The Indie backlash

Yes there is an indie backlash but / no it isn't really a backlash and / yes it has more to do with indie being the critical focus of most informed music discussion over the past decade or so and / yes that has skewed and blighted music discussion and / yes it's created an inbred indie scene that's just entered a phase that seems like a big wind-down desperately seeking something, anything, to wind it up and get things happening and / no that wind-up isn't coming along, and maybe hahaha it's precisely because of the indie ethic, insofar as / maybe indie shut itself off in a quite lovely but hermetically sealed room but inbred to a problematic point and inbred to such an extent that the people outside of the hermetically sealed room now seem ugly to indie, and so indie won't even try to get out and broaden its own gene pool, and / anyway, even if that's not the case, indie is just now getting a school-recess payback for doing maybe a bit too much to clamp off non-indie discussion in the past, or if not for trying for it just sort of happening anyway.

NB the second Beulah album was tripe and the last Apples album was well-prepared tripe but still tripe but Neutral Milk Hotel salvage pretty much the entire E6 ship and make it so I can still wear my E6 t-shirt because when someone says, "What E6 bands do you like?" I can still say "Neutral Milk Hotel" with confidence.

Apples live = bland bastards. It's like they took all their songs and turned them into bad Byrds whinealong indie tributes. Thanks for nothing!

>maybe indie shut itself off in a quite lovely but hermetically >sealed room but inbred to a problematic point and inbred to such an >extent that the people outside of the hermetically sealed room now >seem ugly to indie, and so indie won't even try to get out and >broaden its own gene pool

I'm don't agree with the general thrust of this argument. Indie may have shut itself off to some extent, but it has also been SHUT OUT in many ways by major labels seeking to narrow the definition of pop to further their own interests. I mean, if a group like the Pet Shop Boys or Talking Heads appeared today, they would probably be lumped into some indie sub-set along with the likes of Magnetic Fields because of the intellectual, arty aspects of those groups. Yet these bands are considered to have been very much part of the POP! landscape of the 1980s.

To be honest, I think most indie bands would be quite happy to play the pop game (appearing on TOTP etc.). It's just that they aren't prepared to modify the music they make or the lifestyle they lead for that purpose. IMO, that's a totally valid approach. If everybody tows along with whatever the demands are of the pop marketplace right now then no progression will ever be made. I think history shows that a style of music considered 'underground' at one point will almost certainly be popular commercially at another time.

Nonetheless, it seems to me that:
a) the indie-pop debate has moved well away from a "core" of agit-pro-pop ILM members, and instead what would be unremarkable criticisms and comments on indie/pop/whatever are unneccessarily polarised by subsequent readings of said comments, which are inevitably informed by the knowledge of the existence of debate; and
b) attacks on Elephant 6 are almost necessarily voiced from an indie persective, if only because the difference between Elephant 6 and non-Elephant 6 indie would be more meaningful to someone who listens to a lot of indie and advocates an appreciation of it. Perceived awfulness is usually more unpalatable when it arrives in a form or package you otherwise quite like or support, if only because of taint-by-association... notwithstanding that there is one good rhetorical advantage to a Britney vs Apples In Stereo debate that is too obvious to spell out.

B.i) The idea that an attack on E6 = attack on indie is a bit rich; I'm sure that not even the most rabid hypothetical pro-indie boardmember would demand such solidarity from other indie listeners.

P.S. As with most of my similar answers these days, I'm entirely neutral on the actual issue - I've heard, like, one E6 record ever.

P.P.S. After actually finally getting a hold of "Blissed Out" and reading SR's scathing pieces on pop-soul, entryism and regressive-indie, plus calls for rejection of 'pop' in favour of 'rock', I actually started to get an understanding of the rhetorical power and potential in these sorts of titantic struggles. In contrast the indie-pop debate on ILM has always suffered from being to diffuse, enjoying (IMHO) a much better and more meaningful existence back when it was the defining quandary at the heart of NYLPM.

There is never ever winning this debate over meaning of 'pop', but if I were to grope towards a personal definition one partial aspect would probably need to be "music that is created with the *intention* of achieving considerable popular appeal" - although that's far from watertight (and misses out a lot of the other stuff that might be recquisite). Certainly though there are a good deal of big hits that I would hesitate to call pop, and not because I dislike them.

And I don't hate pop, by any means, I never have as some of you probably know. But what is extremely annoying and tends to get in the way of the discussion or debate here is that the people who defend pop constantly make the point "oh you can't criticise this cos it's pop" or similar whether it's relevent or not. I'm all for the criticism of music being on a level playing field but I'm not sure that's always the case with ILxers.

We've probably been through this before but there seems to be a total inverted snobbery thing going on. Bad "indie" or bad "rock" whatever you want to call it is constantly mocked here, and yeah it deserves it, but bad pop music (and I'm talking in comparison to good pop music here just in case that's not clear) is rarely singled out.

In fact to look at ILM or FT sometimes you'd think there was no such thing as a bad pop song. Which I know isn't true, and I know none of you think is true. I'm not sure why this is but I suspect it's a sort of funny use of the very thing the popists (i hate that word) hate. By that I mean we don't have to slate bad pop, cos hey it's pop noone takes it seriously enough to hate it. But bad "rock" slate that all we want, people might even defend it. It seems like it's just being provocative for the sake of being provocative.

I just want equal mocking for all. Perhaps I'm completely misguided in making these accusations, but if so point me in the right direction. I do come here to learn afterall.

Ronan - read Pop Eye. There's heaps of bad pop but it's perhaps not so much talked about here because very few people start threads on ILM about truly bad pop artists saying how good they are. Whereas people start threads on ILM about truly bad non-pop artists saying how good they are all the time (use of 'truly' here is of course utterly subjective and everyone here is going to jump in and say "but Britney *is* truly bad!" but I hope you get my point).

No I meant more in the ILM, "insert particular indie band" here with snide remark type of way. Possibly they (indie or rock bands) deserve it for having pretentions to being good and fans who will argue more violently that they are good but I'm not sure.

I suppose I don't really have a point since all I'm saying is theres more of a tendency to hate non pop (easiest way) than there is to hate just bad pop, and that's a matter of opinion. And that's kind of funny to me because I can't imagine hating GYBE or someone since if I don't ever want to hear them again I never will most likely. Whereas the artists I genuinely hate tend to be pop artists since they are constantly shoved in my face and unavoidable at times.

Er I wasn't trying to have a dig at FT but maybe I ended up doing so.

narrowness of charts often co-exists with potent narrowcasting "specialist" or "subscription" off-mainstream markets, which — while accreting kudos by differentiating selves from mainstream — specifically shore up and pimp off constraint of said mainstream (eg poptones or wire-type music, which combine vocal contempt for mainstream with ahem counterrevolutionary financial codependency: as if by respectable knowing of place they will one day inherit all) (ps this is not an aspersion on quality of music nurtured by off-mainstream niche)

various pop revolutions elsewhere endlessly referred to are moments when a MINORITY STRAND CORRECTLY MISIDENTIFIES ITSELF as the majority, acts as such and BECOMES such, cf elvis, beatles, pistols, second summer of love blah blah

Therefore, in my avatar as secret ruler of the internet, I declare the subject CLOSED.

Err... no. If anyone said "I love indie" to me I'd nod politely look over their shoulder for someone more interesting to talk to. It would just be a really dorky thing to say. I wouldn't be very impressed if someone said "I love pop" either, at least not if they said in some kind of "Does that shock you? Aren't I controversial?" way.

I think I might ban myself from any threads involving the word 'indie' from now on. I'm/it's getting a bit boring.

And do i get marks for a three level question?

also to the point: something hits big, it becomes its *own* marketing, it's not something applied to it separately

indie is abt refusing to compromise on lots of important things (like lyrics or sleeves or clothes), but yes compromising on the one central thing, which is that you are at work in a music where the deep point of you is to affect EVERYONE (if what you're doing matters)

this wd be a contradictory position, except that sometimes the contradiction explodes into a genuine actual convulsion

gotta go i'm missing footballers wives

sland chick, dont be sad, people disagree.

and dont be mean to ned. he's quite smart.

i heard donut got it on with the philly phreak. just sayin'.

Also I agree with;

"I love x because at least they're better than [insert chart act here]" is a v.poor argt

I don't think this is an argument at all.

I also don't think I've ever actually heard anything remotely approaching that "argument" used by anyone. I don't think indie fans motivations can be reduced to "I like X because it is not Y" - there must surely be attraction in the qualities of X. Liking something because it is NOT something else strikes me as utterly bizarre.

http://shop1.kerrygear.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/kelapel.gif

I loved the cartoon upthread, as I said, but alas, I don't understand the rest of the thread. What everyone is talking about is almost literally incomprehensible.

I really did want to start a little discussion about the Magic Numbers' C86 claims, but for some reason putting that on this thread did not produce that discussion.

I was thinking earlier about how I have never heard The Arcade Dire, whereas everyone else has. And I was going to ask, what do they sound like?

I would still like someone to tell me what The Arcade Fire sound like, and why a lot of people like them.

I was but judging by the midweek charts the new Mark Owen single is a lot less popular than than the last Arcade Fire single, so not really much use as an example.

Do the two 45s sound alike?

What's wrong with Burger King?

What's wrong with Stephen Colbert?

Nothing, but they are not as grand as sweet sweet music.

-- new_slang_chick (new_slang_chic...), August 23rd, 2005.

Boney M >>>> B Money

It's an indie-centric indie site for indie people who like all kinds of music. So long as it's indie (more-or-less).

There's absolutely nothing at all wrong with Pitchfork. They got good ears, good brains, and good taste. But they're also an orthodox, uptight, fenced-in bunch of yuppie dweebs. And their stultifying middle-of-the-roadness perfectly defines the more me-bugging aspects of mainstream American indie culture.

Haha, perhaps it is.

You mean all of them, lol