So - ever since "punk broke" has their truly been an underground? Doesn't it seem like anything goes these days and no one really cares what you're into?
-Or is that just an old-guy perspective from someone who doesn't know what's cool anymore?
-Or was the whole notion that anyone ever cared what anyone else was into - a naive, young-guy perspective?
Example - when I was in school, it was cool to like Van Halen or Foreigner or Journey - anything that was played on commercial radio was cool. Anything that wasn't played on commercial radio was automatically uncool. So if you were into an 'underground' scene - you were from a different planet. Anything other than mainstream was unacceptable to the point of being beaten for it.
Now that piercing & tattoos are as common as Saturday morning soccer practice, and internet & MP3s have made almost anything accessible - There still may be scenes that no one knows about, but hey - the weirder the better.. Whatever, dude.. That's cool.
Probably should focus on post high school here... High school has a whole added dynamic of competition, financial status, insecurities, etc.. I'm thinking more of college & young 20's age here....
.. and where I'm ultimately going with this, assuming the main premise is correct & forget any inaccuracies of the supporting details, Do people need to feel like they're part of an exclusive club (i.e. an underground) and are they able to get that sense now that scenes are so quickly discovered, exploited and discarded?
― dave225 (Dave225), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 11:29 (twenty-two years ago) link
There's still an underground though.
― Jonathan Williams (ex machina), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 11:35 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Sans Fah, Tuesday, 15 October 2002 14:29 (twenty-two years ago) link
But is it really seen as revolutionary? Aside from self-amputation, I can't think of anything that would be seen as different. So it's only underground because no one knows about it - not because the mainstream won't accept it.
― dave225 (Dave225), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 14:33 (twenty-two years ago) link
i think you kind of have to be into it to handle it.
i wouldn't say it's elite, of course, i'm old enough to try to not go that route, so perhaps it really is, but it's definitely an acquired taste.
it's difficultness creates a small room.
as far as beyond that, it does seem like things are very jaded. people know what to look for if they want to. you can be hip for only $15.95.
i think people in general like to belong to something. they need to indentify themselves to everybody. "look, i own this car, wear these clothes, vote like this, eat like that, etc." being aware of the rise and fall of different scenes is a skill people can acquire, but sometimes i think it's unconcious. "oh, all the cool kids are going to blah, we're there!"
incoherently,m.
― msp, Tuesday, 15 October 2002 15:01 (twenty-two years ago) link
― threemetalinsects (threemetalinsects), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 07:22 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Marinaorgan (Marina Organ), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 21:54 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 21:58 (twenty-two years ago) link
That was all convoluted and made no sense.
What I mean, basically, is that you won't find an Arab on Radar clone on the radio or in mainstream publications--the type of music they play has no commercial exposure, really. You will, though, find Hatebreed, as the mainstream representative of the hardcore scene even though nearly anyone in that scene will decry them as being utter crap and unrepresentative of the scene. What people buy (as in, buy into) and what /are/ representative of a genre can be different things.
I'm still not making sense.
There's still an underground, and even though aspects of it have been co-opted and diluted by the mainstream they are NOT representative of that underground.
― Ian Johnson (orion), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 22:20 (twenty-two years ago) link
I have been thinking a lot about this. I heard a recent interview with Jon Spencer in which he said that the "American underground" that he liked had gone to shit by even the end of the 1980s, a couple years before I got into what I still think of as an underground. I wanted to raise the same question dave raises in his original post. Surely, there is still an underground, it's just that the point of such an underground is that people in their 30s and 40s wouldn't know or care about it?
― Kornblud (admrl), Wednesday, 11 June 2014 12:52 (ten years ago) link
eh, culture moves faster now, and you have to dig deeper to escape the yard lights. otherwise, plus ca change...
― sci-fi looking, chubby-leafed, delicately bizarre (contenderizer), Wednesday, 11 June 2014 13:14 (ten years ago) link
"escape the yard lights", that's a new one to me, but I like it
― Kornblud (admrl), Wednesday, 11 June 2014 13:17 (ten years ago) link
Surely, there is still an underground
maybe, but there seems to be so much less of a cohesive "underground scene," however you want to define it (e.g., regionally, musically), that it seems like there's no underground-scene anymore at all.
― Daniel, Esq 2, Wednesday, 11 June 2014 16:53 (ten years ago) link
otoh, i'm 46, so more in touch with paul anka than any current underground-scene, i guess.