lol pop culture saturation in general
― yellow card for favre (call all destroyer), Monday, 28 September 2009 20:08 (fourteen years ago) link
i think in the best moments of this stuff there's a sort of resigned melancholy that acknowledges that you can't escape the passage of time no matter how hard you try and thereby uses nostalgia as a jumping off point which can be truly uplifting and self-aware as opposed to regressive and escapist.
like the birther movement the cultural and sociological underpinnings of this so-called chillwave must be addressed despite our reservations about its more gnarly phenotypic variations
― uptown churl, Monday, 28 September 2009 20:10 (fourteen years ago) link
to be honest the background music of tmnt (not the theme song) was pretty badass imo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ-9_1J8TuM
― deej, Monday, 28 September 2009 20:13 (fourteen years ago) link
― uptown churl, Monday, September 28, 2009 3:10 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
still so navel gaze-y
― deej, Monday, 28 September 2009 20:18 (fourteen years ago) link
if only they had some pizza and a bottle of wine amirite
― man, motherfuck a paddington bear (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 28 September 2009 20:23 (fourteen years ago) link
are they white btw
― cool app (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Monday, 28 September 2009 20:24 (fourteen years ago) link
don't know anything about any of these bands someone get me up to date
― cool app (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Monday, 28 September 2009 20:25 (fourteen years ago) link
ilx....
― cool app (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Monday, 28 September 2009 20:31 (fourteen years ago) link
― man, motherfuck a paddington bear (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, September 28, 2009 3:23 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
yah for real-- lyrics that are memorable wd probably help these dudes
― deej, Monday, 28 September 2009 20:38 (fourteen years ago) link
I was trying to imply that Girls' lyrics are pretty lolz navel gaze-y but to each his own
― man, motherfuck a paddington bear (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 28 September 2009 20:47 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah except that imo pizza & wine are a lot more universal than the kind of supposedly shared nostalgia these dudes are peddling
― deej, Monday, 28 September 2009 20:51 (fourteen years ago) link
TS: TMNT theme song vs. Pizza!
― man, motherfuck a paddington bear (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 28 September 2009 20:56 (fourteen years ago) link
I think it's strange that the vagueified nostalgia that these bands are trading in is being treated as some kind of compelling art statement. (By some people I maybe read about somewhere, what the fuck am I even talking about?) I mean, I can relate to Ducktails in terms of how it's some pleasant shit to have widdling away in the background, but I don't hear anything crucial in it. The play between real and fake, allure and artificiality that Matt talks about isn't really evident. Not to me, anyway. What I do hear is a familiar tension between genuine fondness for childhood totems and ironic self-awareness, staked out in territory that hasn't been thoroughly reprocessed by this kind of indie reevaluation. Which is cool, but not giving me anything particularly new to think about. Maybe I'm just too old, and therefore my relationship to the objects invoked isn't sufficiently visceral.
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Monday, 28 September 2009 21:19 (fourteen years ago) link
...this is a distinctly post-Boomer generation thing. The Boomers' hated their parents and were possibly the first (last?) generation not to entertain some glassy-eyed nostalgia for the world and pop culture of 20 yrs prior... as the junk culture of America has accumulated over subsequent decades, it just seems sillier and sillier for each generation to pine for the crap of some non-existent idealized childhood (esp one as designed by some faceless corporate juggernaut and manufactured by hapless third world wage slaves)-- Shakey Mo
-- Shakey Mo
I think that's what makes this version of ironic nostalgia seem so unsurprising. Kids in the late sixties were nostalgic about 40s/50s pop they grew up with, but also suspicious of the implicit messages and of nostalgia itself. And regardless of the defensive stances we adopt with regard to nostalgia, we're all nostalgic just the same.
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Monday, 28 September 2009 21:39 (fourteen years ago) link
I think it's strange that the vagueified nostalgia that these bands are trading in is being treated as some kind of compelling art statement
i've always seen 'vagueified nostalgia' as a sort of defining characteristic of most indie sub-genres
― psychgawsple, Monday, 28 September 2009 22:18 (fourteen years ago) link
...and most rock, generally. But most rockers don't consciously sound as if they ape the mannerisms of youth.
― Little starbursts of joy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:20 (fourteen years ago) link
most rock? def not
― deej, Monday, 28 September 2009 22:21 (fourteen years ago) link
Guys there's a difference between people aping the bands they liked as a kid and building your entire aesthetic around how awesome it was to watch Legends Of The Hidden Temple
― Guerilla Zooey (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:25 (fourteen years ago) link
The Beatles, Elton John, CCR, Prince, and so on would like a word with you.
― Little starbursts of joy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:27 (fourteen years ago) link
trying to thing of a nostalgic CCR song
― Mr. Que, Monday, 28 September 2009 22:28 (fourteen years ago) link
you're saying 'vaguefied nostalgia' is a defining characteristic of prince's music
― deej, Monday, 28 September 2009 22:28 (fourteen years ago) link
"Green River"
― Little starbursts of joy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:28 (fourteen years ago) link
Born on the Bayou
― man, motherfuck a paddington bear (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:30 (fourteen years ago) link
(I don't agree that "vaguefied nostalgia" is a defining characteristic of rock tho, dunno where Alfred's goin with that one...)
so by 'vaguefied nostalgia' being a 'defining characteristic,' you mean that these artists often talk about things that happened in the past
― deej, Monday, 28 September 2009 22:31 (fourteen years ago) link
hmm okay so yeah, Cotton Fields is one, too, but I don't think that's what Whiney is talking about
― Mr. Que, Monday, 28 September 2009 22:31 (fourteen years ago) link
I can think of tons of canonical rock artists who didn't truck in any kind of romanticizing of the past - VU, the Stooges, Black Sabbath, etc - this is kinda a dead end argument
― man, motherfuck a paddington bear (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:33 (fourteen years ago) link
i've always seen 'vagueified nostalgia' as a sort of defining characteristic of most indie sub-genres― psychgawsple
― psychgawsple
Without getting into that, the vaguification here is very thick -- foregrounded, even. By application of reverb, of course, because that's how it's done, but also conceptually (by which I mean pictures that are blurry). Last night, I was listening to an old cassette tape of some friends jamming as teens (synth, drum machines, processed guitar) in 1980-something, and was surprised by how Ducktails-contemporary it sounded.
Guys there's a difference between people aping the bands they liked as a kid and building your entire aesthetic around how awesome it was to watch Legends Of The Hidden Temple― Whiney
― Whiney
Yeah, but that's my point. The only difference is the object of nostalgia, not nostalgia or one's relationship to it. And that's considerably less interesting -- from a generalist outsider's perspective.
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:34 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, I have a better idea now that I've reread these posts. You can claim "Strawberry Fields Forever" as one of the ground zeros: the spacey vocals, use of space, and general musical weirdness make it one of those songs written by an ostensible adult that consciously seeks some kind of comfort in the past ("Penny Lane" too, for that matter). But Animal Collective don't have Lennon as a singer -- or Ringo as a drummer.
― Little starbursts of joy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:34 (fourteen years ago) link
ground zeros for indie bands like AC, that is.
hey contenderizer welcome back i think?
― yellow card for favre (call all destroyer), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:35 (fourteen years ago) link
i think i see what deej and whiney and co are getting at but i gotta say it doesnt really bug me at all
― fleetwood (max), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:37 (fourteen years ago) link
I mean, compare Redd Kross' pop obsessions w/ hypnogogic band X's...
Thanks CAD, I think...
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:38 (fourteen years ago) link
I was listening to an old cassette tape of some friends jamming as teens (synth, drum machines, processed guitar) in 1980-something, and was surprised by how Ducktails-contemporary it sounded.
woods✧✧✧@gm✧✧✧.c✧✧
― Guerilla Zooey (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:40 (fourteen years ago) link
woodsist
hypnogogic band
oh no you dint
― man, motherfuck a paddington bear (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:40 (fourteen years ago) link
i think ducktails are pretty boring -- but thats in some ways separate from the thing that kinda bothers me about this 'movement' being more along the lines of Wire mag writers making a huge deal about something that isnt that big of a deal ... its like the music nerd equivalent of an ny times trend piece on potbellies in brooklyn
― deej, Monday, 28 September 2009 22:43 (fourteen years ago) link
like, im sure theres a band out there in this umbrella that could be doing some shit i actually dig, so this isnt a criticism of like max's enjoyment of ducktails, music to get stoned to, or whatever.
okay wait there is a band called Ducktails?!? I thought we were talking about the TV show
― man, motherfuck a paddington bear (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:46 (fourteen years ago) link
lolz I am old
― man, motherfuck a paddington bear (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:47 (fourteen years ago) link
a woo ooh
― Guerilla Zooey (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:47 (fourteen years ago) link
This thread revive's spleen is healing me a little, thx WGW. This aesthetic is absolutely trampling the independent comics scene the last 4 or 5 years... similar to what you describe at the Whitney. The crayons, the pages drawn over line-ruled notebook paper, the Garfields etc etc. I kind of feel like this (the Peter Pan wave) is at the crux of some kind of generation gap between my cohort of cartoonists and ones 10-20 years younger. And w/each year the wave's getting bigger.
But then on the other hand, the Ben Jones story in the new Kramer's Ergot-flavored Simpsons Halloween comic was pretty brilliant so i dunno.
I guess I feel like not all the interesting ways of spinning out fantasy/interesting headfuckery/emotional weight necessarily have to stem from childhood?
― Wee Tam and the lolhueg (Jon Lewis), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:47 (fourteen years ago) link
Also this is the first I've heard abt a band called DuckTails and unless they're playing some kind of tech-death I am appalled.
― Wee Tam and the lolhueg (Jon Lewis), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:48 (fourteen years ago) link
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Monday, September 28, 2009 6:38 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark
sorry that came out wrong--i meant i think youve been away for a while? always enjoyed yr posts.
― yellow card for favre (call all destroyer), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:51 (fourteen years ago) link
most rockers don't consciously sound as if they ape the mannerisms of youth
most indie rockers do tho
The only difference is the object of nostalgia, not nostalgia or one's relationship to it
that whole 'legends of the hidden temple' scenario seems pretty fantastic to me, tbh
― psychgawsple, Monday, 28 September 2009 22:53 (fourteen years ago) link
writing childlike rythms and performing with a sense of playfulness in order to tap the ancient subconcious wellsprings of nostalgia isn't a bad idea; "unicorns are people too" is probably the best thing ever recorded in this style and is one of my alltime favourite albums. but it's something that works best as a vehicle for a song, or an album. definitely not something to base your entire discography on.
― samosa gibreel, Monday, 28 September 2009 22:54 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah, Jon. Comics look like dogshit now.
Stick-figure: "RAD!"Frog: "COOL!"Both: "RADICOOL!"
― Guerilla Zooey (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:54 (fourteen years ago) link
*childlike melodies
but it's something that works best as a vehicle for a song, or an album. definitely not something to base your entire discography on.
otm
― Guerilla Zooey (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, 28 September 2009 22:55 (fourteen years ago) link
imagine if all White Stripes songs sounded like "We're Gonna Be Friends"