[AnonymousBosch]

(05-23-2014 02:12 PM)kapitaw Wrote:  

I hear at least 3-4 albums a year that are refreshing and challenging, and they're usually independent or from small time labels. It's hard for original and well produced music to go unnoticed nowadays. It may be more difficult for musicians to make a living, and perhaps that's what your dark ages comment is referring, but I believe it's easier nowadays for true talent to be recognized and appreciated. I wouldn't call it a golden age of music, but I'm really content with the amount of new, high-quality music that is available to the public.

Look, it's music. Highly-personalised reaction for each person, so I can only speak for myself. I'll clarify:

Age is a big part of this. I'm 43. I have literally heard it all before by now. I have 4,000 records across multiple genres in my collection, and I have actively listened to every single one, which means, I invested multiple listens into each album, learning from each what works, and what doesn't. Sometimes I'd initially hate a record, and closer listening would expand my horizons, and I'd end up loving it.

I'm entirely self-taught. My family was too poor for any kind of lessons. Albums were my university. They're how I learnt to write and arrange music. I explored everything. I want music that actively-challenges me as a listener, and makes me question the construction and how it works. I'm a mechanic, considering songs as engines.

As such, what is new and ground-breaking to some ears is simply familiar parts to me, or, most often, a poorer-quality copy of a better engine. Hell, guys were praising new new wave in another thread. I've lived through *three* revivals of this by now. ('95, '00, '05).

This is how I hear music, and why it bores me, because it's not just this chord progression, but all of them. (And it's easy to disguise and put your unique stamp on any of them, but younger musicians are gradually losing this ability because they're amateurs).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ

My issues with the modern indie scene (the williamsburgh upper class hobbyists), which is at odds to the 70's-80's indie scene I grew up with (pissed off poor kids sleeping on floors):

- comfort and privilege produces lousy art. There's no depth there. Wonder where all the political songs have gone? Wonder why even the 'challenging' stuff wouldn't sound out of place backing a car commercial or playing in a coffee shop? It's all so goddamn polite, and when it's supposedly-challenging or confronting, (Animal Collective, MGMT's 2nd album), it's *still* goddamn polite.

- homogeneous influences means no unexpected influences to make the music more interesting. Hipsters know the Approved Rock Canon and draw from that alone. Here's Springsteen again. Here's Radiohead. Yawn. Hacks imitate. Artists combine from influences into something new.

- a lack of intellectual curiosity in general, which means you don't get the cross-pollination of higher art (novels, artwork, art films), informing the work any more. There's little to take away from an album. Most likely it's solipsism and navel-gazing, which surprises me, considering how much the 70's singer-songwriter genre was reviled.

- self-awareness of cool - bands won't risk bringing in the influences that haven't already been critically-acclaimed for risk of looking uncool in front of the audience and hip reviewers.

- hobbyist status means the musicianship isn't there, they don't understand how to construct a song in an interesting and unusual way, they don't understand the pull of chords, or how to use extended chords to create interest through *subversion of expectations*.

- the band isn't forged in fire from playing hundreds of live shows.

- the audience is homogeneous. They also know the signifiers of cool, and there is no longer an antagonistic relationship between artist and audience, that produces great bands when thrown into an aggressive pit of wolves and forced to win them over. Go to any hipster venue, and the audience is largely posing and doing the I-Phone thing, with the band as a backdrop. If they don't like you, they don't physically-threaten you with having your arse kicked if you don't stop playing 'faggot music'.

- they have no artistic integrity to sell out. It's expected to have brand managers and be talked about by tech companies as being an 'emotional content providers'.

They're hardly the CBGB's crowd, pissed off and alienated and criticising what they hated about society. They're not the English Futurists, who were squatting in inner-city urban decay under a layer of concrete namedropping J.G. Ballard and using synthesisers to paint the dehumanised future they thought was inevitable. They're not US indie and punk kids of the 80's, touring small venues, connecting with other alienated kids screaming 'wake up!'

There's no intelligence , critical thinking or rebellion in modern indie: it's simply comfortable upper middle class music - perfect for the modern university drone to listen to on their desired branded portable music player of choice whilst feeling smug and hip about their 'unusual' taste, which has taken no real effort to seek out and discover, which helps feed their narcissistic construct as an Unique And Special 'Good Person'.

Modern Indie Music is music for Cultural Marxists. Buying anything Pitchfork recommends is lazy consumerism, with all the expended effort of signing a Change.Org petition. A lazy signifier of refined taste, and the lie of being somehow more awake and aware than the rest of the population, which means Arcade Fire is just the Huffington Post and Tame Impala is The Atlantic. Fuck it entirely. I wouldn't want to share a beer with any of the these bands. Why why won't any of them react against it and rock the boat? Fear of social consequences? Or - most likely - fear of advertising money vanishing.

So, what happened to Punk and 80's Indie Rock, particularly now it's tame enough to be on Broadway with Green Day? It's Roosh. It's Aurini. Forney. Mike over at D&P. The CH crew. Tuthmosis' eating disorders article. Each of us on here in these threads. Pissed off guys questioning everything, hating the lie we've been sold, but with the advantage of lacking the true nihilism of punk that we can improve ourselves.

[soup]

[Days of Broken Arrows]

(05-23-2014 04:13 PM)AnonymousBosch Wrote:  

(05-23-2014 02:12 PM)kapitaw Wrote:  

I hear at least 3-4 albums a year that are refreshing and challenging, and they're usually independent or from small time labels. It's hard for original and well produced music to go unnoticed nowadays. It may be more difficult for musicians to make a living, and perhaps that's what your dark ages comment is referring, but I believe it's easier nowadays for true talent to be recognized and appreciated. I wouldn't call it a golden age of music, but I'm really content with the amount of new, high-quality music that is available to the public.

Look, it's music. Highly-personalised reaction for each person, so I can only speak for myself. I'll clarify:

Age is a big part of this. I'm 43. I have literally heard it all before by now. I have 4,000 records across multiple genres in my collection, and I have actively listened to every single one, which means, I invested multiple listens into each album, learning from each what works, and what doesn't. Sometimes I'd initially hate a record, and closer listening would expand my horizons, and I'd end up loving it.

I'm entirely self-taught. My family was too poor for any kind of lessons. Albums were my university. They're how I learnt to write and arrange music. I explored everything. I want music that actively-challenges me as a listener, and makes me question the construction and how it works. I'm a mechanic, considering songs as engines.

As such, what is new and ground-breaking to some ears is simply familiar parts to me, or, most often, a poorer-quality copy of a better engine. Hell, guys were praising new new wave in another thread. I've lived through *three* revivals of this by now. ('95, '00, '05).

This is how I hear music, and why it bores me, because it's not just this chord progression, but all of them. (And it's easy to disguise and put your unique stamp on any of them, but younger musicians are gradually losing this ability because they're amateurs).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ

My issues with the modern indie scene (the williamsburgh upper class hobbyists), which is at odds to the 70's-80's indie scene I grew up with (pissed off poor kids sleeping on floors):

- comfort and privilege produces lousy art. There's no depth there. Wonder where all the political songs have gone? Wonder why even the 'challenging' stuff wouldn't sound out of place backing a car commercial or playing in a coffee shop? It's all so goddamn polite, and when it's supposedly-challenging or confronting, (Animal Collective, MGMT's 2nd album), it's *still* goddamn polite.

- homogeneous influences means no unexpected influences to make the music more interesting. Hipsters know the Approved Rock Canon and draw from that alone. Here's Springsteen again. Here's Radiohead. Yawn. Hacks imitate. Artists combine from influences into something new.

- a lack of intellectual curiosity in general, which means you don't get the cross-pollination of higher art (novels, artwork, art films), informing the work any more. There's little to take away from an album. Most likely it's solipsism and navel-gazing, which surprises me, considering how much the 70's singer-songwriter genre was reviled.

- self-awareness of cool - bands won't risk bringing in the influences that haven't already been critically-acclaimed for risk of looking uncool in front of the audience and hip reviewers.

- hobbyist status means the musicianship isn't there, they don't understand how to construct a song in an interesting and unusual way, they don't understand the pull of chords, or how to use extended chords to create interest through *subversion of expectations*.

- the band isn't forged in fire from playing hundreds of live shows.

- the audience is homogeneous. They also know the signifiers of cool, and there is no longer an antagonistic relationship between artist and audience, that produces great bands when thrown into an aggressive pit of wolves and forced to win them over. Go to any hipster venue, and the audience is largely posing and doing the I-Phone thing, with the band as a backdrop. If they don't like you, they don't physically-threaten you with having your arse kicked if you don't stop playing 'faggot music'.

- they have no artistic integrity to sell out. It's expected to have brand managers and be talked about by tech companies as being an 'emotional content providers'.

They're hardly the CBGB's crowd, pissed off and alienated and criticising what they hated about society. They're not the English Futurists, who were squatting in inner-city urban decay under a layer of concrete namedropping J.G. Ballard and using synthesisers to paint the dehumanised future they thought was inevitable. They're not US indie and punk kids of the 80's, touring small venues, connecting with other alienated kids screaming 'wake up!'

There's no intelligence , critical thinking or rebellion in modern indie: it's simply comfortable upper middle class music - perfect for the modern university drone to listen to on their desired branded portable music player of choice whilst feeling smug and hip about their 'unusual' taste, which has taken no real effort to seek out and discover, which helps feed their narcissistic construct as an Unique And Special 'Good Person'.

Modern Indie Music is music for Cultural Marxists. Buying anything Pitchfork recommends is lazy consumerism, with all the expended effort of signing a Change.Org petition. A lazy signifier of refined taste, and the lie of being somehow more awake and aware than the rest of the population, which means Arcade Fire is just the Huffington Post and Tame Impala is The Atlantic. Fuck it entirely. I wouldn't want to share a beer with any of the these bands. Why why won't any of them react against it and rock the boat? Fear of social consequences? Or - most likely - fear of advertising money vanishing.

So, what happened to Punk and 80's Indie Rock, particularly now it's tame enough to be on Broadway with Green Day? It's Roosh. It's Aurini. Forney. Mike over at D&P. The CH crew. Tuthmosis' eating disorders article. Each of us on here in these threads. Pissed off guys questioning everything, hating the lie we've been sold, but with the advantage of lacking the true nihilism of punk that we can improve ourselves.

Why why won't any of them react against it and rock the boat?

Because the ads from record companies pay their salaries. And they want the free concert tix and promo CDs to keep coming.

The music is lame because all of it is boring, polite Mom Music under a different name and with a hipster veneer. It's Simon and Garfunkel and Carole King in different clothes.

I can't stand the Pitchfork hipster crowd. I worked for years as a music writer and am friends with some of them and a bunch of other critics on Facebook. An unbearable, conformist lot.

Let me put it this way. There are a bunch of "rap scholars" (gag) in that crowd. But if you posted on your wall "Bitches love drama," they'd get the vapors and unfriend you. That right there tells you all you need to know about their clenched-anus political correctness.

All art for sale is commerce anyway. People are kidding themselves if they think they're above that. You're never above the market place. Even Frank Zappa wasn't.

[AnonymousBosch]

(05-23-2014 03:44 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  

I hope there is some new and fresh stuff coming. I know there was some hating and some appreciation on Lorde here in the forum, but "Royals" was one of the few things I've heard in recent years that sounded remotely new.

"Royals" was interesting to me because it was the first hint of class warfare I've heard in music for years: she's voicing her disgust with the consumerist script pop music is selling, even if it pusses out from sliding the knife in too deep and becomes a romantic empowerment fantasy.

It's sweet, resigned anger rather than an all-out attack, but it's given me hope that the under 17-crowd might be capable of reaction against current dogma, and questioning the values of the Millenials.

I knew the Cathedral would see her as dangerous, (you're supposed to desire wealth, fame and objects of conspicuous consumption and here she is being dismissive of them and saying they're not important), and they reacted exactly how I expected.

Questioning the value of consumerism and hedonism via the brand names in the song meant she was repeatedly-accused of racism by feminist typists.



Usual slimy attack: hint at racism, imply she is A Bad Person, therefore you shouldn't listen to anything she says because, well, she must be crazy.

She seems to have weathered the storm for now, though they've tried to attack her for slut-shaming as well. She will be silenced, and normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. Feminists want women to desire expensive shoes and handbags instead of men to complete them, and if takes demonising a 17-year-old girl, so be it.

[cardguy]

For those with good musical tastes - when did you discover the secret source?

With me it was the DJ Gilles Peterson. His weekly show would play 2 hours of the most mazing music from around the world. And from the past. And I didn't know who any of these people were.

That shaped my outlook on music and I have being on a journey ever since.

It is scary when I think back to before I heard Gilles Peterson. People don't realise how utterly shit all pop music is. I mean - it is okay. But the really good stuff is buried away - although luckily it isn't too difficult to find.

I remember when Steve Jobs scrolled through his iPod playlist during an Apple product launch.

THE BEATLES, PINK FLOYD, BOB DYLAN, JOHN LENNON, THE ROLLING STONES, RADIOHEAD, THE VELVET UNDERGROUND, THE WHO, MILES DAVIS, NICK DRAKE, JONI MITCHELL etc etc...

Christ - how boring is that? People need to realise that the most famous music of all-time is actually pretty shit compared to the really good stuff.

Man - my playlists would look like that as well - if I hadn't discovered Gilles Peterson (the most important influence on my life) who opened my eyes to the stupendous amount of great music there is out there.

Gilles Peterson's radio shows are amazing. But there are thousands of past shows to keep track of. Luckily - he has some great compilation albums where he pulls together obscure music from around the world and over the past 40 years into beautiful chilled out mixes.

This is my favourite album by him:

DISC ONE:

DISC TWO:

TRACK LISTINGS HERE - http://www.discogs.com/Gilles-Peterson-I...ase/266373

If I look at your iPod and can recognise any of the artists in the first 20 people listed on your playlist - you are not trying hard enough. It is like limiting your choice in books to bestsellers and nothing else. It is fucking gay.

And then eventually - you can kick back and nod your head in agreement to every one of the great artists listed in the following song by LCD Soundsystem:

And then you can be a dickhead like me! :-)

Pharoah Sanders for life baby!

Cardguy

[Andy_B]

I think "selling out" is real, but most people don't understand what the term actually means.

"Selling out" means forsaking your principles for money or some other material benefit.

If you make 10 billion dollars a year doing exactly what you want to do, you haven't "sold out."

If you work at some office job for 50k and pretend to support feminist BS so that HR chicks will like you, you have "sold out."

Essentially, to "sell out" means to be a whore. If someone can easily make you do something you don't believe in by offering you cash to do it, you probably lack willpower. It's beta/submissive.

[SheWantsTheD]

If Tool ever does a commercial for Toyota I'm gonna pissed!



Otherwise, no.

[Veloce]

(05-23-2014 04:13 PM)AnonymousBosch Wrote:  

(05-23-2014 02:12 PM)kapitaw Wrote:  

I hear at least 3-4 albums a year that are refreshing and challenging, and they're usually independent or from small time labels. It's hard for original and well produced music to go unnoticed nowadays. It may be more difficult for musicians to make a living, and perhaps that's what your dark ages comment is referring, but I believe it's easier nowadays for true talent to be recognized and appreciated. I wouldn't call it a golden age of music, but I'm really content with the amount of new, high-quality music that is available to the public.

Look, it's music. Highly-personalised reaction for each person, so I can only speak for myself. I'll clarify:

Age is a big part of this. I'm 43. I have literally heard it all before by now. I have 4,000 records across multiple genres in my collection, and I have actively listened to every single one, which means, I invested multiple listens into each album, learning from each what works, and what doesn't. Sometimes I'd initially hate a record, and closer listening would expand my horizons, and I'd end up loving it.

I'm entirely self-taught. My family was too poor for any kind of lessons. Albums were my university. They're how I learnt to write and arrange music. I explored everything. I want music that actively-challenges me as a listener, and makes me question the construction and how it works. I'm a mechanic, considering songs as engines.

As such, what is new and ground-breaking to some ears is simply familiar parts to me, or, most often, a poorer-quality copy of a better engine. Hell, guys were praising new new wave in another thread. I've lived through *three* revivals of this by now. ('95, '00, '05).

This is how I hear music, and why it bores me, because it's not just this chord progression, but all of them. (And it's easy to disguise and put your unique stamp on any of them, but younger musicians are gradually losing this ability because they're amateurs).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ

My issues with the modern indie scene (the williamsburgh upper class hobbyists), which is at odds to the 70's-80's indie scene I grew up with (pissed off poor kids sleeping on floors):

- comfort and privilege produces lousy art. There's no depth there. Wonder where all the political songs have gone? Wonder why even the 'challenging' stuff wouldn't sound out of place backing a car commercial or playing in a coffee shop? It's all so goddamn polite, and when it's supposedly-challenging or confronting, (Animal Collective, MGMT's 2nd album), it's *still* goddamn polite.

- homogeneous influences means no unexpected influences to make the music more interesting. Hipsters know the Approved Rock Canon and draw from that alone. Here's Springsteen again. Here's Radiohead. Yawn. Hacks imitate. Artists combine from influences into something new.

- a lack of intellectual curiosity in general, which means you don't get the cross-pollination of higher art (novels, artwork, art films), informing the work any more. There's little to take away from an album. Most likely it's solipsism and navel-gazing, which surprises me, considering how much the 70's singer-songwriter genre was reviled.

- self-awareness of cool - bands won't risk bringing in the influences that haven't already been critically-acclaimed for risk of looking uncool in front of the audience and hip reviewers.

- hobbyist status means the musicianship isn't there, they don't understand how to construct a song in an interesting and unusual way, they don't understand the pull of chords, or how to use extended chords to create interest through *subversion of expectations*.

- the band isn't forged in fire from playing hundreds of live shows.

- the audience is homogeneous. They also know the signifiers of cool, and there is no longer an antagonistic relationship between artist and audience, that produces great bands when thrown into an aggressive pit of wolves and forced to win them over. Go to any hipster venue, and the audience is largely posing and doing the I-Phone thing, with the band as a backdrop. If they don't like you, they don't physically-threaten you with having your arse kicked if you don't stop playing 'faggot music'.

- they have no artistic integrity to sell out. It's expected to have brand managers and be talked about by tech companies as being an 'emotional content providers'.

They're hardly the CBGB's crowd, pissed off and alienated and criticising what they hated about society. They're not the English Futurists, who were squatting in inner-city urban decay under a layer of concrete namedropping J.G. Ballard and using synthesisers to paint the dehumanised future they thought was inevitable. They're not US indie and punk kids of the 80's, touring small venues, connecting with other alienated kids screaming 'wake up!'

There's no intelligence , critical thinking or rebellion in modern indie: it's simply comfortable upper middle class music - perfect for the modern university drone to listen to on their desired branded portable music player of choice whilst feeling smug and hip about their 'unusual' taste, which has taken no real effort to seek out and discover, which helps feed their narcissistic construct as an Unique And Special 'Good Person'.

Modern Indie Music is music for Cultural Marxists. Buying anything Pitchfork recommends is lazy consumerism, with all the expended effort of signing a Change.Org petition. A lazy signifier of refined taste, and the lie of being somehow more awake and aware than the rest of the population, which means Arcade Fire is just the Huffington Post and Tame Impala is The Atlantic. Fuck it entirely. I wouldn't want to share a beer with any of the these bands. Why why won't any of them react against it and rock the boat? Fear of social consequences? Or - most likely - fear of advertising money vanishing.

So, what happened to Punk and 80's Indie Rock, particularly now it's tame enough to be on Broadway with Green Day? It's Roosh. It's Aurini. Forney. Mike over at D&P. The CH crew. Tuthmosis' eating disorders article. Each of us on here in these threads. Pissed off guys questioning everything, hating the lie we've been sold, but with the advantage of lacking the true nihilism of punk that we can improve ourselves.

This is easily one of the top 10 posts I've seen on RVF.

(05-23-2014 10:55 AM)Cunnilinguist Wrote:  

Here on RVF, you will find a lot of criticism of those people who choose useless college majors and end up broke/unemployed. Why can we not apply the same sort of logic to artists/musicians? The world is changing. Oh, you worked hard to learn how to play guitar? Should have went for a STEM degree instead. Am I wrong here? Look at thedude. He plays music, learns guitar etc. but has a valuable set of skills which enable him to earn a good living.

In my case I got a taste of the professional music scene and decided it wasn't for me. You can find work easily enough, but is it something you see yourself doing for the rest of your life? If you never make it, you can teach. It pays the bills, charging $25-$50 per hour and getting a nice roster of regular students, but teaching Leyenda for the 100th time to some struggling kid can kill your soul a little bit.

Shit, I look back on cooking and I see that as a waste, even though I make a good living. Had I taken the red pill earlier, and gained the confidence I have now, I would have gone to a Business Management school. My most valuable traits aren't playing the guitar or cooking, it's managing people.

I've sat and thought about the last album that was released that I thought was great. I've racked my brain and only one comes to mind: Lateralus by Tool, and that was in 2001. I'm more than open to suggestions otherwise.

Actually I just thought of another: Radiohead's Hail to the Thief (2003)

Just for shits, I googled greatest album of the decade and found this article: http://www.nme.com/list/the-top-100-grea...049/page/1 I'll be honest that there's a good amount of bands on there I've never heard of, but out of the albums that I have listened to on that list I wasn't terribly impressed. Maybe *good* albums, but not great.

I wanted so badly for Black Keys and MGMT to save rock, but they fall flat. Same with My Morning Jacket. There was the flash in the pan that was Miike Snow. The sullen, overly polished ballads of The XX that after a few listens sound remarkably shallow. And anyone that has seen any of these bands live know that they are just....lacking. There are plenty of bands on that list that I've enjoyed many times (Belle and Sebastian in my beta days, Broken Social Scene in my heavy drinking days) I've even got very strong memories tied to some very iconic songs and albums from Interpol and Arcade Fire.

But my ultimate judge of music is replay value. And the albums I've listed above have relatively low replay value to me. What are the songs that I replay over and over? Classic rock, Progressive rock, and Classical music. Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Yes, King Crimson, Rush, Procol Harum, etc. For whatever reason, for whatever factors that existed between 1966-1978, there was a breeding ground for innovative, soulful, experimental, consciousness-expanding music. That transitioned into progressive metal into the 80s which I'm also a big fan of, but it brought an aggressive edge to the music which loses me sometimes.

The best Radiohead songs adopt a progressive element in their classical leaning melodies and irregular time signature (The opening guitar riff on 2+2=5 is straight Beethoven, set to 7/4) Tool is famous for their songs written in 5/4. Where are the bands doing this today?