90s/Lo-Fi Revivalism

p4k's feelin' it, too, at least in a broad sense:

In the last couple of years of indie music, you've been able to hear pretty clearly where younger artists who came of age in the 90s got some of their ideas. Talking about a new band, if you say that the synths in a track sounds "ravey" or that a band sounds like "classic indie rock" or that a production choice hearkens back to 90s R&B, people will have a sense of what you're talking about. These sounds are in the air. Though the 80s have been back in a big way for longer than most can remember, more artists are revisiting the sounds of the 90s and putting them into a new context.

i missed much of what seemed to be exciting and somewhat under-the-radar in the 90s, so i'm interested in seeing this list unfold during the week.

just skimmed what's up there so far, and it looks like i don't know most of the songs, so that's neat

(thoughts) The 80s never left - there was 80s nostalgia as early as 1991. The 90s are a weird landscape, of that face-on retro-culture (70s/80s chic) and loads of very strong, (then) present-tense genre activity. Seeing all of this re-contextualized by Generation Pokemon will be very fun, but what I'm empirically hearing/seeing right now feels like the very-late 80s more than the 90s. Sort of an '88-'90 vibe, horrible/beautiful FM synths, the MIDI age. There was so much great hardware put out during those years that was too-quickly discarded for fear of sounding "dated"; techno's brinkmanship was more about equipment than ideas until probably about 1995/6.

what I'm empirically hearing/seeing right now feels like the very-late 80s more than the 90s

yeah, i expected to hear more out-and-out 90s revivalism by now. the 80s retro sound is hanging on, tho different aspects of the 80s sound are being played out and updated at different times.

techno's brinkmanship was more about equipment than ideas until probably about 1995/6.

really

"nobody listens to techno" - eminem

weird thing about the 90s was despite no lack of obvious trends (grunge, drum and bass, trip hop, etc etc), at the time, I really didn't have a feeling for what was going on, and even now, I'm hard pressed to name something that seems obviously primed for a comeback. Some sounds, especially in electronic music, seem to pop up now and then, like the Zomby/Lone/joy orbison productions that use old drum machine sounds -- but they don't actually seem all that 90s to me. When I think of the 90s, and what I was listening to, it was stuff that really could not have existed in the 80s, like beastie boys 'check your head', Boredoms and lots of other new Japanese noise/prog/punk, bjork, Mr Bungle, blur -- not really sure what, if anything, ties those bands together, except that at the time, they all seemed very different from what had come (immediately) before. Maybe that's what the 90s reminds me of, finding music that was breaking away from restraints of 80s production and acceptability. Everything got louder, faster, more overtly genre mish-mash. The 90s was when post-modernism really got exploited, and ultimately, passed by. And I guess it's hard to imagine how that would come back, without revisiting a lot of what happened in the 80s (again).

first thing i think of when i look at the pitchfork thing is cd bargain bins. i wonder if those 90's covers will ever look good to me. red house painters cover being pretty much the only cover i like cuz 4ad is so swanky and made the transition from 80's to 90's pretty painlessly.

I just hope lounge makes a comeback.

http://www.317x.com/albums/d/martindenny/enlargement.jpg

now, I'm hard pressed to name something that seems obviously primed for a comeback

yeah, there's something to this. i suppose what's primed for a comeback is the whole "indie rock/lo-fi" notion, which struck me as a strange genre term at the time i began hearing it, since i considered 80s "college rock" to be synonymous with "indie rock."

there's tons of lo-fi indie out there, though -- it's a notable subset of the indie rock that gets hyped, actually

i missed much of what seemed to be exciting and somewhat under-the-radar in the 90s, so i'm interested in seeing this list unfold during the week.

― Daniel, Esq.,

but remember that pitchfork is unfolding it. you know, pitchfork, the biggest promoter of bland 00's indie and hip-hop for posh white boys that like to feel dirty

u_u

markers otm. most visible symptom from my indie/punk corner of the universe has been the return and persistence of scuzzy, noisy, lo-fi indie rock. in this senese, the 90s = superchunk, early pavement & gbv records, sebadoh, beatnik filmstars, refrigerator, archers of loaf, etc. tons of hype piled on their stylistic descendants in the last couple years: eat skull, wavves, times new viking, no age, tyvek, male bonding, etc.

this trend is starting to feel as though it's run its course, though, right? bands to whom the "shitgaze" tag was most initially applied have either dropped from the spotlight or cleaned things up, drifted off in other directions. smudgy, smeary Zones Nation stuff that's filled the gap seems less indebted to any specific 90s scene or sound.

"senese" = senescence, natch

the biggest promoter of bland 00's indie and hip-hop for posh white boys that like to feel dirty

reading this made me feel dirty.

i demand non-bland indie and hip-hop.

i don't think of archers as especially lo fi

Remember that I never said the hip-hop was bland (although it can be read that way I guess). I just used hip-hop in conjunction with one of the stereotypes I use to describe pitchfork readers

I have several more stereotypes for another time

" the 90s = superchunk, early pavement & gbv records, sebadoh, beatnik filmstars, refrigerator, archers of loaf, etc. tons of hype piled on their stylistic descendants in the last couple years: eat skull, wavves, times new viking, no age, tyvek, male bonding, etc."

I wish the new bands you mentioned put a little less emphasis on the hip stylistic aspect of the 90s lo-fi, and focused more on writing the songs. GBV and others were lo-fi because of their DIY limits more than they were trying to win artsy cool points. I don't think any of the new bands really sound like those old bands because of their opposite focuses.

Overall I feel there was more of an emphasis on melody with most of the 90s bands that are labeled lo-fi, and most of the current lo-fi bands have an emphasis on creating noise. Not trying to say that as dismissively as it sounds like I am.

But you should be.

I'm listening to Milf right now, and if bands start popping up who sound like them, Swirlies, Lilys, (actually like) GBV, and Polvo (besides Polvo), then I'll buy the revivalism thing.

young adults remind me a tiny bit of vampire/propellor era gbv

just want to mention coachwhips here

coachwhips slade/slew, played in little cardboard houses from the back of the club, but seem in no way a 90s shout out, just another devolution in decades ongoing garage punk face plant

help me find my coat, dwyer

lol not lo fi but this pitchfork list is great. re: "regulate"

"Regulation implies not just power but stasis, and what makes this track so addictive is its utter insouciance."

pitchfork, the biggest promoter of bland 00's indie and hip-hop for posh white boys that like to feel dirty

this pitchfork list is great

you must be a posh white boy that likes to feel dirty.

Overall I feel there was more of an emphasis on melody with most of the 90s bands that are labeled lo-fi, and most of the current lo-fi bands have an emphasis on creating noise. Not trying to say that as dismissively as it sounds like I am.

― Evan, Monday, August 30, 2010 8:04 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

OTM. "Bee Thousand" has tons of Beatles-level melodic moments.

i'm too tired to focus on it properly now, but i think you're (somewhat, at least) undercounting the number of current lo-fi revivalist bands that emphasize melody alongside the shards of noise and lo-fi aesthetics.

I've maintained in other threads that if a proper 90s revival takes place, it's more likely to do with socio-political attitude than revisiting or fetishising genres like with the 80s revival.

was there a dramatic difference in socio-political attitudes in the 90s vs. the 80s? seemed like a continuation to me, which ended -- abruptly -- in the early years of the new century.

daniel, that's a good point, although what has been romanticised in the last decade about the '80s isn't the irreverant attitude of said decade that sprang from punk rock and the political climate of the time. The '80s are seen now as a decade of high-fashion, androgyny, detached cool, good time hip-hop and electro, forward thinking new-wave; but not necessarily the true roots and danger associated with the decade that brought us Fuck Tha Police, bands like Crass, the illegal rave movement, etc - if it was, it was the fluffier aspects of these that have been remembered cF: the Klaxxons appropriating rave music by adding a few cute woo-hoo noises over bland indie rock.

i'm not sure what's being said here. new breed lo-fi revivalists are often as melodic and/or politically committed as their 80s/90s predecessors. main difference in my mind is a kind of aesthetic narrowness born (probably) of an understanding of what "this kind of thing" is supposed to sound like. that's just the basic difference between originators of any any given style and its eventual librarians, though...

xpost to elaborate, i think with a new political power for groups and youth movements to focus against (at least in the uk), there's the possibility of reviving the ostensible rebel stance appropriated by punk in the '80s that manifested itself in various forms (including nihilism, anti-capitalism, agit-prop, mindless reactionism, door-slamming, whistle-blowing, banner-waving, swmap-dwelling, tree-climbing etc) throughout the '90s (see Manic Street Preachers, early Prodigy, Nirvana, Rage etc), eventually becoming wholly assimilated with commercial culture towards the end of the decade (Tom Green, later Prodigy, Limp Bizkit, Blink) only to kind of fizzle and die throught the 00s. The examples I'm citing are very obvious here and there are probably more obscure examples (as well as exceptions to these admittedly very generalistic descriptions).

Ummm...hope that makes sense, I'm writing this between phone calls at work.

I think the 90s indie rock sound was a progression from jangley 80s influences, and a rejection of the cold overproduced mainstream rock and synth bands. At least when it comes to 90s guitar bands.

I don't see any reason why that can't happen again now, where a new group of bands come along and reject the competition to be more hip and have more styles mashed together in their music, and just make something more straightforward and less self-conscious.

i thought pavement was supposed to be the key example of that 90s aesthetic. but i'm not sure i'd describe their music as "straightforward." i read a review that said theirs was the sound of "beauty collapsing, sweetness fading into static, a soft-rock séance amidst the clatter and drone of lo-fi legends." all of which sounds right to me, but perhaps not "straightforward" rock.

For a new band to reject the current hip over-compensations, I feel Pavement's sound would be a more straightforward approach. And that is a colorful quote, but its describing the music by a band that made melodic 90s indie with guitar, bass, and drums. I didn't mean straightforward as in uninventive in songwriting, just as in without all of the extra eclectic gimmicks many bands seem like they feel they need to have.

not sure, but imagine that daniel's quote is describing the pavement of the early singles and perfect sound forever, a project that continued in somewhat tamer form on slanted & enchanted. at that point, pavement were channeling simple pop tunes through lo-fi noise and punk attack. (is that what you mean by "hip over-compensations", evan? can't tell...) by the time crooked rain crooked rain came out, they'd ditched the hiss & static and become quite straightforward, imo. no longer "a soft rock séance amidst the clatter and drone of lo-fi legends," but just gentle, pop-friendly rock music.

anyway, it's the very early pavement, the material collected on westing, by musket and sextant that seems most relevant when discussing contemporary lo-fi/shitgaze aesthetics. and i don't know why we should consider a fondness for rough, scruffy, tin-can sonics a "gimmick". it can be a gimmick, i suppose, but it's really just a matter of taste.

I don't see any reason why that can't happen again now, where a new group of bands come along and reject the competition to be more hip and have more styles mashed together in their music, and just make something more straightforward and less self-conscious.

what do you mean by this? is there some dearth of straightforward, unselfconscious music in the world? if so, is it a universal condition, or does it only affect certain genres? and what are the straightforward, unselfconscious examples we could/should hearken back to?

Artist predictions for Pfork's Top 20 Songs of the 1990s:

Radiohead
Pavement
Guided by Voices
MBV
Neutral Milk Hotel
Nirvana
Flaming Lips
Beck
Bjork
Modest Mouse
Aphex Twin

... so, what else?

not sure, but imagine that daniel's quote is describing the pavement of the early singles and perfect sound forever, a project that continued in somewhat tamer form on slanted & enchanted

from a review of s & e. it's the review that made me want to hear the disc (and the band, actually).

You're right, contenderizer, very early Pavement is probably the closest to current shit-gazers.

I've been talking about "indie rock" mostly. I do feel the current emphasis on style, sonically and with image, is prioritized to the point where it seems overly self-conscious to me. The songwriting in these cases takes a backseat to (or is obscured by) the aesthetic or the concept. I'm only saying I think this is much more of the case now than in the 90s. In the 90s there was a punk attitude that was available to exercise as DIY options became available with affordable home recording equipment and more independent labels springing up. This was a perfect storm for some "just for us" rocking and recording that allowed Guided By Voices to take off.
Superchunk was a good example. Versus, Polvo, Swirlies as I mentioned above, etc.

I have it on good authority that the #1 track will be "The Insistor" by Tapes 'n Tapes.

did you hear that from Tapes, or 'n Tapes?

can "for posh white boys that like to feel dirty" be the new ILM description?

I am actually both Tapes 'n Tapes.

... so, what else?

Aaliyah & Biggy aren't obvious enough?

man Ott is GOIN IN at h1p1n1on

but imo not GETTIN IT IN

also lol @ him dissing naughty by nature for being fake & acting like onyx were real -- thats exactly backwards iirc

which thread

like NbN were grimey new jersey dudes, onyx were neighbors of jam master jay in middle class queens i believe?? even if hes talking about how the music *felt* that seems way off, what is so hood abt "slam"?!

they get really really mad that halcyon didnt make it

1990

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80mdAhvwP7c

meanwhile treach was rapping w murdersquad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiA4UpWBghM

from that site, which I'd never heard of and just googled: "As much as people love Naughty By Nature (surprised you don't have them in here, or ignorant to think you would?) they played the jailyard card too hard. Onyx felt like the genuine article."

Yes that is way off, like Obama-is-a-Muslim off.. At the time of that 1990 video Onyx also looked totally different, were wearing polka dots like Kwame etc.

Okay that's unfair, it's more like Rick-Ross-Is-A-Drug-Lord off

onyx are blowin money fast iirc

Wu Tang Clan
Nas
Daft Punk
Cannonball by the Breeders