Click here for everything I hate about indie rock

There’s nothing inherently wrong with cross-referencing in general; it’s basically just an admission that for lots of people listening to certain music actually winds up forming a component part of their lives as a whole, and as such becomes fair play for lyric-writing. The only reason I don’t like this one is because I’ve never been that into Husker Du and I’m not sure what Gram Parsons is doing in there with the rest of the references.

Still the untrained, twee vocal kinda grates on me.

EXACTLY! K Records = Krap magnet, in my book.

They have Deerhoof and The Advantage, who I like alot.

Don't Touch My Bikini' is better than it really oughta be. Everything else by the Halo Benders is ass.

Calvin's also got a really good relationship with Steve Fisk, which always pumps K above other indie labels IMHO. The Steve Fisk Over And Thru The Night CD is priceless. That Duck Hunt 7" (Duck Hunt being half of Pell Mell, w/ Steve Fisk) from 1991 almost invented jungle/drum 'n' bass practically.

Karp as well.

Heavenly/Marine Research were on K. I dunno... I dug a lot of Lois Maffeo's stuff. I think One Foot in the Grave is one of the better Beck records (though I may be alone on that one).

dc is right tho... K has done some terrific reissues and compy things over the years. They stuck all the early Built to Spill singles on one CD, which was great, the Steve Fisk stuff is great, they did that big Talulah Gosh collection...

ILM in general thinks they are like real evil and eat the babies of fun, from what I gather.

but then you listen to it, and get disqualified so you have to give it back.

sorry.

The Shins are great. Dissing The Shins is like kicking a puppy.

but then you listen to it, and get disqualified so you have to give it back.

Don't worry, there should be no short supply of Beat Happening CDs seeing as how even a lot of fans are gonna be unloading them now that the box set's out.

haha!! I like the Shins, but that's fucking hilarious. I think I'm going to nick it and use it in conversations outside ILM.

Well, I listened to The Blow song, and -- well -- it blows... badly.

Find the most fillerish track off the entire catalog of $5 Teenbeat Records Sampler comps, and it will be 10 times better than this song..

I really hope this song is a departure for The Blow, because otherwise I'd come to their house and just tell them "Guys, please, I'm crying here.. just TRY, dammit, TRY!"

Hmmm... I think I'd be more inclined to say Pinback = The Shins. Pinback are definitely better musicians, but I'm willing to bet The Shins will suprise us more in the future. Pinback seems to be sticking to same song template that they use on each album. What's fustrating is that, given all of their side projects, I know they can do more and throw us some curve balls, yet they seem to be content to just stick to what is expected of them.

But, sure, I'm betting the Shins would be the first band to make the more radical departure. That could be good or bad. So far, in all Shins releases for me, it's been zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

This song is 1) about three years old and 2) a cover of a Wolf Colonel song (which maybe makes the cross-referencing worse, I don't know) and doesn't have a whole lot in common with the recent stuff.

Anyway, I've never understood indie pop hatred. It seems so easy to just ignore.

Some of the greatest indie pop/potential radio crossover stuff ever made completely flew over the radar of both camps: Slabco records. Land Of The Loops is a perfect example of a genius indie popster who knew exactly how to cross over into pop and dance territory, and unfortunately got damned with too faint praise for it.

And not liking something because it's bad is logic I won't argue with.

except for Lonesome Sundown but yeah

Christ, I must of been in a really bad mood when I started this thread.

Popular music has always been a notoriously conservative genre, one in which the slightest deviation from the norm — whether in song structure, song length or instrumentation — is often dismissed as gross self-indulgence, even self-sabotage. The so-called alternative-rock scene of the ’90s — exemplified by bands like Pavement, the Breeders and Nirvana — was actually, from a musical standpoint, surprisingly orthodox: the dominance of traditional verse-chorus-verse song structures, and the standard rock lineup — bass, guitar, drums — went largely uncontested. But in the last few years there has been a gravitation from tried-and-true rock paradigms, driven both by boredom with the increasingly threadbare conventions of indie rock and by a sincere, if playful, rediscovery of experimentalists as diverse as Van Dyke Parks and Philip Glass. And it’s no surprise that many of the boldest of these, like Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Half-handed Cloud and Ghostband, are essentially one-person projects that don’t require too much consensus about what a song should be.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/magazine/18bands-t.html

guitar is nowhere to be found; neither, for that matter, is a drum kit. When I asked him why, Pallett answered without a moment’s hesitation. “Drummers ruin bands,” he said simply, as if the fact were common knowledge. “There are probably about 10 people in indie rock who know how to play the drums. If you’re in a mediocre band, just fire the drummer, and chances are you’ll have the best band in the world.”

I think Pallett would be right if he said drummers and vocalists. (I don't mind his vocals incidentally. I liked He Poos Clouds for a while, but it's just not the sort of thing I find myself wanting to come back to.)

xhuxk, how did you turn this thread up, a search on "hate" and "idie rock"?

Chuck never more OTM.

Actually, one thing I do like about He Poos Clouds is that it doesn't feel like an indie-rock record with classical filigree as much as a modern-composition record with a strong pop sensibility: among other things, the arrangements are too intricate for indie rock.

http://www.dickdestiny.com/indienerdinnytimes.jpg
Where's the shot of pens leaking into the shirt pocket?

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“There are still all sorts of glitches in the program; the algorithms are really complex.” He frowned at the tangle of cables at his feet, seemingly forgetting me altogether, then suddenly broke into a boyish grin. “When it’s done, though, it’s going to be kind of unprecedented.”

It's a bit hard to set any type of precedent re bad at this late date.

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Imagine a melancholy orchestral pop masterpiece like the Beatles’ “Day in the Life” with the rock band — i.e., the Beatles themselves — removed
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Unintentionally hilarious. NYT mag writer finds twitchy nerd, lays trap for readers who won't be quite up to the level of masochism listening to this will require.

one thing I do like about He Poos Clouds is that it doesn't feel like an indie-rock record with classical filigree as much as a modern-composition record with a strong pop sensibility: among other things, the arrangements are too intricate for indie rock.

I agree. I think maybe the mood and the lyrical content put me off after a while, but I like what he did with the orchestration and arrangements.

“He makes having a band seem so. . . . ” she thought for a moment. “So old-fashioned, I guess.”

xposts

it doesn't feel like an indie-rock record with classical filigree as much as a modern-composition record with a strong pop sensibility

This is OTM...

among other things, the arrangements are too intricate for indie rock.

I'm not sure about this though. How do you mean intricate? He's using less instruments than most indie rock records do. And of course Owen Pallett arranges for a lot of indie rock bands. I think the harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary is more what sets He Poos Clouds apart.

Anyway, I think Owen is fairly brilliant but says some goofy stuff to get a reaction. There are lots of crappy drummers in bands, but there are lots of crappy bands generally. I don't think drummers deserve all the blame. Although I secretly hate them too.

I'm not sure what I hate more, the phenomena that this describes or actually thinking about them for long enough to evaluate this:

Listen Win by Susu Pick
Brooklyn trio bring volume back to indie rock
We are living in a post-indie world. Over the past decade, indie rock has slowly and deliberately shed its roots in the punk and hardcore movements of the '80s: we've gone from Thurston to Lou to Sufjan as our de facto figureheads. The challenging aesthetics of the SST/Touch & Go ('80s and '90s editions) crowd have been softened to more traditional — albeit skewed — forms of songwriting, production and performing. Part of it is the influx of money (and yay for that — people need to get paid!), and part is the bar for what "matters" getting raised. There's no use judging that shift — it was inevitable — but it is worth pointing out that the maturation has marginalized artists who don't toe the (anti-)company line. The stuff that's poppy and cute gets popular; the stuff that challenges does not. It's a meritocracy of sound, so the question is: is there any room left for the weirdos?

All of this is sorta related to our two new eMusic Selections: Hands On Heads and Susu, a trio from Brooklyn. To put a contemporary tag on them, Susu play noise-rock. To put a more appropriate but less faddish tag on them, they play math-rock and/or post-hardcore. You will certainly hear echoes of Sonic Youth in these six excellent, fierce songs, but there's also lots of Unwound, Hoover, Don Caballero and basically the entire city of Chicago from 1992 to 1998. So yeah, you could call Susu a throwback — cuz they are. (You could also call them awesome, cuz they're that, too.)

The intensely loud, epic and barking "Hands Up (The Race)" jumps out immediately. "I've got MY/ Hands UP!" and "Get! Your! Handssssup!" yelps singer/bassist Michael Andrew as Andrea Havis' guitar and Oliver Rivera-Drew's drums swirl, clash and implode around him. From there it fits and starts, churning, chugging and soaring a bit like Unwound's best moment, "For Your Entertainment" off of Repetition.

"Anarchitect" is the math-iest song here, from the clever title to the awesomely idiotic lyrics ("An architect/ Had no neck/ It's not that interesting/ But it is happening") that somehow convince you to shout along by the ending reprise. And then there's "In the Pool," Win's propulsive sleeper hit. All three Susu members are incredibly talented musicians, and it really shows here, with Rivera-Drew doing a great Damon Che with his tom work, Havis slaying with her open-chord hangs in the verses and Andrew flogging the horse with his pounding bass.

Win could have come out on Dischord or Touch & Go in 1993, which is meant as a compliment. It's a record that doesn't fit into now — now, these days, meaning within your last RSS feed — and that's a genuine shame. The underground was where the marginalized once went for solace, but hegemony is a bitch, and so now there must be an underground within the underground within the underground. There, Susu clearly have a home and an audience; our hope is that this excellent collection will get them even more.

The funny thing about all the hoo-hah over the masterly "pop" songwriting of various indie types nowadays is that it's so not masterly: I've heard lots of complex, techniquey stuff, but very little of it showcases songwriting that grasps the notions of hooks, harmonic/melodic tension/resolution, and other tricks good pop songwriters use. Instead, we get a lot of very smart kids writing bland, formulaic, unmemorable yet somehow "innovative" crap.

otm

And the idea that you can make your shitty music good (oops, I mean make it "the best band in the world") just by getting rid of your shitty drummer is somewhat suspect as well.

I think a lot of bands decided to maximalize their sound — if that’s a word ...

Computers have always really informed what I do,

This impeccably bourgeois pedigree was complicated by the presence in her life of her uncle and aunt, the jazz duo Tuck and Patti

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Released this past July, the album is almost recklessly heterogenic:

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hterogenic: Relating to different gene constitutions, especially with respect to different species. -- from the American Heritage Medical Dictionary

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Largely because of his fondness for three-part harmonies, Lennox has been compared with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, but as a songwriter, arranger and producer he seems to owe at least as much to the omni-experimentalist Brian Eno, not to mention the grandfather of Jamaican dub, Lee (Scratch) Perry.
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“I spent a lot of time ... trying to find ways that I could take separate songs — songs I’d written at completely different times — and make them meet and blend together in interesting ways. I had a bunch of fragmentary stuff on my computer, parts of songs, and I put them together in different combinations until they fit.

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"...the thought of running Garageband just sounds asinine to me." --cover megastar in latest issue of Guitar Player mag
==============

She still takes her MacBook Pro with her on tour, she told me, using standard-issue recording programs, GarageBand

...all instrumental performance — and by extension, all virtuosity — has been scrupulously removed from the equation.

Purloined from I Love Everything:

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recorded lots of shit with Garageband over the past few months, and all of a sudden I started it up yesterday and it won't let me record anything. The microphone in my Mac is picking up sound fine (I checked under the sound settings), but when I go to Garageband, the "microphone" in that won't pick up any sound at all. I can press record and the program will move along as if it is recording, but it just won't pick up any sound. I have not changed any settings -- this is all completely random as far as I can tell.

I have read the Apple forums and gone through the FAQs for Garageband with no luck. Any suggestions?

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I'm not sure about this though. How do you mean intricate?

"Arrangement" was perhaps the wrong word. I think I just mean how the instrumental parts are generally more sophisticated than how most indie-rock bands use orchestral instruments. The Arcade Fire, for instance, employs strings to add depth or color, but the actual parts are fairly simple; on Final Fantasy's"This Lamb Sells Condos," however, the piano does these quick, dainty runs that are clearly rooted in the classical technique.

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/listoftheday/55358/the-25-best-alternative-rock-bands-of-the-1990s

xhuxk, did you see the list this came from?

6) Devendra Banhart / Tiny Tim: I'm not convinced they're not the same person. Tiny Tim was a novelty item singing with that stupid ukulele something about tiptoeing through the tulips. Anyone with any half sense would know it was novelty item that shouldn't be used as the basis for an entire recording career. And for thirty years, it wasn't, until freaky-folk dude Devendra Banhart showed up and started warbling in that unlistenable, untrained vibrato the kind of nonsensical lyrics that didn't sound all that great back when people were taking the kinds of drugs you're supposed to be on in order to enjoy it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/fashion/21rockkids.html

first thought on seeing that picture this morning was an ilm target around the poor girl's face

already discussed
Hipsters, rockism and anal sex

Why do ilxors hate indie?

Is it Indie Kids? For perhaps the reasons given here http://freakytrigger.co.uk/old-ft/essays/2001/01/indiekids/

Is it because hardly any indie bands have good singers? You certainly will not find a Mariah Carey in a indie band.
Is it because most indie bands can't play their instruments well? Does that matter to you?
Is it the lack of good production and a hatred of the lo-fi aesthetic? and you prefer shiny new production tricks?
Or is it the fact todays "indie" is actually overproduced and bland as a result?

just you know, what are your reasons other than "lol indie". What is the basis of the ilm indie hatred?

That freakytrigger piece is way more embarrassing than indie music.

What is the basis of the ilm indie hatred?

I don't think there is a lot of ILM indie hatred (a few hate it, I suppose, but I don't sense a groundswell of hatred).

lot of indie fans on ilm

i think what you perceive as "ilm indie hated" is more frustration at indie-stans who think all music revolves around indie

feedin the trollllll

Wasn't ILM founded by renowned indie haters? (as seen in the freaky trigger piece)

I don't like rock music in general. The only rock music that's any good has a strong, bass-heavy groove, and indie rock is rarely like that. Also, indie has some of the worst singing in rock (whiny and thin), except for punk and metal rock, which are both even worse than indie rock. Soulful rock singers like Bruce Springsteen sound perfectly okay to me, but few indie singers do. Even if they're technically fine as singers, the indie vocal style invented by Ian Curtis and Morrissey and the guy from Cure is pretty irritating.

Also, I don't like postmodern irony, and many indie fans certainly seem to emphasize that in their apperance.

And, during the second half of this decade, indie people have managed to make club music suck worse than it has done for ages by popularizing "indie electro".

I'm glad we are finally talking about this now.

what the fuck are you ppl doing?

posting on an internet message board. If you don't like the subject then don't click the thread.
Thanks for your answer Tuomas. Any indie singers you like?

Note that I did not start this thread. Thank you.

Well, you don't hate indie rock.

but feel free to refute Tuomas's points

Tuomas's generalizations make it hard for me to take him seriously.

Like, this:

The only rock music that's any good has a strong, bass-heavy groove, and indie rock is rarely like that.

Which is bullshit.

http://www.socksummit.com/images/SS09_LOGO.jpg

I mean, yeah, "indie rock is rarely like that." But a lot of it is still really great irregardless. I don't hear many grooves on the new Antlers record, but that doesn't make it less of a huge achievement.

Yeah, this thread is going to go down in zings. I'm outta here.

http://www.pigeonnyc.com/lost_sock.gif

i hate indie because of stuff like this:
http://juiceonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/indierock_final_cvr1.jpg

i prefer my indie colourless

This has leaked!

Downloading now.

pretty much everything has gone down hill since the black & white high-contrast xerox (early) siltbreeze aesthetic went out of style...

yes heaven forbid someone give royalties to charity

u know what's cool? talking about articles about indie rock from 8 years ago.

lighten up

listening to this today. i play it, like, once a year. and i always love it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/Howitfeelstobesomethingon.jpg

What record is that, scott?

I don't actually think dude is a sock but I gotta get in on the img fest

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/66970cfd41def737f07c5f3982b77f47/2265477.jpg

sunny day real estate - how it feels to be something on

Who are you talking about J0hn, me or the guy who started the thread?

Thanks, scott. I'm going to check that out!

where did my img go it was funny

repost it yo

oh where did my image go...dear liza dear liza

http://www.normanrecords.com/images/covers/d-thumbs/107335_thumb.jpg

when i was little, i would sing this to myself when i was alone:

Did you eever, ever, iver,
In your leaf, life, loaf
See the deevil, devil, divil
Kiss his weef, wife, woaf?
No, I neever, never, niver
In my leaf, life, loaf
Saw the deevil, devil, divil
Kiss his weef, wife, woaf.

kids I used to work with had a similar thing about how they like to eat eat eat eeples and baneenees

I trust they are all millionaires now

Started back in '83
Started seeing things differently
And hardcore wasn't doin' it for me no more
Started smoking pot
Thought things sounded better slow
Much slower, heavier
Black magic melody to sink this poseur's soul

VU Stooges undeniably cool
Took a lesson from that drone rock school
Manipulate musicians hack righteous drool
Getting loose with the Pussy Galore
Cracking jokes like a Thurston Moore
Pedal hopping like a Dinosaur, J...

Rock and Roll genius, ride the middle of the road
Milk that sound, blow your load
Shoot it further than you ever said it'd go
Four stars in the Rolling Stone

Oooh sludge rock,
That's hard as harsh
Just gimme indie rock!
It's gone big
Come on indie rock
Just give me indie rock

Taking inspiration from Husker Du
It's a new generation
Of electric white boy blues
Come on indie rock
It's gone big
Come on indie rock
Just give me indie rock

Breaking down the barriers
Like Sonic Youth
They got what they wanted
Maybe I can get what I want too
Come on indie rock
It's gone big
Come on indie rock
Just give me indie rock

Time to knock
The hard rock on it's side
Time to knock
The shit right up a storm
Turn to amaze
With the indie sludge
Grunge!
Aaah!

I'm not sure LyricsMania got these words quite right but fuck it, just gimme indie rock

gimme college rock?

I thought it said "It's got a beat!" at one point, but wut do i know

http://cdn.stereogum.com/img/indie_rock_trivia-underwear1.jpg

book looks fine to me

Mmm college rock.

Yeah Scott How It Feels is worthy of love.

sometimes i feel about indie rock like i feel about the nfl: love the game, hate the crowds

i listened to a belle and sebastian album today and i don't know how to feel about it

depends entirely on which one it was

sometimes i feel about indie rock like i feel about the nfl: love the game, hate the crowds

― access flap (omar little), Wednesday, October 21, 2009 5:08 AM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark

^^^
BOOMING post

beardo panties picture is epically indie rock, but I'm thinking it might be more indie rock in 2008 than indie rock in 2009

1998-2003 iirc.

i listened to a belle and sebastian album today and i don't know how to feel about it

― how rad bandit (gbx)

depends entirely on which one it was

― would s*m*a*s*h (electricsound)

Suggested reactions may include hatred, veiled hatred, slowly surfacing hatred, rationalized hatred, strong hatred, seething hatred and/or devastating hatred.

sometimes i feel about indie rock like i feel about the nfl: love the game, hate the crowds

― access flap (omar little), Wednesday, October 21, 2009 5:08 AM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark

troof bomb

Of what musical genres would 'hate the game, love the crowd' be true?

Of what musical genres would 'hate the game, love the crowd' be true?

For me, it's the Manic Street Preachers.

I tend to get along really really well with their fans, love the aesthetic, tons of my friends love 'em - I just can't stomach the music. I really wish I could.

i think generally speaking crappy northside chicago blues bands have a fanbase that's usually fun to hang around with if you feel like shooting some pool and having a few beers.

usually i'm ambivalent at worst about the crowds. maybe it's because i live in l.a. but i feel like the indie scene's been taken over by fashion holocausts trying to blow your mind with how smug and sleazy they can be.

this is my kinda crowd:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_y9S7vB0qM

hahaha, i LOVE that video. steve is an animalllllll!!!!

i swear i'm not even sneering. it just makes me laugh.

I never really understood why Aoki gets so much hate on the Erol forum, but that video kinda makes me want to punch him a little bit, too.

I dunno who he is, but he gets mega hate on just about every forum I'm on.

sometimes i feel about indie rock like i feel about the nfl: love the game, hate the crowds

― access flap (omar little), Wednesday, October 21, 2009 5:08 AM (25 minutes ago)

this is otm except baseball, not nfl

I forgot about this thread (The Blow still suck).

It's been my experience over the last few years that I don't have any super negative feelings towards indie bands until I see them on Austin City Limits.

Exhibit A

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/91/247895945_71a8327aa7.jpg

Exhibit B

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h56/deafindieelephants/afpsbacl.jpg

whatever happened to that sufjan guy? he was all the rage for a minute there. did he join a monastery?

he's still working on his album about oregon

"After this, it's either the barrel of a pistol or the foot of a cross" --JK Huysmans

sufjan stevens is wayyyyyyyyyy behind schedule for the 50 states thing

he'll get back to it when he's done counting his money

Just think of all the bird wings you could buy with that $$$

Oh, just because Sugban's a white guy he automatically likes bird wings? Sheesh.

all races love chicken wings

How are the Residents doing with their "American Composers" series? Last I saw, it ran to Souza, James Brown, and Hank Williams.

Ha, just checked: They stalled doing the "Sun-Ra" one and packed the whole idea...

Unenthusiastic reviews, the transition from vinyl to CD (meaning that the concept of a split album would be spoiled) and re-negotiation of the songwriting fees (making the project financially impossible) scuppered the series.

Why does nobody attempt the "double 3inch CD set" idea I had back whenever?

They were planning to do Harry Partch and Harry Nilsson, which would have been AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh WOW that would have been...