree when I call a lot of music "flowery". And I do suck at explaining technical details.

I mean the 00s has been the largest rise in EMO-based music, has it not? EMO can explain lots of music in other genres of today as well.

In the nineties, there was much talk of all pervading-irony and post-ironic culture...but now what passes for "irony" seems to largely amount to brittle snarkiness smacking of self-hatred to infinite regress.

it's ironic that people still do that when everyone else does that

I don't know what you mean by EMO, I guess that constitutes a generation gap of sorts. But your complaints of "fake softies" and so forth made me think of Arthur-Magazine hyped-up people invoking a wispy vision of sixties idealism but knowing fuck-all of what they speak of...plus anemic blogrockia which failed to reach me in any vital way. But, again, probably I'm just old.

hype is suck a 90s word

by fake softies I mean exaggerated softies... like romanticism and impressionism

the 00s will be remembered as the decade where everybody felt old and fake

but now what passes for "irony" seems to largely amount to brittle snarkiness smacking of self-hatred to infinite regress.

the 00s will be remembered as the decade where everybody felt old and fake

7 billion kinds of OTM. The dawn of the new millenium will be regarded as confused and fearful era for lots of reasons other than this. But yeah, this one too.

(ILX being awesome petri dish for the process in action.)

Not sure I get what you're saying...If you really feel that bummed out about stuff though, you should maybe do something embark upon some creative project yourself, if you're not already doing so.

I have my own axes to grind, but they are all ultimately nonsense. Especially insofar as I am limply complaining in a forum such as this. The original thread title addresses what would seem weird to theoretical future generations, but, y'know, I'm just pissing in the wind here.

(xpost to C.Lorax)

In the nineties, there was much talk of all pervading-irony and post-ironic culture

I was talking upthread about how this notion really needs revising: the 90s, especially in retrospect, were incredibly earnest! I mentioned the video for "Runaway Train" upthread, and you can go from there -- there was a lot of seriously earnest/optimistic treatment of issues like multiculturalism and ecology and so on, and it's actually this decade that's seen kids get really eye-rolly and ironic about those things (due to 90s childhood throat-shoving).

also, on a totally different not about regression, that only explains half the ordeal some people go through. the other half is hatred for what we have made over the last decades in the form of an all prevalent machine that presides over everything, rendering emotions meaningless in the real world. so in music, theres a whiny emo/hippie thing that supports the digression from the machine. this artsy standpoint has been around for a long time but the anti-establishment music has changed into subtler or more indirect forms with topics such as withdrawal and desire. musicians can suck it up and be hard, or cry and write dream songs about how things should be.

what does xpost mean?

90s "irony" mostly related to treatment of pop culture, really -- something that's been totally mainstreamed now and just reads as "quirkiness," more or less (insert Juno thread here)

xpost

not=note*

other half is hatred for what we have made over the last decades in the form of an all prevalent machine that presides over everything, rendering emotions meaningless in the real world.

-- Lorax

Hasn't this been going on for quite some time? I mean, I don't see it as an 00s problem. Beats were lamenting the same thing back in the 40s/50s.

"this artsy standpoint has been around for a long time but the anti-establishment music has changed "

it's become anti-everything!

90s "irony" mostly related to treatment of pop culture, really -- something that's been totally mainstreamed now

Or, superficial 90s pop irony has been internalized by the culture, resulting in the pervasive Lost In the Funhouse effect dell was describing earlier.

I mean the 00s has been the largest rise in EMO-based music, has it not? EMO can explain lots of music in other genres of today as well.

You are right although "Emo" (although the name wasn't invented) was around in the 80s already: Joy Division, The Cure, Depeche Mode.

apparently that word means something slightly different in Norwegian

Really, I think part of the main reason why you cannot find dominating music trends that are typical of the 00s is because the internet has led to more fragmentation than ever before. There may be some dominant trends (R&B, hip-hop and trash pop in the hitlists, postrock influenced indie in the music mags and among the hipsters) but whoever doesn't feel at home in those trends may now easily to into the net and discover some newly recorded synthpop, prog, AOR, hair metal or whatever trend from the past he used to best.

I give up. I just wanted to complain about contemporary trends or trends of the past few years, rather than actually address the issue of how this decade might seem "weird" in the future. Most of my complaints deal more with the larger cultural context than they do music stuff.

I'm glad that people make music, however. I just find that much of what I would expect might speak to me, fails to. I dunno.

ozone, glaciers, American Idol

When people open the 00's capsule 50 years from now they will find a note that says "IOU".

Or something else crappy like a stack of bright eyes cds and some generic hard-rock band cds.

On another note, fragmentation is also suggested by America's strong stance on diversity and other things such as democrats and republicans fighting against each other (or religions + atheism for that matter) and the fact that people are more likely to notice the issues with the world at their fingertips. Venting is more easy nowadays with the internet.

and freedom of speech allows much more brutality

Yeah, I suspect that the worst elements of internet culture have seeped over into everyday life, but I may be wrong about that...and maybe it's for the best in some weird way. Who knows.

I do not particularly envy the celebrities in the TMZ petri dish, though...nor anyone on any side of the equation. It just seems ugly to me in the end. I sometimes think that the culture has devolved to the the level of a seventh-grader's slumber party gossip rally.

and it's actually this decade that's seen kids get really eye-rolly and ironic about those things (due to 90s childhood throat-shoving)

I'm old, not necessarily "on the ground" when it comes to this stuff, new to these boards and "rockist" to boot, so I want to tread lightly here.

But is it possible that the Kids in the Oughties represent our most jaded generation? I'm so out of it that I have no idea to what degree Spin magazine represents the attitudes of anybody unfortunate enough to be young right now, but alla time I notice running through its pages this terrible fear of earnestness, as when they did this retrospective on Reagan-era punk and held the whole movement in ironic condescension ("They Meant it, Man"), or when they basically laughed at Eddie Vedder for expressing some antiwar sentiment in his interview.

I can't cite an example, but why do I imagine that I've read similar spin on Pitchfork, too? Again, not knowing how relevant Pitchfork is to young people. . . . perhaps not at all.

But this Fear of Earnestness, I might think it's real, and I might suggest that it might define this decade. Two terms of GW and the Iraq war, Hollywood spoke out, but youth culture (and more importantly to me, its music) . . . pretty much did not.

On another note, fragmentation is also suggested by America's strong stance on diversity and other things such as democrats and republicans fighting against each other (or religions + atheism for that matter) and the fact that people are more likely to notice the issues with the world at their fingertips.

Of course. And the net has definitely led to more political fragmentation in a rather dangerous way. Nowadays, racists can spend most of their times in racist pages on the net, confirming each other's prejudices as truth and giving each other the ill-advised idea that everyone thinks exactly like them and the fact that politicians, media people etc usually don't is just because they are part of some huge Muslim conspiracy that has taken over the power all over the world.

im just glad were having this thread so people can read it in 15 years and laugh - hi dere 2025! lol!

don't you mean 2023?

But is it possible that the Kids in the Oughties represent our most jaded generation?

Most jaded but also the most self-conscious/insecure, just judging by your average blogger/facebook profile. A lot of kids my age (early 20s)- and I suppose this probably extends to Spin and Pitchfork writers - really care about appearing as if they don't care.

that's a very ilxory kind of habit these days too

A lot of kids my age ... really care about appearing as if they don't care.

-- Roz

that's a very ilxory kind of habit these days too

-- electricsound

People nowadays often seem to erect these complex distancing baffles around themselves, so as not wind up on the wrong side of this or that taste barrier. Irony, hostility, secrecy, willingness to quickly adopt and abandon positions, etc. Helps keep the usses separated from the thems, but damn it seems like work.

I'm so glad you guys are having this conversation; this issue has been on my mind for some time. Thanks.

A lot of kids my age ... really care about appearing as if they don't care.

-- Roz

that's a very ilxory kind of habit these days too

-- electricsound

People nowadays often seem to erect these complex distancing baffles around themselves, so as not wind up on the wrong side of this or that taste barrier. Irony, hostility, secrecy, willingness to quickly adopt and abandon positions, etc. Helps keep the usses separated from the thems, but damn it seems like work.

Hasn't that been happening forever? Isn't that like, what the root of cool is? Doesn't it go back to slavery and the projected aloofness that says "you may have my body but you're not getting my mind/soul/etc"? You know, the T-Birds in Grease are both 30 and 50 years ago. It's not a 00s thing.

Teenagers have been fiercely pretending not to care since teenagers existed.

Top five things that have been credible this decade that will be intensely embarassing to the next generation, if they're remembered at all.

1. The Flaming Lips onstage at major festivals with a load of dudes in twee animal suits.

2. Everything else.

Actually I'm going to make a stab at more of these:

- Mainstream rock and rnb songs with falsetto vocals, I'm including Radoihead here as well as yer Keanes and Coldplays. The pendulum will swing towards sounding like MEN.

- Daft Punk's robot suits. 80s revivalism.

- The Scissor Sisters. Mika. (OK maybe not credible here).

- Bollywood samples. Sean Paul guest verses. 'Hey Ya'. Justin Timberlake.

The Klaxons.

i don't think DP will seem embarassing. the helmets are just too well made.

Actually scratch that, robot suits are always cool. I can imagine Daft Punk going hugely out of fashion though, all it takes is for the next generation to be embarassed by the very sound of a vocoder in the way the 90s kids were by, I dunno, Phil Collins drums or something.

1. Andrew WK
2. Andrew WK
3. Andrew WK
4. Andrew WK
5. Andrew WK

The one thing that will be "lol flares/filofax/Zubaz" of our generation is all-over print hoodies.

Skinny jeans? Asymmetrical haircuts? Enormous baggy skater jeans?

Actually I'm pretty sure the whole of 00s fashion will be fucking lambasted in 8 years time, far more than the music.

Enormous baggy skater jeans?

-- Matt DC, Wednesday, 27 February 2008 11:21 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^^^These have been de rigeur street wear since, what, 1996? When did the first KoRn album come out?

i didn't really see them much until 2000 (and that's mainly just because gf at the time was a student)

Yeah they've been around since 96/97ish but were kind of usurped by the combat trousers thing in the late 90s.

Still, I wonder if the reason for their longevity is that skate punk bands themselves are pretty much indestructible?

5,000 people willingly turn up to go to Dropkick Murphys' gigs in London!

Anyway, #2 behind the Flaming Lips is surely "oh hai I've got a great idea lets put Missy Elliot over Van Halen lol".

the psychotic 90s period when popular music momentarily thought it was all serious and meaningful.

sometimes not being american has its upside.

skinny jeans, Vans, striped shirts

there's skinny jeans and skinny jeans. the pigeon-chested would-be russell brands with the ridic skinny jeans and pointy shoes are already a laughing stock, though: when were they not?

i don't think people will laugh at vans or striped shirts.

ILM/ILX itself is a good candidate: you remember when we used to sit in front of an lcd screen all day and type meaningless acronyms at strangers discussing trivial topics that none of us knew anything about? OTM!LOL!U&K!

electroclash, new rave, Vice magazine etc

Myspace photography?

This decade still feels like it hasn't properly started yet to me. Like when people say oh well the 70s didn't really start til 1973 (or whenever they say it started). Doesn't really seem much of a difference culturally to the late 90s.

This probably means lol I old.

i think this whole farrago of a decade is basically summed up with this:

http://nofatclips.com/02007/08/02/ohmygod/Oh%20my%20God%20CD.jpg

ysi busta remix?

I've heard it. Trust me, you don't want to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJbByTFApZA

I've heard it. Trust me, you don't want to.

^^^

If only we'd had a Mark Ronson in the mid 90s. Joan Osbourne - The Riverboat Song (Skee Lo remix)

the psychotic 90s period when popular music momentarily thought it was all serious and meaningful.

wasnt this true in the 80's too eg. U2, Live Aid

And 60s - All You Need Is Love.

And 70s - Metal Machine Music

And 00s - Funeral Music

RADIOHEAD

http://www.youtube.com/user/CrankDatChannel

Crank Dat Spiderpig: cultural highpoint of the decade?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y6wlTJ_924

It may just be because I'm getting older, because obviously everything goes faster as you age (as units of time become proportionally smaller in the context of the length of your life), but the 00s seem to have gone by VERY FUCKING FAST indeed. This could also be down to the general quickening pace of life (if it is quickening) plus the increase in 'content' re; music, i.e. just more music to cram in and keep up with, never a dull moment with P2P etc. 2004 seems barely a blink of an eye ago, and even 2000 and 2001 don't seem long ago. Whereas 1998 seemed a LONG WAY from 1994 when I was 19.

soulja boy will be one of the few things that WON'T seem weird in the future.

The 90s went fast too. To me, the last 20 years have gone incredibly fast. And it has all been roughly the same as far as trends, fashion and not at least music goes. No big changes since 1988 while there were enormous changes from 1982 through to 1988

HOw rock got its rock n roll back by Alexis Petridis

http://music.guardian.co.uk/rock/story/0,,2260202,00.html

with every possible arcane corner of musical history, from acid folk to 80s Italian disco, exhausted in recent years, perhaps the only place left to go is back to the start.

it's just cos you're older nick

Haven't Vincent Vincent and the Villains been going since, like, 1984?

ctrl+f "fergie" - text not found

it's just cos you're older nick

I kind of assumed this, but wanted to check. Imagine a sadface emoticon here or something.

Wee Willie Harris revival imminent. You heard it here first.

xpost yeah Nick, I'm 41 and can attest to this effect.

this post is the correct answer:

It will seem weird that people were so oblivious to the impending collapse of civilization as it has been known.

-- RS, Monday, January 10, 2005 1:51 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Link

everyone except... tombot.

Paris Hilton was taken seriously as a musical artist. What was that all about? Eh? Eh?

Geir is surprisingly OTM in this thread (in all matters not related to music, incidentally).

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/91/250808906_6bc1c2b83a_m.jpg

this is a 2000s thing right. anyone care to explain?

Hasn't that been happening forever? Isn't that like, what the root of cool is? Doesn't it go back to slavery and the projected aloofness that says "you may have my body but you're not getting my mind/soul/etc"? You know, the T-Birds in Grease are both 30 and 50 years ago. It's not a 00s thing.

-- Scik Mouthy

Agreed. Young people have been rejecting authority since the dawn of time, and surly outsider cool has been a part of American popular music for about 60 years. I’m not saying this is anything new. I’m saying that the way coolness is conceived, marketed & expressed has changed. It’s now a universal, assumed component of the self: no longer the province of certain marginalized groups, no longer defined by specific values or relationships to power structures. Coolness is now something everyone has equal access to. In essence, it's become something everyone has an inherent right to.

Given the culture’s pervasive, near-nihilist cynicism; given the instantaneous mainstream co-option of any youth-culture totem that seems even remotely marketable; and given several generations raised to believe they are cooler-than by birthright -- given all that, coolness has collapsed in on itself. There’s no longer anything distinct to reject or separate from. Everyone is inside the bubble. All that’s left is a stance of insecure superiority and a desperate need to reject something. And it’s everywhere.

</crotchety>

In summary, once you can get coolness on tap it ceases to be cool.

xpost * 3

Shoegazing?

In summary, once you can get coolness on tap it ceases to be cool.

Something like that. At the very least, it becomes an exhausting, depressing hobby.

ahh! i see, post shoegaze. people stopped making music and began to simply gaze at shoes.

xpost

There are some great catches here on this thread. Totally agreed re: overall print hoodies.

But I also agree with the people here who say that we're still in the same cultural bubble as we were a decade ago, in the late 1990s. In fact, I started a thread about it:

The pace of fashion and style

The fact that there are new things in 2008 that didn't exist in, say 1997, doesn't mean we've really moved onto to a new thing. Here's why I think that: because some person walking down the street in stereotypical late 90s gear wouldn't be laughed at like some freak, the way someone in 1987 would have laughed at a 1977-looking person.

I realize I'm not on perfectly solid ground here but I do think the pace of change -- in music, fashion, and design -- has slowed a lot.

I'll actually be talking about the lifespan of cultural bubbles with Mark Sinker tonight (among others), live on Resonance FM 104.4, so turn us on at 7pm if you're in London (that's 2pm US time). Or listen online at the Resonance website.

(Sorry, 2pm EST I mean.)

What we're living through is a period of intense conformity. It is the great paradox of the age.

This was pointed out to me once by a man who ran a focus group, and it's the reason I made The Trap.

He said, "Everyone out there" - and we're looking through the mirror - "thinks they are an individual. But actually more and more people are exactly the same. Not only in how they dress, but how they feel about themselves and about each other." They talk in the same language.

And I researched it, and it's true - he's completely right. We live in an age where we think we're completely individualistic, but actually, we're more conformist than we have been since the 1960s.

-- Adam Curtis

And I researched it, and it's true - he's completely right. We live in an age where we think we're completely individualistic, but actually, we're more conformist than we have been since the 1960s.

-- Adam Curtis

So absurdly OTM. Not sure it's true everywhere, but it's certainly true here in Seattle. Street culture & personal style in the 00s are the most homogeneous and conservative I've ever seen them (over a 25 year period, that is).

Here's why I think that: because some person walking down the street in stereotypical late 90s gear wouldn't be laughed at like some freak

-- Tracerp

Dunno about this. Say the late 90s person is pimply white teen wearing huge black vinyl multi-zipper pants, ICP T-shirt, duster, hair in cornrows, pacifier in mouth.

That person would surely have been laughed at like some freak in late 90s also?

Is mainstream art (music, film, TV, etc) the most homogenous and conformist it's been since the 60s too? is this something else we can blame the baby boomers about?

there is more of everything (music, film, tv) which imo gives an impression of conformity/homogeny. i think one of the lol factors when looking back on this decade will be our struggle to come to terms with this.

The infinite tail.

"Decade of Blunt"

surely thats weird enough already.
though there is a strong chance by the end of the decade everyone will have forgotten that dreary fucker.

Fucking Volcom go die now.

"Luxury" sunglasses

Hat on crooked

Standing in line at 6am outside fancy sneaker store

Kid 'n Play silhouette

Pattern involving fucking antlers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trap_%28television_documentary_series%29

whois antlerfuck.com

The Trap sounds interesting. Is it worth watching, Scik? Tracer?

I am thinking about figures like Steve Coogan and the folks on both versions of The Office and various HBO thingies like Entourage and of course Larry David and Chelsea Handler with whom I am perversely fascinated, and Christopher Guest and company in Guffman and Best in Show and so forth--this whole everybody's-in-showbiz deal, I mean the whole point of The Office, esp. the UK version, is that culture has been destroyed by people who think everything is cultural and salvegable by being hip and aware that everybody should be in showbiz, therefore why really work at anything?

Is mainstream art (music, film, TV, etc) the most homogenous and conformist it's been since the 60s too? is this something else we can blame the baby boomers about?

-- Scik Mouthy, Wednesday, February 27, 2008 4:44 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

um waht, music, film, TV, etc. were a lot less "conformist" in the 60s than at any time since. (especially film.) they feel about themselves and about each other," either

um waht, music, film, TV, etc. were a lot less "conformist" in the 60s than at any time since. (especially film.) they feel about themselves and about each other," either

-- that one guy

Dunno what you mean by that, but I'm not sure the answer to Skic's question is a definitive "yes". It does seem to me that mainstream American film in the late 60s and especially the 70s was VERY risk-friendly -- the 80s/90s comparatively conservative.

"Decade of Blunt"

surely thats weird enough already.
though there is a strong chance by the end of the decade2006 everyone will have forgotten that dreary fucker.

-- mark e, Wednesday, February 27, 2008 8:52 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Link

fixed

"Decade of Blunt"

surely thats weird enough already.

lol

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/blunthat.gif

That person would surely have been laughed at like some freak in late 90s also?

But someone wearing the same kind of baggy pants that were fashionable in 1990 wouldn't be laughed at today either. Except in 1990 only teens wore them while today they may also be seen on people in their 20s.

Yeah, they would!

Mostly worn by the same people.

there's a great "saggy jeans" scene in Clueless, ca. 1995 (replete with sarky disapproving voiceover)

I think its too easy to remember previous decades as a series of shifts in one homogenous shared culture. Whereas the reality is that culture/s and identities have always been fragmented. Our perspective on the last 5 decades is seen through the prism of 2008 which distorts the importance of whatever was happening then.

Would someone in 1967 be able to identify even what we see now as the defining records of that year? Sgt Peppers maybe, but Velvets & Nico? The best-selling album that year in the US was "more of the monkees"!

So, what will seem weird? I don't think we can judge.

We'd have a better idea if it weren't for all these prisms clogging up the place.

Velvets/Nico was "artiness/futuristic" as perceived then.

I don't think it would really surprise anyone in 1967 if they were told one of the most 'defining' records would be one of the lesser selling albums of that year.

Mostly worn by the same people.

But also by kids who are 20 years younger.

Would someone in 1967 be able to identify even what we see now as the defining records of that year? Sgt Peppers maybe, but Velvets & Nico?

"Velvet Underground And Nico" wasn't defining of 1967 in any way, and it doesn't sound like anything else from that year. It is probably much more representative of 1977 than 1967.

Warhol, PopArt, "happenings", lightshows, mod haircuts, extended jams, beat poetry, "groovy" dancing. definitely 1967 to me.

Geir, he wasn't saying it was defining of 1967, but 'now'.

It was by no means an unknown album in 1967, you know!

Oh, OK he was saying of 1967. But, hey.

In truth, it was pretty much an unknown record in 1967.

It depends on where you were standing in 1967.

If you were watching TV in some far flung part of the UK, let's say "South Shields", and your interface was the BBC, then the defining etc was Sgt Pepper and the Black/White minstrel show.

If you were more London based and yr interface was more the artier music channels, such as they were ,then the def.etc w/be SgtPepper and VU&Nico.

So it goes.

Artier music channels = BBC2, and then mostly Late Night Line-Up, which mostly concentrated on jazz.

Top Albums of 1967
1 The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
2 Original Soundtrack The Sound Of Music
3 The Beach Boys Best Of The Beach Boys
4 Original Soundtrack Doctor Zhivago
5 Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass Going Places
6 The Monkees Monkees
7 Original London Cast Fiddler On The Roof
8 The Seekers Come The Day
9 The Four Tops Four Tops Live
10 Tom Jones Green Green Grass Of Home

And if there was an album that looked like it was made by jazzbo's, then surely...

Did the album even get a British release at the time? From anecdotal evidence it would appear most of the "everyone who bought it formed a band" crowd got it on import, largely from Musicland in Berwick Street.

Didn't the original release of "Venus In Furs" get to something like 74? They were truly the A.R.E. Weapons of the 60s.

xpost

Verve VLP 9184, November 1967

It's true that we tend to "edit down" decades to a few tropes and styles that are not necessarily apparent at the time. I certainly remember feeling perplexed in the 80s that the decade didn't seem to have any definable "style", in the way that I knew the 70s or the 60s or the 50s had. Looking back, that's laughable, because now we all know what the "eighties" means. Likewise if you actually look at mid-60s pop charts, it's amazing the amount of Dean Martin-esque easy listening stuff there is in there. You could argue that, apart from a few pop phenomena like The Beatles, it was that easy listening stuff that was really what the sixties was all about.

Verve VLP 9184, November 1967

Yeah, it came out without the banana on the cover, I have one (not bought at the time, obv whodoyerthinkIambobgillesp?)

not bought at the time by me, I should say. I guess somebody bought it at the time...

not if it was a promotional item given to a record industry type

at what point do we need a separate board for Velvets geekery - ILVU mods?

Bobby Gillespie was three months in Hairmyres Hospital after he tried to eat the peeled-off banana. He got a right skelping from his maw, I can tell you.

It's true that we tend to "edit down" decades to a few tropes and styles that are not necessarily apparent at the time.

See also people who define themselves as "80s fans" based upon The Smiths, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Cure, New Order, R.E.M, Sonic Youth, Pixies and other bands that were very much "underground" during most of the 80s and hardly as visible to the average man on the street as Michael Jackson, Madonna and even Duran Duran were.

1) They were not 'underground' they were for sale on every high street!

2) What's an 'eighties' fan anyway?

Less visible than Michael Jackson and Madonna!

It's true that Cure, Bunnymen, New Order etc were not mainstream, even if they did have the occasional minor hit. You could be young in the early eighties without having the faintest clue who Joy Division was.

Current definition of an eighties fan:

Bob Mills
COMEDIAN
"Hollywood Beyond! What was that all about? Eh? Eh?"
(aside to researcher: "who the fuck were they again? Ta")

It may just be because I'm getting older, because obviously everything goes faster as you age (as units of time become proportionally smaller in the context of the length of your life), but the 00s seem to have gone by VERY FUCKING FAST indeed. This could also be down to the general quickening pace of life (if it is quickening) plus the increase in 'content' re; music, i.e. just more music to cram in and keep up with, never a dull moment with P2P etc. 2004 seems barely a blink of an eye ago, and even 2000 and 2001 don't seem long ago. Whereas 1998 seemed a LONG WAY from 1994 when I was 19.

It's not JUST because you're older - between 1994 and 1998 you'd had the whole rise and fall of Britpop, its a mini-era in itself. There's been nothing thats burnt brightly and then burnt out to the same extent between 2004 and 2008.

Yeah we are getting older, but on the other hand it depends what goes on in those four years. 2004 and 2000 feel a *long* way apart.

At the time (2002-2004) I felt that 2000 and 2004 were a LONG way apart; now they feel VERY close. That';s probably just because ALL THE PAST is the same distance away by simple dint of NOT BEING THE PRESENT.

That sounds stupid, but wtf.

It's not JUST because you're older - between 1994 and 1998 you'd had the whole rise and fall of Britpop, its a mini-era in itself. There's been nothing thats burnt brightly and then burnt out to the same extent between 2004 and 2008.

http://www.tradebit.com/usr/madagoknee/pub/9002/liljondrums.jpg

56-65 Rock n roll

66-75 Hippies/soul

76-85 Punk/disco

86-95 House/hip hop

96-now internets

i'd be interested in seeing what people 10-15 years ago were predicting the 00s would actually be like music-wise. anyone know of any archived articles in that vein? maybe trying to predict the 10s now would be even harder because of the sense of redux people feel, or maybe it hasn't made a difference.

It's all just a huge mush now. I don't really see anything new on the horizon apart from what bits of the past get rehashed.

The whole idea of slicing and dicing pop culture into arbitrary ten year chunks is stoopid, imo.

volcom is just like vans or quicksilver. no complaints there. skater wear can be very casual. I often wear clothes from pacsun. but if people are going to be picky about what clothes associate with what groups - like hipster and hats lol - then I think you are being just that (picky). But flowery extravagant clothes is a no-no. and some skater clothes do look extravagant. that's why I settle with a plain shirt with nothing more than a zoo york symbol or whatever. when it comes to hipsters, I don't like to make fun of them like so many ilxors do. that's because there is a broad range of hipsters and many are not indie scenesters. there's the modest hipsters for instance. and I'm sure they don't like to be classified as such but if liking philosophical stuff and naturey stuff is your thing, than I got no beef.

so when we look back at the fashion 20 years from now, most of 00s are relatively safe compared to say the 60s, 70s, or 80s.

and the pop art hoodies is a black thing so I got no beef there either. I wouldn't be caught dead in one but black people manage to pull it off half the time. it's kinda oldschool if you ask me. at least with certain hoodies.

The whole idea of slicing and dicing pop culture into arbitrary ten year chunks is stoopid, imo.

Of course, it's extremely superficial, but Bodrick's post did give sort of an overview that made at least a little sense, although as I said in a superficial way.
I would have written new wave instead of punk though, as new wave can also be said to have included a lot of early 80s new romantic/synthpop stuff that clearly wasn't disco.

And I now see it was also Bodrick that I was quoting, but I still see that your superficial "history" made at least minor sense. In the way that you could say it to give somebody who is 13 years old in 2075 and overview of what rock history was about.

Well you could slice it up in a number of ways. Even though my little list there is ultra-simplified it makes as much sense as 50-59, 60-69, etc...

Maybe five year slices? Late 90s felt totally to the earlier half of the decade because a lot of stuff that was underground got super-commercialised, there was a economic recovery, etc...

I agree the big shift is usually somewhere around the middle of the decade rather than the beginning.

I mean, rock'n'roll didn't break through until 1955. Surely no important changes around 1950.

In the 60s, you had Beatles and the British invasion in 1963-64, and hippie/psychedelia in 1967. 1959-60 didn't give the world a lot of new stuff

In the 70s, there were punk and disco (the latter was probably just as influential), both of which kicked off around mid decade.

In the 80s, there was some new stuff happening around 1979-80, but it the new romantic/synthpop movement was mainly a merger of new wave (punk) and disco. And you also had a big change around mid decade with house emerging and hip-hop becoming more of a huge genre than just the odd novelty hit. Plus the mid 80s were also when hair metal became a big commercial thing and not just something that certain rebellious puberty boys were listening to because parents and teachers hated it.

In the 90s, you had the American "alternative" explosion around 1992 ("Nevermind was released in 1991, but didn't become commercially big until early 1992) and the British Britpop equivalent in 1993-94. The mid 90s were also when electronica crossed over from the dancefloors and into the stereo set of the average music nerd.
Towards the late 90s you also saw the merger of hip-hop and R&B that has become the dominant chartforce in the US to this day.

In the oughties there haven't been too many changes, but the biggest one was probably around 2001-02 when "rock" was becoming more popular again, both through a lot of indie bands influenced by either garage or postrock, but also with teenybopper acts such as Avril Lavigne, Pink and Kelly Clarkson adding more rock elements into their style than what had been the case with the boy/girl bands of the 90s.
As for the electro trend it may have started around 2000 actually, with Madonna and Aaliyah having some very electro-influenced hits that summer.

Plus 00s = revival of metal, blog novelty hits (mashups &c), mainstreaming of indie pop, underground culture getting crazy hermetic. Wasn't there another thread on this a month or so ago?

"underground culture getting crazy hermetic"

Hasn't "underground" music always been hermetic, by definition?

Of course the oughies are mainly about the fact that people can now give a damn about trends and just get into whatever they are into because they will get to know about it in blogs. Thus, you have The Flower Kings and Spock's Beard :)

Hasn't "underground" music always been hermetic, by definition?

-- Bodrick

Sure, to some extent. But the noise/drone & super limited edition things (12 copies, lathe-cut, friends only) have become HUEG lately. Much more hermetic and intentionally outsider-y than, say, 80s pigfuck & Portastudio lo-fi.

The way things are going for me lately, in 5-10 years, I feel like I'm going to remember the late 2000's more for vinyl-mp3 debates; argumentative discussions about the merits and downfalls of minimal techno/house,'minimal', and "so called minimal"; and getting incredibly riled up about the disgrace of blog house than I will remember any music.

Hasn't the net made obscure scenes a little less... obscure?

All the freaks can hook up really effectively now. Whereas back in the day, you would've been totally unaware of half the similar stuff going on in other cities/countries.

xpost

Hasn't the net made obscure scenes a little less... obscure?

Boadrick

Absolutely, but I think one of the practical results of this is that the people who value obscurity or want to be obscure themselves are now into stuff that is incredibly inward & isolated, stripped of all appeal to anyone who isn't already a part of the scene.

Similar music existed in the 80s, but it wasn't as big a part of the indie-rock mainstream. At least that's how I remember it.

Maybe that speaks more of me and my memories than the realities of the times. Gets hard to say at that point...

but blogs=/=mainstream

i keep assuming that certain artists (eg MIA! Deerhoof! The Field!) are popular in the real world just because they're all over the internets. but they're not and I have to backtrack & explain myself...

i most people thin this thread keep assuming that certain artists (eg MIA! Deerhoof! The Field!) are popular in the real world just because they're all over the internets.

If anyone thinks blog-rock is going to have any bearing on the way people see the 00s in the future, you need to get off your computer and talke a walk, for serious.