As an old connoisseur of Mp3s, having xplored 40 years of music from the comfort of my bedroom over the last 5 years(via file sharing and data trades with my bros), I can confidently present what is the best music of our wonderfully odd future.
The 70s gave us the two most influential pop movements, Punk and Hip-hop, as well as Kraut Rock, Bowie, the birth of electronic pop(via Kraftwerk) and the Manchester indie scene(via Factory records). The 80s gave us electro, synth pop, New-wave, no-wave and noise pop. The 90s is when the alternative became mainstream, with Nirvana and Radiohead, heroin pop vibes everywhere with the whole shoegazer scene, Sonic Youth shaped modern indie, My Bloody valentines "Loveless" changed everything, Aphex Twin and rest of the creeps at Warp fucked our brains out with Acid, IDM and a whole wack of funky shit that I cannot even begin to Genre-fy. And lest we not forget 2pac, what more can I say?
The 2k00s is where things changed profoundly. Radiohead releases 'Kid A' in 2000 and sets a new precedent for the modern 'rock" band. Some argue that the rock is now officially dead, giving rise to the concept of 'post-rock'. 2k00-2k10 also saw the blooming of the golden era of indie music discovery, via digital formatting, MySpace, Napster and superfast connection speeds. The decade starts of with a bang with New York bands; The Yeahs Yeahs Yeahs and The Strokes dropping some refreshing good ol' rock n' roll, the perfect antithesis to Kid A and measured fear of A.I taking over the new Millenium. But by 2k6 the indie scene has become a joke, gazillions of retro-styled, skinny jeans wearing hipsters got their 15 minutes (via Myspace and Youtube), Hard drives were flooded with useless Mp3s all in the name of gaining indie-cred. But the scene gradually starts to cave in on itself, viral hipster-bashing vids were distibuted across all networks and ppl woke up to what a terrifically lame exercise it had all been. Though you still get plenty of "Kings of Leon" styled douche-bags walking around town in their gay jeans, still believing in something that well and truly ended 5 years ago. I cant really pick out any memorable Mp3s from this era with the notable exception of Animal Collectives "My Girls", which actually in all fairness was put out after 2k6. But Animal Collective, much like the Arcade Fire, managed to transcend the indie bubble and be a great band that will go down in history alongside likes of Radiohead and Sonic Youth.
So whats happened in the last coupla years?:
1.) Animal Collective puts out Merriweather Post Pavillion(Arguably the height of internet era indie)
2.) Indie goes mainstream (via MGMT, Kings of Leon and Arcade Fire)
3.)Mainstream goes Indie (via Kanye West gets a perfect 10 from Pitchfork)
So whats wrong with this picture I ask myself? ITS TOO FUCKIN' WHITE!!!
Ever since I have been musically concious I have been sucked into this white suburban indie machine. I have failed to be concious of the fact that consistently groundbreaking albums have put out by by black artists both mainstream and underground. So this not an attempt at a belated negrofication of tastes, but a rather a sobering realisation that indie as we know it has no pulse to speak of, its dead and has died as a result of being disconneted from the source. All music comes from ppl sitting around fires vibing out with drums and song, the furtherer away we drift from that the more obscure and meaningless our art becomes.
When kanye West's "My Beautiful dark Twisted Fantasy" got a perfect 10 from Pitchfork I was shocked and confused. But I downloaded the album anyway and I since given it a few listens. Personally I have had a hard time with the content, but have since enjoyed it as a musical project, a sound piece, beautiful and varied in structure with an ulta slick and precise production aesthetic. No doubt there are some catchy hooks and makes for top tier pop, but personally it doesnt grab me the way good music should, its comes down to personal preference i guess. I have always been one who tends more toward the ethereal and tripped out sounds of a more ancient origin. This album is hot right now, it contemporary, its the shit, it deserves a perfect 10, but its not really my cup of tea.
Which brings me to "Screwgaze" or Rapegaze/Witch-House/Drag, whatever you wanna call it doesn't matter, it more about the feel of the music than silly fashion trends that have been associated with acts like oOoOO and SALEM. I dont want to hype these artists up more than is necessary but fuck have they changed everything for me at least. They have provided the the missing link between musics ancient past and the Mp3 Bloggosphere of the future.
Im the sorta guy who enjoys nothing more than vibing out with some Tim Hecker or Oneohtrix Point Never and simulating a Heroin rush in my bedroom while gazing out over the city and dreaming up all manner of fanciful occultish notions of mans mysterious origins and technological future. Buts thats me.
How this relates to Screwgaze is that we have here style of music that has taken the extreme of ethereal alienesque sound(via Shogaze, Noise and ghost-synth) and brought back to earth (via HipHop, dubstep beats, and screwed rapping). We have the link, a totally human sound, thats understands the magus-like qualities we humans have and taps into it fully. This is music for a new generation of techno-savy cultural terrorists. We're not sitting around fires anymore, we're around monitors, but we're engaging with the world and changing it. This is postmodern multiculturalism at its finest. No longer R we reliving obscure moments in a previous century's dandyish epochs(via postpunk/new-wave/mod whatever), but rather are we truly embracing the future and making shit happen.
In the last few weeks empires have been toppled by kids (via The Jasmine Revolt), this is some crazy shit going down, I kinda feel guilty that the biggest news in my life is some new Mp3s to vibe to and getting some sexy action in with my new lady. But The collective waves of whats been going have filtered through into my life in a big way. For the first time ever I feel that we all part of the same tribe, that although we may well all be on the brink of anihlation but fuck we're not gonna sit around in apathy and watch it youtube. I wanna be a part of whats going on from the Mp3s I listen to the books I chose to read, the news I screen and the way I chose to live my life.
So in summary I guess Im just tryna say:
FUCK INDIE
FUCK RETRO
FUCK MNSTRM/ALT
4WARD 2 RAPEGAZE
4WARD 2 ECLECTISM
4WARD THE HUMAN ALIEN
BRING ON 2K11
P.S. I have chosen not to include 'Chillwave', even though it is the buzz genre of the new decade. There are many so-called chillwavers making interesting music, like Com Truise, Games and Toro Y Moi, but on a whole I think the whole movement reeks of apathy and laziness. I see it as an extention of 2k00s indie, only slicker, cooler and more "chilled". I think its yet another lame hipster genre for rich kids who just wanna be "relevant".
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