Somewhere on my internet travels today, I came across some dude’s photos from SXSW (that is South By South West, the music conference where big record labels send big bands for the big media to cover. Or something.) Anyway, dude had pictures of the Go! Team and something-the two drummers? the fact the photog had captured one of the band members mid-pogo?- reminded me of a certain local “buzz” band with a overly long and repetitious name (kinda like their songs, actually nyuk nyuk nyuk) whom I’ve mentioned before. (Standard disclaimer* applies)
The immediate visual parallel got me thinking about how skull-fuckingly stupid the kids are and, correspondingly, how dumb their favorite bands are. I mean, really: it seems like all the bands currently dampening panties and poppin’ boners all over MySpace are fucking retarded brainless party bands who care not a jot for artistry or depth, only for “getting people moving”. And I wonder what that’s about.
Obviously, stupid music has been around since Og the caveman first started bangin’ on a hollow log with a rock and was joined by his friend Ug on the vocorder (whoops!), but indie music has always seemed to be a bit above that noise. Back in the day, we listened to Yo La Tengo and Weezer not just because they kicked ass, but because they were clever and we saw ourselves in their music. They read books like us, appreciated films like us, got beat up in high school like us. Actually, Weezer pretty much epitomizes the Great Dumbification of music, going from the wry Blue Album to the heartfelt Pinkerton all the way to the copped Dokken riffs on shit like that shitty song about Beverly Hills. But I digress slightly. Anyway, indie music used to be the only place to go for music with brains: it was a refuge from the brainless, bloodless and calculated mainstream “party” music like Britney and the Boys. Now, though, the kids can’t egt enough of the Stupid. And I think I know why. It’s the TV, the internets, the video games, the MacDonald’s and the rest of the nonstop parade of disposable crap that was the amniotic fluid of a new generation of text-messaging, coke sniffing, cowboy boot-wearing retardokids. Stuff like the Go! Team (and any band with exclamation points in their name) and the Shou…er, that Local Band I mentioned are, to me, indicative of a kind of cultural nihilism, a way of saying to a world that is rife with forces designed to make us stupid, unhappy and happily stupid “Hey: I give up! Let’s do a line and dance, dance, dance, dance!” (Not that I’m against dancing, of course: insert well-worn Emma Goldman quote here. But there’s a hedonistic element to the stuff I’m talking about: the dancing is a metaphor for what I see as a whole ethos of not giving a shit about anything but one’s own immediate self-gratification. Dig?) Oh sure, there’s smart indie bands out there, but most of them are unlistenable folk garbage like SoofYAWN Stevens (the Decemberists are alright, but their cleverness is cloying in a “I’ve got an English Lit degree, now listen to me.” kind of way).
Anyway. All that is what makes the new Belle and Sebastian album so great. You can dance to it, but it also makes you think. Sometimes both of these elements occur within the same song! Daaamn!
*Standard disclaimer: “I’m sure they’re all very nice people etc etc.”
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PS: Upon re-reading this many moons later, I realized one major err. The Go! Team is not a dance band. Oh sure, the got labeled as such, but you can't dance to that shit at all.
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