Indie Guilt: C/D

very confusing. Nu-ILM needs answerz, y0!

Do not feed the troll.

why the shame?

and Clarke B., there's a difference between moving on from something and totally pass/aggr. denial of existance.

(When did I say this Mark? I'm surprised I was so even-handed.)

"WHY Y'ALL FRONTIN'?" is the question, and nu-ILM WANTS ANSWERZ NOW DAMNIT!

In that case, I don't even know what "Indie" is. Can someone enlighten me? phil

Indie-est albums on my cd rack above my desk = Shipping News, Storm and Stress, Sugababes, Kelis, Pink, Box Tops.

Oh yeah, there's some Piano Magic buried at the back that I haven't listened to in forever.

Speaking very generally, people who listen to a single genre (or network of interrelated genres like "indie" or "dance") of music exclusively or near-exclusively I find less interesting - on the boards or in real life, talking about music or not - than people who listen to a lot of different kinds of music. In my experience this particularly applies to American indie rock. There are of course exceptions to this and I'm not proposing this as anything other than a personal preference/prejudice.

eh...that thread never gets anywhere close to an honest answer. it just trashes indie, which is as positive or negative as making fun of anything else, but evidentally not here at ILM, where the "good old days" and the golden hindsight (or is it sepia?) of nostalgia seems to pale anything recent.

m.

And sorry I missed gygax's link to Jess' website - gygax, that was fuckin' weak man.

Why the frontin'? is the question this morning, folks. And the anticipated hip-hop/pop response followed by Sleater Kinney are godz apology is the most interesting so far.

only stupid indie-people think everything has to be a fucking apology.

man msp nobody whined about stuff like that back in the day -- ethan (ethanp@bellsouth.net), May 29, 2002.

oh i agree. we were watching cartoons. i do remember whining about not getting a transformers toy...but then i realized how much radder go-bots were... only to now be completely embarrassed by both!

it doesn't "just trash indie", it includes my observation that LPs with the same number of cuts on both sides are all terrible -- mark s (mark@evazev.demon.co.uk), May 29, 2002.

i WAS heavy handed when i said that...it did have some good points here and there and people made the good case that they've moved on, broadened their horizons, etc etc. so have i... but i still have little or no desire to purchase just about anything top 40 radio programming has to offer and that probably most of purchases, regardless of genre, are tiny re-issues or limited release crap that 3 folks in the basement of co-op put out with money they spare changed and gave blood to make. and some of that includes some rock, and some of it is still pretty worthwhile listening even stacked next to "legends and greats"...

so back to gygax's question...what's the haps? what makes indie a object to be deplored any more than anything?

m.

Indie guilt wouldn't exist if people weren't persecuted in some respect for their musical taste, whether by friends or strangers. If everyone found all music to be acceptable, regardless of its origin or popularity, then the people who carry indie guilt wouldn't feel compelled to obscure their tastes in public or private discussion. But the question was: Is indie guilt a classic or a dud? I think it's classic only because it will continue to be around as long as there exists music elitests who insist on belittling others' tastes in music. And in that regard, I suppose it's of anthropological/sociological interest to study people's actions and reactions in response to that guilt. But just the same, I wish it was a dud because people should be able to enjoy what they want without feeling the need to justify an interest in music to which others might object.

But if there was an Indie Guilt Meter, this place would have the needle slamming in the red all of the time.

Because the set-up of greenspun.com means that all previous topics remain 'live' - so it's just as easy to answer and take up points in that thread as this one.

Jess, I've deeply enjoyed Jess' writing on West Coast post- hardcore circa 1989-1993. There's no lack of respect here.

Clarke, the link was to illustrate my confusion. I'm confused by some of the strength and breadth of opinions here, but the most stringiest anti-indie backlash has been at the hands of those who were head deep in it during the mid-90s. Reminds me of my neighbor Bill Scott who signed up to for the war, got shipped to Vietnam, now despises the USA.

I don't find this difficult to wrap my head around.

Mark S fave quote (one of them) - "We were promised the end of the world and we didn't get it", Charlotte Pressler.

"We were promised [XXXXXXX] and we didn't get it." - there is some [XXXXXXX] - might be different for everyone, might be similar - which indie promised and reneged on. The question is, what? I'm already late for meeting my friends tonight but I'll have a think about that.

How else are the conforming non-conformists going to distance themselves from their identical brethern? In their quest to be different, they end up with the same clothing, the same piercings, the same tattoos, and the same convoluted take on individuality. So as a reaction to that, they need a common enemy, something to despise (because despising Top 40 would mean you care enough about Top 40 to acknowledge its existence when apathy is all the rage, punny enough).

The elitests deplore indie because it's what they know best, it's what they once enjoyed and now find unacceptable because it doesn't meet their fleeting, mercurial expectations. Instead of risking ridicule for being unlike their decidedly biased peers, they decide it's acceptable to trash the genre they once supported because it couldn't possibly be like it was in the good ol' days. But as they continue to disassociate themselves from the actual music in favor of critiquing the entire genre, their opinion becomes increasingly moot.

And anyone under the age of 20 shouldn't be talking about "the kids."

so, indie would be like your middle school girl or boy friend...while these other tastes are more developed relationships you had as you got older?

not really indie's lack of depth, but your understanding of music/love of a genre as you matured as a music lover?

if that's what you're going on, that's probably the best explanation offered so far, in my humble opinion.

m.

I haven't had time to beat any wives lately because I've been so busy throwing away all of my records with the same number of songs on each side.

Cheers.

I prefer that the kids not talk about "the kids" because they are, in fact, "the kids." People over 40 can do whatever the hell they want.

Cheers.

guilt:
Remorseful awareness of having done something wrong.
Self-reproach for supposed inadequacy or wrongdoing.

Why the guilt, ex-indie rockers? new answers please.

b-but why did you buy them in the first place? can't you COUNT!?

If sequencing or song placement is the measure by which you determine the quality of a record, then I am very pleased indeed that we have little in common with regard to taste in music.

I know it must be endlessly rewarding to develop such a carefully calculated theory about "Symmetric Tracks Per Side" (or STPS as "the kids" are calling it), but the records sound so much better when you actually take them out of the sleeves and play them once in a while. I know, then it won't be MINT anymore, but you could always eBay it.

Oh, and I love your answer to the original question. Very direct.

Cheers.

(oh God, I sound stupid when I try to make a sensible point )

case in point: In the 1996 thread, someone mentioned defending any year (with rare exception) with "indie" records was *gasp* "precarious" (interesting how these words are used usually by people who quote dictionary definitions O_o), yet this person is clearly an indie product (as tackily (but necessarily as to make this particular point) referenced above). there is a definite anti-indie backlash in this forum, usually by those who possibly embraced it harder than others. i singled one person out unfairly, but this person is far from being the lone voice of indie guilt on ILM.

i'm looking to answer the question, not attack any online persona... Esp, not any wigga! Some of my best friends are wiggaz. w3rd y0! I think Josh's answer is most OTM so far.

HAHA, it's not ALL indie records, I won't defend indie, somebody else's music. I'm more concerned about Indie Guilt phenomena that runs rampant on ILM. It's confused me.

HAHA, if someone would have put all jazz records (or all country/electronic/dub/house), i guarantee all y'all indie apologists would've stroked their chins in unison.

C'mon, what was happening in the charts, with the stuff that most people were listening to?

there's some groundbreaking shit that has influenced all the way into the POP stratosphere there right here and now today. obviously someone was listening to those records...

Sterling, do you think that rejecting indie self-consciously after finding someone else who shared the same (i'll use this word cautiously) "precious" LoComDenom/indie interests as you has made you into someone who wants to have GCD shared musical interests (eg, the hip-hop/pop listening pile?)

& I didn't self consciously reject indie after that, but now lo-this-many-years-later I can look back and perhaps see that as something pivotal, something which shattered my perception of the nature of the music and a person's necessary relationship to it, which broke through some idealist strand of essentialism and forced me out of that particular rut.

That's going to be the nature of lists by one person any time, not just with indie. It could be a list consistenting of indie, pop, and smooth jazz and still it wouldn't encompess music as a whole. I just don't think it's possible for one person to listen to everything and make an informed decision being totally fair to all genre's, all while comparing apples to oranges. I'd rather see personal lists, i want to know what YOU liked in 1996 regardless if it was indie or not.

More important than TIGERMILK? [totally joking here]

& I didn't self consciously reject indie after that, but now lo- this-many-years-later I can look back and perhaps see that as something pivotal, something which shattered my perception of the nature of the music and a person's necessary relationship to it, which broke through some idealist strand of essentialism and forced me out of that particular rut. i understand, agree (!?!?), and more importantly, that was nice and concisely put. i think there is a lot of personal reasons not worth getting into with this subject and i admit I didn't have the right angle at first, but amid the varying pleas for sympathetic chortles, there were quite a few nice replies. i have to leave ILM now for the lab (please, hold back the groans and tears), but I have definitely learned something today about ILM and the extremely essential love/hate indie relationship within. thank you all.

unless his = her

Then what, huh? If I'm "her," I can't beat my wife? Are you gonna beat my wife? "Gonna beat my wife!" Oh wait, is that an indie song?

Seriously, what the fuck is the wife-beating thing about? Must be another ILM thing that I wouldn't understand. Inside jokes, *yawn*.

Thanks for answering the question, Mark. Underwhelming as evah.

Cheers.

the problem w.yr posts, namdam, is that they always contain even numbers of letters

I won't, though. I'm gonna go to the corner store for some Coke.

throw out the elitism or ditch the egalitarianism so you feel ok.

result: snotty hipster elitists or, uh, sterl ha ha

P433R M3.

I'll see your *yawn* and raise you a *sigh*: "the wife-beating thing" is the classic rhetorical example of a loaded question.

The question "Have you stopped beating your wife?" presupposes that you have beaten your wife prior to its asking, as well as that you have a wife. If you are unmarried, or have never beaten your wife, then the question is loaded. Since the example is a yes/no question, there are only the following two direct answers: (a) "Yes, I have stopped beating my wife", which entails "I was beating my wife." (b) "No, I haven't stopped beating my wife", which entails "I am still beating my wife." Thus, either direct answer entails that you have beaten your wife, which is, therefore, a presupposition of the question. So, a loaded question is one which cannot be directly answered without implying a falsehood. For this reason, the proper response to such a question is not to answer it directly, but to either refuse to answer or to reject the question.

I'm less making that argument than I am suggesting it. Other thing to consider: the other half of indie-bashing on ILM revolves around criticizing indie kids for being head-up-ass insular. Note the twin pincers, both of which get adopted by the indie-friendly and the indie-bashing and used as appropriate: (a) you suck for only listening to indie, and (b) you suck for making conspicuous efforts to listen to things other than indie. Isn't "indie guilt" in the question as posed here just a way of saying either (a) you suck for both of those or (b) you suck for caring about the question at all?

The issue's been gone over enough times on ILM that I don't fault anyone for not wanting to put a ton of energy into it again. A lot of it is "political" anyway, a tool for those who want to chip away at the stranglehold indie-centric discourse has had over music discourse for the last decade (especially online). And a lot of it is a way of slapping back at whatever perceived "indie community" wasn't giving enough credit to, say, pop fans during that period. And a lot of it is just sides-switching, now that indie's having something of a bad patch and danceable radio-friendly pop is having such a good one. All of which combines to make it basically irrelevant. YES indie is a bit of a whipping-boy around here. It still gets talked about constantly and seriously, and the barbs thrown its way aren't any worse than the barbs a lot of indie kids still reflexively throw at anything in the top 40. Fine. Good. Listen to things, talk about things, and quit being so hypercritical of everyone's motives for listening to or talking about the things they do.

http://www.ludd.luth.se/ ~kavli/Thunderbirds/TracyFamily.jpg

anthony to thread!!

That doesn't matter. In fact it doesn't even matter whether they actually look or not. The point is that a certain percentage of indie fans at least mentally recognize that their other-genre listening doesn't live up to their ideals of being critically open- minded and musically omnivorous. The thought experiment was that by Tom's standards, that should be a step better than just ignoring everything else.

And once again what the hell is wrong with that? I mean, why wouldn't people who like indie like music from other genres that has affinities with indie? You can use the same thought- experiment to turn that back into a compliment, if you want to: you could argue that indie kids really are as open-minded about genre as their rhetoric likes to think, insofar as they'll listen to anything, regardless of musical genre, so long as it offers them what they enjoy in the "emotional" or "philosophical" or really "cultural" senses.

Parker's saying to Lady Penelope "I'm better than you, because you like Helen Love"

4d. i am as all know a huge DC fan of course, and far too old ever to have been an indiekid (beside, indie killed punk rock, maaan)

(sorry abt yr bad day)

mr tracy = dave van ronk
parker = mingus
lady p = the shirelles
tin-tin = bratmobile
brains = the brazen hussies

Gin + Tonic = the answer to so very many problems

sigh

Anyone who engages in two-dimensional, broad-brush slags of indie people -- a group among whom I don't really number myself, by the way, although I do like a fair amount of indie label stuff -- is implicitly waiving their right to ever complain at receiving the same treatment. I don't like sneery pissing-contest stereotyping from any genre's Pod People, be it indie, hiphop, chart pop, jazz, or whatever else.

point being if you'd've lived in SoCal during N.W.A.'s ascendance you'd know that you couldn't be more wrong in your assesment

And so the race card, implicit throughout this discussion, is finally played...

On the other hand I do indeed think there are major race-driven subtexts going on in this discussion. I too am capable of Ye Olde Semi-Ironye.

if you got into my show for three bucks then you owe me a pack of smokes

Yeah, I'm not so much disputing that as suggesting that maybe it's irrelevant and maybe even admirable, insofar as it implies that while indie kids are looking for Quality X that's prevalent in indie, they may well be just as open to finding Quality X in any genre.

NB, SAGE I am not necessarily saying that this is true. Mainly I'm thinking that it's weird and counterintuitive and sort of silly to get all vexed about people who like Genre A enjoying things in Genre B that border on Genre A. I mean, they like Genre A, that's the whole damned point.

Also while I don't disagree with a lot of the indie-bashing on here (I'm here, aren't I? And don't I always say that indie's been on a downhill slope for a few years now?), I still maintain that a lot of it is flip and political and disingenuous: (a) the indie kids I know really do listen to a lot more than just indie, and (b) I don't think indie insularity is really much stronger than that of any other scene (just easier to make fun of). I mean, if we're complaining about this shit with indie, we should gang up on hardcore and really have a good time.

erm i mean yeah Rap Attack 7 that's where itz at fool

(this is TRUE!! well nearly kinda w.some stretching and tweaking)

I understand why you say this, but don't you think there's a subtext here (and this is the aspect of my "race card" post that wasn't in jest) that indie people gravitate towards forms of hip-hop that are somehow less "authentic" because they feel threatened by -- or at least a lack of affinity towards -- certain aspects of African-American culture? Maybe I'm wrong, but I've gotten that sense throughout this thread, and on many other occasions.

(What do indie kids think of Eminem, anyway?)

(And where does the myth of the badass fit into all this?)

(That was 68.4% in jest)

They "quite like" that Eminem/Smiths bootleg.

GOodnight.

Yes this is why indie people (in the general not the specific sense) got the broad-brush slags in the first place Phil! They claimed "mainstream" or "Top 40" as a genre = they got the same treatment back.

Nitsuh has misunderstood my point I think. I consciously said that I find people who listen to lots of things more interesting than people who listen to one thing, without specifying what that one thing might be. eg I think the Jay-Z/Nas thread is funny and entertaining but I also don't actually read it much.

(I'm also not saying that it's very difficult or effortful to listen to lots of things - my cousin Leila listens to lots of things - hip- hop, nu-metal, guitar pop, teen-pop, trance, big ballads, ragga - every time she puts on the NOW records I buy her.)

Though the crossover of Naughty By Nature's f'in' brilliant and f'in' hard-ass debut remains a mystery to this day

it might have something to do with hooks.

Er, I already figured that one out, Tom...:-) My point was that, by offering the same treatment back -- rather than by positing an inclusive, uniting "third way" in which the virtues of good pop and good indie are appreciated -- you're basically "sinking to their level" = acknowledging that you have nothing more interesting to say (than what they're saying) = acknowledging that their behavior was completely legitimate, since you're engaging in it too.

(haha, contrary to this thread, i can actually produce coherent thoughts.)

except for that bit about my ace of base cover being my best work

kidding kidding

For fairness' sake - so people on ILM can get an idea of what the "new" people on this thread usually talk about.

NB yes I know BDP are too "conscious" to count as black according to most anglo interpreters of hiphop roolz

let's have another g + t shall we

(which is a bit like being the tallest midget, yes, but still...)

Is this an 'indie' attitude rather than a 'pop' attitude? Let me explain...

I don't think of 'indie' or 'pop' as types of music, but as attitudes to music and listening to music. Listening to something because it's 'good' = indie; listening to something because you like it = pop; having to think about whether you like something or not, or what kind of music it is, etc. = definitely indie (ie the whole point of ILM). But because I'm not sure there is such a thing as a pure unmediated reaction to music (pure instinctive liking) that would mean that there is no 'true' pop fan (especially not the infamous critical model eg. 14 yr old girls): everyone is 'indie' to some extent.

Which certainly makes *me* indie, however much I like pop music, and the same probably goes for the rest of ILM, and anyone who can even be bothered to argue about this.

There's a separate issue about the insularity of particular scenes, which is I think a misleading way of thinking about the problem. Scenes or particular groups of fans do not exist as such -- they are posited, either as the subject of a proposition ('we true fans of X') or as its object ('those bastard fans of Y'), and thus are only constituted polemically: 'which side are you on boys?'

Sterling said this and it is my favourite piece of this thread so far!

Yes there is

1) Kids under 9.

2)The vast majority of the general non-music obsessed public who just hear stuff on the radio and buy <5 CDs a year. They'll instinctively like/dislike a record without knowing if they're supposed to like it or whether listening to it will be 'good for them'. Even if people have heard that a record is meant to be good (here : good = sells a lot) they feel under pressure to like it if they don't.

Not a big blues fan, then? ;) (Or soul for that matter)

So you can consume Destiny's Child in an indie way. eg. Simon Reynolds claiming that 'Writing on the Wall' is better than 'Survivor' even though he appears to be liking it in a pop way, since the reason is mass-produced machine pop vs. auteur theory rockism: Beyonce produces too much of 'Survivor' for his taste. At the same time we can consume Piano Magic in a pop way as well.

I think I wanted to suggest that there is a genuine tension between pop and indie ways of listening to music, since one is evaluative and tends to dismiss other music (not necessarily on genre grounds) while the other is more open and doesn't necessarily categorize at all (caring about whether something is pop or dance or metal or not = indie.)

Yahoo Serious Festival.

("I know those words, but that sign doesn't make sense.")

1) Setting up "pop" and "indie" as the two poles just doesn't make any sense to me, especially because indie is NOT at all the ultimate example of "Listening to something because it's 'good'";

2) "caring about whether something is pop or dance or metal or not = indie" -- this sentence bewilders me because it has so little to do with how I listen to/think about music, though that depends on what you mean by caring, i.e. I care if it helps me better understand the piece of music and how it relates to other pieces of music and what its primary signifiers are, inasmuch as a genre label can be handy shorthand for identifying a completely different mindset/mode of listening you need to adopt to be receptive to that which is being communicated by the work.

Anyway, in my original. statement, for "good pop and good indie" read "good music"; the terms of the equation were dictated by the topic of discussion, not by any belief on my part that those constitute poles of musical discourse.

We all make decisions about what we listen to and what we don't. The distinction I'm attempting to play with is between a) consuming music in a pop fashion; b) consuming it in an indie fashion. In each case the kinds of criteria for the decision are different:

a) 'because I hear it'

b) 'because it's good'

Are these different enough to make the point?

NB I'm not trying to have a go at *anyone*. I'm only playing with the conceptual distinction to see if I can make something useful out of it. But this doesn't seem that far from the issue raised by the original poster, however, insofar as his problem was: what are your criteria for choosing what you listen to (or claim to listen to): honest liking vs. ironic posturing.

The beef I've had for a while with the indie press (and due to their efforts to be like them, some indie fans) is that it takes its liking of other genres as an indication of the universality and objectivity of its gaze. Perhaps part of the problem is caused by the vagueness of the term "indie", which in many people's minds is a qualitative tag as much as a stylistic one.

That's one way in which Pitchfork or NME's music coverage differs from, say, The Source or Mixmag or Boomkat - there's a heavy connotation that what's been covered is "the good stuff" rather than any particular style. So when they branch outside indie-proper, it's always to the other "good stuff" - but what that quality is exactly is left largely undefined, so the perhaps unintended implication is that the non-indie music being covered is the best stuff on its own genre's terms, as well as on indie's terms.

The "indie = the center" image works well here: rather than simply exploring the borders of adjacent styles (whose very proximity causes their characteristics to blur with indie's) as per N*tsuh's formulation, the indie press imagine indie as a sun around which other styles orbit, lit up only when their faces are turned towards indie, and cold and dark when facing away. Without indie, these styles are shapeless forms of rock, and it is only indie's energy (or, rather, its values and qualities) which gives them life, growth, meaning. Some stylistic planets are further away than others and thus receive less light overall ("chart-pop" = Pluto), but nonetheless each planet receives light on a portion of its face, and therefore its artists can be rated from one to ten in terms of indiefication (eg. Missy beats nu-Shakira; Basement Jaxx beats Todd Terry).

On a related note, the only time I've been really, genuinely pissed off with Pitchfork is when I read its "The Best Records of 2000" list - which made no effort whatsoever to admit either a) its subjectivity or b) the fact that 95% of the records were indie. Whereas while dance magazine album lists are invariably shitty, at least there's acknowledgement that, yes, it's a list of dance albums.

Yes, that's clear. But..

** would be very wary of positing 'pop' as a natural condition of music consumption, which is why I totally disagree with Dr C**

Then, I'm not sure I understand why you disagree. (I'm prob. being fick)

Unless.... you mean that the 'general public' that I described cannot be considered as *fans*. But surely they listen in a 'pop' or 'close to pop' way?

If you meant 'close to pop' then probably we agree (but I think the difference between 'true' and 'close to' is vital which => over- reaction, poss.).

The problem I'm caught in here is that I'm not happy with any of the terms: I was playing with them to try to find out what I thought they meant, or if they could be made more useful. In a piece I wrote for the last FT birthday collection, I argued for a way of thinking about music which I called 'pop' and defined 'against the logic of the record collector, the Mojo reader and the indie-kid, the connoisseur.' So clearly indie is an arbitrary target, determined by the context we're in -- 'ie why does ILM pretend not to like indie'.

Example: In a couple of places in _The Differend_ Lyotard proclaims himself to be pro 'philosophy' and against 'intellectuals'. By intellectuals he means those who assert the hegemony of one phrase regime (roughly: way of thinking about the world) over all the others. Philosophy would be finding ways of thinking which don't do this. Lyotard does not claim to be a philosopher, though the implication may be that his book is an attempt at philosophy. Elsewhere he compares the way of thinking he's looking for with a child's way of looking at the world. He doesn't mean let's do away with adult thought etc., but take on what we (adults) think of as children's responses, even though they may bear little relation to how a child actually responds. (I'm elaborating slightly uncertainly at this point.)

I'm not attacking indie ways of listening -- and certainly not claiming to be anything other than an indie listener myself -- but wondering if there are other ways we can think about, by pushing the terms beyond the way they seem to have been being used so far on the thread. Whatever kind of way of thinking about music leads to the original post, I can do without

(also, if they played indie on the radio, it would likely make me sad and not listen to it. although i could just turn it off, which is another joy of pop, hurrah!)

I don't think listening to music because it's good should be equated with indie. This word is really being stretched unmercifully.

Err okay this is the only thing I was trying to get at above. Not that the complaints aren't worth discussing -- it's just that I don't see these complaints applying to indie any more than they do to any other genres. In fact I see them applying less to indie. In fact I think two things are in operation: (a) we're all just more annoyed with it coming from indie, because talking-about-music-online means exposure to lots of indie-kid posturing, and (b) indie is the primary genre that rhetorically tries or even just pretends to look out to other genres, so it's the only hand reaching out to be slapped back and criticized for doing it wrong.

What's being criticized is what Tim points out above: the indie rhetorical stance that indie fans are critical and discerning listeners who "like what's good," as opposed to just people who happen to like indie. Obviously that's not true. But I don't see anyone offering a very good argument that it's not closer to true of indie -- which in my U.S. conceptions of it, in terms of what the full-on "indie kids"* around me actually listen to, is a wide and stylistically varied territory -- than most other genres.

pop discourse = bad, because it is defined by what it leaves out rather than what it includes.

avant discourse = dad.

2nd choice of genre is choice of attitude/worldview/ethos and sometimes choice to INVESTIGATE a particular a/w/e. There needs to be some recognition that the charts aren't everything, but are an inescapable natural center of social consensus and contentestation.

I think that both my Hannah Marcus and Tiffany articles for f/t were attempts to grapple with this, and that my Tweet article was by way of dealing with associated concerns of "authenticity" in art.

No, not at all.

my post was a bit clumsy, partly because this entire thread is an exercise in clumsyness (particularly my own posts)

Apparently my post was clumsy too, if it left you thinking I might have been offended. (And you are right about the thread in general.) I guess I was just trying to sort through to what extent I am or have ever been an "indie" listener. At one point I kind of was in an eltitist sense (though my listening wasn't particularly focused on rock), and at another point I listened to a lot of indie, though I was open to other things. Now I hardly listen to any indie. That's all. If anything, at times I have fallen back on the indie stuff I've listened to in order to justify the pop things I've listened to. ("It's okay for me to listen to Dionne Warwick, I also listen to Coil.") I think I'm finally arriving at a place where I almost never think that way. Still, something similar creeps in: it's okay that I like some salsa romantica, since I also like salsa dura out of Colombia. But in a way I would worry if I only listened to soft/easy listening music and not anything with an edge to it. But that's a different issue. I just hope I don't feel that listening to Sun Ra's "Other Planes of There" somehow atones (a/tones) for listening to Frankie Ruiz.

in other words we're back to songwriting vs production hooray - - I suppose this is sort of true, but what I was trying to get at is the North-American chart phenomenon where the same sort of power- ballad mode is at the heart of big singles from any genre: a "country" Shania Twain hit is a "Latin" Shakira hit is a "rock" Incubus hit is an "r&b" Ginuwine ballad. Possibly bad examples, but in a whole lot of cases I don't think of it as "production" so much as ... well, something like artists covering one another in different genres. The same cake, different frosting: thankfully this only applies to a certain type of hit, and the new modes of actual production for hip-hop and r&b have cut through it pretty drastically.

Actually N///tsuh I listened to a Death Cab For Cutie song for the first time today and was reminded of how indie songwriting's seemingly-arbitrary tempo changes were one of the things that really put me off it in the first place. -- Err Death Cab for Cutie do do that quite a bit (although I've always liked to think well, as they are apparently the last and most conventional indie band in my head to surpass their own conventionality by executing the conventions really, really, really effectively). It's the (post) post- rock thing: they want to be all loose and mercurial. Actually Tom if you are still up for "comfort-indie" We Have the Facts... should be where it's at.

Err okay this is the only thing I was trying to get at above."

No I don't think it is, N*tsuh. You were comparing liking indie as a style to liking other styles. I'm comparing using indie as a framework to listen to all types of music versus using pop - where indie and pop are basically the *only* frameworks. I have consciously and unconsciously tried v. hard to use dance music as a framework to listen to all types of music but it's a) very hard and b) very rare, not least because there's less of a sense of universality to dance's qualities and values. In that sense we're talking about pop and indie as modes of reception vs pop and indie as styles. It would be cool if we *could* talk about dance music and heavy metal and country as modes of reception, quite apart from the value of breaking the binary opposition (Sterling is this sort of thing what you're referring to?).

My question, N*tsuh, was more: is there a concrete reason why trying to listen for "pop" values in anything is better than trying to listen for "indie" values. I think there *is*. I just can't articulate it yet (i know i know, no approval before delivery).

Yes, but I don't think listening for one Quality, or a v. small jumble of connected Qualities, is a good thing. Perhaps the reason why a POP mode of reception is better is that it's open to a multiplicity of Qualities, open even to inventing new ones on the spot.

Everytime I hear the Shakira single I first think its a celine production, but shania has what I'd consider the closest to tight conventional pop of any of the artists, all hook and chorus and mechanical precision of delivery, and at the same time maintains her own image & character as an authentic performer -- in the great American tradition its all show.

On Tim's point, I think ppl do turn metal and country into centers, viz Rock and the Pop Narcotic for exmple but its probably just a much harder mentality for those of this board to connect to.

Could we get away with expanding "those of this board" to "the broader critical dialogue"? I think you're right, but I also think that Carducci is quite a ways from the front-and-center critically for a very clear reason.

But the only "pop values" anyone's suggested on the receptive end are that you're not "trying" or "listening" for anything at all. Also I completely reject the assertion that "pop" listening isn't searching for a set of particular Qualities just as much as "indie" listening is, either in reception or in style. In fact I might even reject the idea that there is any difference between pop listening and indie listening -- difference in the rhetoric used to talk about it, and differences in the flows of the two cultures that lead people to value different things at different times, but not differences in the listening itself.

And what's with this "using [x] as a framework to view all music"? I simply don't buy the things that are being said about "indie listening". Most people I know who are deeply into classical music have most of the traits ascribed to the mythical indie listener in far larger quantities. (If anything, my initial experiences with indie gave me the impression that it seemed less discriminating and more omnivorous.)

I don't think listening to music because it's good should be equated with indie. This word is really being stretched unmercifully.

Yep, pretty much.

On the one hand, yes, I agree that 'indie' is an arbitrary label for these -- fetishistic? rockist? -- tendencies.

But it is also as good a label as any other.

And it certainly carries some of the associations in question: ie. implied set of valued traits including authenticity, innovation, experimentation, reverence for tradition, artistic expression, resistance to the hegemony of the mainstream, etc.

But the use of the term was prescribed in advance by the original post which implies that people on ILM are ashamed to be into indie and therefore pretent to like other forms of music.

go to hell losers

(i only bought it to impress him anyway.)

word on the street is that there's nothing you can do to eminem, stab him shoot at him.

Oh my God put down the crack pipe. That is the wackest thing posted here today or anywhere else...EVAH

i'm an indykid and i'm not ashamed. i was for a while, but theres only so much denial i could honestly live with. i'm not just an indykid though, i am also several other things. however i don't doubt that its possible to dislike indie. i mean lots of it sux. but then i'm not really sure exactly what it is so myabe i should just shut up.

(also, the ass fucking was non-gender specific.)

(*first person to come on and say, "madrigals weren't 12th century doofus" is automatically disqualified as INDIE.)

You've swallowed some rather silly Internet-rumors by thinking he's black, my friend... (not that that would matter anyway, since the wigga thing is an obvious JOKE).

Jess, it only qualifies if you dug the Supremes in their Afros.....

The bit behind your ears?

i miss you di, although we never talked.... yesterday i scoured the sale bins at galaxy and picked up some elpees by death cab for cutie, beta-band, yo la tengo, fake purr and joy division for only ten bucks! while i'm complaining, i really fucken hate pretentious-ass diaries. and there's so many of them. and they're all so, so bad. everyone should just write about the class struggle and masturbation. then i'd be happy.

i need coffee.

do not act f-ing out on soap opera urges... we're cosmically spiritually intertwined, duuuude!!!!!! there is a world out there. i'm taking it on faith!!! indie rock is like high school all over again, except the football team is the guys from basement jaxx showing off how cool they are!!!!!!

i love my stripey friend rockgrrl.

yay. i've got a big crush on a rocking boi called dwayne. he's cute - everytime we meet my insides turn into quivery jelly & i become a stammering dork. today, while awake, i imagined myself given the respiratory system requiring orange paint as i was simultaneously being drowned in it!

because i am strange and just have a constant urge to spend money, i am now very poor. i miss my chuck... roxor.

Well, I, for one, have had enough. It's time to shake up the status quo and put a little fear in the heart of the Establishment. Yes, consider this an official declaration of war: Look out, Corporate America, here comes my pirate radio station!

Last Friday, Radio Free Tate, the city's first and only broadcast forum for the disenfranchised voices of the country, went on the air. Located somewhere between 89.5 and 91.3 FM, Radio Free Tate is going to let corporate America have it with both barrels: the truths they're afraid to say and the songs they're afraid to play.

I may not have the broadcast range of a big station, but I compress a whole lot of rebellion into a six-block radius. You'd better believe this mouse is going to roar.

And, unlike the rest of the world, I'm not interested in feeding my audience a steady diet of nothing. While most radio listeners are complacently soaking in the latest teeny-pop brain sedative or the semi-digested pap of the Tweedledee & Tweedledum Morning Zoo show, I'm out there telling it like it is. I'm not afraid to talk about the class war against the poor, the deplorable state of popular music, or the sham election that put Dubya into the Whitewash House. Corporate America, you'd better watch your backside, because there's a new sheriff on your radio dial!

I had no idea starting a pirate radio station would be so easy. All I needed was a microphone, a PLL transmitter, a Comet antenna, a 20-watt dummy load kit, a 6-watt amplifier, some old Minor Threat and Bad Brains records, and a self-constructed broadcast booth in my basement. It's so simple, I'm surprised more people don't do it. Then again, how many people have the guts? After all, I'm living outside the law. I know for a fact that the government and the corporate fatcats would love to shut me down. They don't want people to hear what I'm dishing out. Well, tough! I'm going to bring The Man to his knees, one song at a time.