Jon Wren's article on Tangents: recent music = boring

I see your point, Clive, but I don't think I'd go so far as to agree with it. Look at it from the other direction: surely you can think of some period of music that was particularly good, right? Some period that seemed incredibly fertile, when the relevance and quality of music seemed to be at a sort of peak? If you answer "yes," then it necessarily follows that there would be periods of pop music that are -- for you, if not for everyone -- particularly bad, or in any case not as wonderful as you'd like.

Is this one of those periods? I suppose it wholly depends on who you are and what you like, but I must admit to feeling that while there are plenty of good albums floating around these days, nothing recent has struck me as incredibly relevant or important or amazed me in the way that music has at other points. I'm willing to admit that I might have just gotten prematurely old and let the Zeitgeist pass me by, but I don't think that's the case. I do think that music right now is rather fragmented -- dozens of little of scenes and trends and genres that have lost steam, and no shining new beacon leading the way out of the labyrinth -- and that while plenty of great work is being done, none of it seems to be breaking out in an exciting new direction. My expectation is that within a few months or a few years, something new and amazing will come along and I'll get swept up in that for a while.

Obviously that's just me, and what I want out of music. But really, I can't think of any particular sound that seems fresh and open and important -- and that's not simply a "cult of the new" reaction, because I'm pretty sure that when that new thing comes along, it's going to have something to do with a return to the organic personality of post-punk/pop bands. But how about all of you guys? Anything that seems absolutely right right now?

It's common for critics to take their personal mental state and blow it up into a statement about the "state of music". Maybe that's part of the point of criticism.

That said I don't really get that sense from this article, which I generally enjoyed. I just get a sense of a musician/listener experiencing a period of personal disaffection.

I think you tend to be happier about pop music if you're not a musician -- easier to avoid the farrago of the 'real/fake' debate (here expressed as "singing should be about communicating feelings and emotions") as pure spectator.

I mean, I have a hard time watching other actors act sometimes...

By the way, my post-punk comment is made in reference to the buzz on bands like the Strokes, Life Without Buildings, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Which is not to say that those bands are spectacular, or even good -- just that their success points to the fact that people have been saturated with knob-twiddling auteurism and could use a good band again. The knob-twiddling futurism has utterly absorbed me over much of the past decade, and I've loved and appreciated it, but nothing would strike as so blindingly right right now as a real-sounding four-piece that seemed to be doing something new and vital.

Maybe it's a mistake to look for one big new sound. Maybe we're better off with lots of medium-sized revolutions instead of one big one.

WARNING -- ILM CABAL RIPOFF RECOMMENDATIONS COMING: Cannibal Ox, Lightning Bolt, Clicks + Cuts, Missy Elliott, Avalanches all excited me with a "new sound" this year but I'm not sure that big massive scenes around any of those ideas would be a good thing.

I'd rather have one Loveless than 100 Souvlakis...

Well, I'm not sure I need a "scene" to be satisfied. I just want to hear records that seem capable of creating a scene -- records so blindingly right that other bands put down what they're doing and think, "Exactly: this is what I must do." I want to hear a sound new and exciting enough that ten or twenty other bands could come along and copy it, and it'd still seem new and exciting, still seem worth more exploration. I'm not sure I'm capturing the sentiment right, but perhaps you see where I'm headed with this.

With a few notable exceptions -- say, the Microphones, My Morning Jacket, or the Boredoms -- even the best records I've picked up recently have been a part of something that already was: interesting new takes on genres, maybe, or interesting recombinations of elements from different genres, but nothing that jumped leagues ahead of the pack and made me wonder why no one else was doing it. That, for me, is precisely what I want out of a record: something that sounds completely different and new, but in a way that makes such sense, in and of itself, that you wonder why all music doesn't sound that way. I don't necessarily need the scene, but I want to think that thought: "This is so perfect--why isn't everyone doing this?"

Actually, nevermind my hijacking someone else's thread -- I'm just going to post this independently. Don't mean to lead this away from Clive's question.

I don't see your point Nitsuh. Kardinal Offishall is available at Beat Parlor.

if you're 'bored with music', it means either a)your listening apparatus is rather mediocre, b)you weren't really interested in the first place and all your motives are suspect, or c)you work in the music industry

... continuing on from what Dave Q said - seriously, if you're going to be 'into' pop music, and assuming you're not a robot, you have to accept that YOU'RE going to do 99 percent of the intellectual and aesthetic work. I mean it's not like it's classical music, with composers who actually spend 50 years working to be your slave. This is pop, where they take your money, punch you in the face, and feel sorry for themselves both before and after the fact. Etc, etc.

Ha! Dave Q on the money again. Can only speak for myself, but I have a bitch of a time just keeping up with the great music that seems to come out every week. I have said it before but 2001 for me looks like the entrance into a golden age of music (although it may be that golden age in itself and then I'll be moaning about 2002).

It's a non-article. So he's disappointed with the New Order Single, has become bored with Lambchop (what took him so long?), and has finally realized that B+S are useless. So what? That happens to me on a daily basis, the difference is that I don't feel the need to extrapolate the death of current music. For each disappointment, there's a wonderful surprise!

I think I could convince myself that any year in the last twenty-five (arbitrary limit based on my general tastes) was a golden year if I were living in it right now. Actually that's one of the things I regret about being 19: not being around to appreciate all this amazing, fabulous music as it first dropped. On the other hand, I'm around now, and hopefully I'll be around tomorrow, so who cares?

There was a similar article published in the _Hartford Courant_ this past Sunday, about 1966 being THE YEAR for music. Granted, I haven't read the article yet (though I want to, and I hope it's what I think it is so I can rant about it on my website), but the writer in question has a notoriously myopic view of music. It's natural for a fan to like what they like, and the fuck with anything that's not like that. And, yes, given enough time covering this wide world of music, it's easy to become disenchanted and wish for the "good old days". But that misses the point, doesn't it?

Music is an organic construct. It changes from performance to performance, from listener to listener. Influences get misinterpreted and recontextualized on a daily basis. Music's reaching back into the past just as readily as it's running into the future. It's constantly in a state of flux - whether that flux occurs in the public eye or in someone's basement is a different story. But there are going to be times of wanting, just as there are those times where everything sounds brilliant. To simply ramble on about the good old days, and how things will never be the same is just stating the obvious. Of COURSE they're not going to be the same. That's the best damn part.

I can understand that if you're looking at one particular genre/style, then, yes, it's a possibility that, for whatever reason, the crop of current releases may not float your boat.

But that doesn't give you license to state that music, currently, is boring. Anyhow, it was a minor point. I always thought if you were bored with the stuff you usually listen to, it's time to dip your toes into foreign waters, and buy something you otherwise wouldn't.

Well, that's my excuse for owning a Popol Vuh album.

You are right Clive there was and there is always good music if you look hard enough. But there were times where you did not have to search for it where it was everywhere. I am thinking especially of the post punk years from where many British bands I love originated. That is Wire, Joy Division, The Cure, the Fall etc. But also an American band like the Wipers.

As Nitsuh said so much better right now we are in a phase of too much music in too many different splintering styles. There is not one band setting the pace like Joy Division or The Smiths did later on. The last one was probably MBV who did not age well which says a lot about the nineties in UK music.

My personal feeling is that the music from the past is much more interesting and worthwhile discovering than the current eclectic stuff. Innovation has become very rare but that is probably normal as most sounds have been played already. So my verdict would be if you are looking for lasting music look in the past not in the present. So many niche bands you have probably never heard of made such exciting and influential music. Neu! for example (I am guessing here as I do not know them well).

The nineties were a decade of standstill for me. My favourite bands of that era are all American and not really innovative but still very good. I name three here: Giant Sand, Yo La Tengo and Swell with Swell probably being the most original.