I still read Pitchfork everyday. Well, sort of. I still load it up every day and usually end up looking at the reviews and news headlines, scratching my head and saying say "what in the who the fuck-fuck are these bands and who listens to them?" Every once in awhile I'll click on a review of a band that I do know, only to hear them trash something that I enjoy / that they were praising a few months earlier. There's just too much music out there. Too much shitty music. Maybe I'm getting older. Maybe digital recording makes it too easy for people (ahem, hot cops, ahem) but I'll take the SST and early Sub Pop/Merge days of "indie rock" over the current Arcade Fire + "put wolf or the name of some other animal in your band name for instant noteriety" days for sure. There was hope for a little while. I love the first Q and Not U record. Les Savy Fav's Go Forth is great. Milemarker and Frodus knew how to be both artistic and kick fucking ass without taking themselves too seriously. To me, that stuff is still "new".. although if I look at my records the release dates are all 1999 - 2001. That was a long time ago. But really, there's been no progression. Or certainly no improvements. Every new band that someone tells me to check out sounds like a rich kid version of what Modest Mouse was doing in 1998. I guess that's why I've recently sort of regressed back to my teenage tastes and began digging up my old pop punk records, as well as finding new records by bands influenced by those bands. That's when music was exciting for me. That's the scene in which I felt like there were a lot of people listening to it because they loved it and not just to say something about themselves to everyone else or prove to that hot scenester chick on myspace that they're into that obscure screamo band that wears black mascara and really, really wants to die. I was probably just naive then. I'm probably still naive. But to me, 99% of new music has gotten to be unbearably awful while I can still dig up a two minute pop ditty, bop my head, and have it make my day better than it was before I listened.
There's really no point to this rambling. But Linda is out today, as well as my neighbor to the left so I figured I'd take the opportunity to rant and run with it. In sum, pitchfork sucks but Youtube is pretty cool. I just wish I had sound at my office.
We should be able to start uploading MP3s, etc. to this site in the near future. We're gonna transcend media and shit, brahs.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Maybe it’s your means of finding new music for yourself? I mean, if your way of getting turned onto new shit is from websites that you don’t trust and people who have bad taste, what do you expect? Why be so lazy about it? Would you constantly eat at a restaurant where you didn’t like the food and the service licked dick? Go search and find something for yourself. Please. And to try and blame digital recording? To think that new bands start up because they can record on a computer is Ludacris. There are plenty of arguments people can make against digital recording, but this one is just lazy.
Let me help you with your real gripe, which is against new media and how music is so disposable these days. There aren’t more bands playing music, it’s just easier to reach you with it. Think about how many bands you found out about when you first started downloading music. Your list of bands that you really enjoyed probably jumped from like 10 to 100. They were always there, just not easy for us to find. It was fucking great, all the new bands we could find! But by this point we’re just so spoiled that we’ve come to hate music just because it’s everywhere. I think we’re at a period now that we’ve started longing for the “early days” of downloading music. Where we would find new exciting bands on a daily basis. Now we’re sick of not being amazed all the time. We sit back and wait for someone else to drop something in our lap and demand that it blow our minds. Maybe we have to realize that the early days are gone and now we have to “work” for our new music. Is music oversaturated with too many bands? Certainly. Don’t like it, don’t listen, but don’t blame it for being out there.
You say 99% of new music is awful, but I think you’re only hearing a portion of it, and it’s coming from what other people tell you is cool. Not that having other people turning you onto music is a bad thing at all, but if you’re at the point where you’re giving up on music because you can’t find something you like, get new people. Yes, there will ALWAYS be more awful bands than there are good bands; it’s just part of the game. But you can sit back and say, “Wow, myspace is just full of hipster bands whoring themselves out to me and they all suck.” Or, you can use it for good. I guarantee every one of your favorite bands is on myspace, and I bet there are many more you would like if you went out and found them. You can talk about all the websites and how the buzz is all about undeserving, shitty bands, but I bet there are a lot of sites that have similar tastes as you and review and post new music everyday. Go find them! Go find a band you like on myspace, go to their friends list and click on 5 bands that you never heard of. If you don’t like them, go to their friends list and find bands there. In ten minutes you’ll have heard a lot of new bands. Maybe they’ll all suck, but that’s just one small spot where you can find new shit. Go find search out some mp3 blogs, there are thousands, find one you like, they’ll give you new music everyday. The internet is VERY big.
Simply put, don’t be lazy. Maybe you just want to complain about something, and this is it. That’s ok, bitching on the internet is all the internet really is, doesn’t mean they are your real feelings. It seems like you want to sound like all the other kids bitching about Pitchfork and the hipsters, and you nailed it, but really I just think you are confused about where you stand.
I’m at the point where I don’t listen much to music at all anymore. At home and in the car it’s talk radio. If I do need my fill, I like the ritual of putting on records. I like that I have to sit there and pay attention, I’m not doing 60 other things. It’s tough to get up and do something when you have to come back and flip the record again. You have to be there with the music. I do download music and love making mix cd’s, or finding cd’s to fit my current mood, but I’m not really on a search for the next best band. I hate the Ipod. You don’t fucking need that much music so quickly at your disposal. With Ipod and mp3s, it seems like you blow through your entire record collection in minutes. Shuffle, Skip, Next. It’s so cheap to me. Fuck the Shuffle. You mention getting older, as if that is what’s keeping you disconnected from the music, but maybe you’re what’s disconnecting you from the music is how you’re receiving and processing it.
Before the internet I used to use a practice, as I’m sure many people have, to find new music. I would look through cd’s of bands I liked and see who was on the “thank you” list. I’d write down a list of bands and go shopping. Sure, some sucked. Sure, a lot of what I thought were bands turned out to be not bands at all. But I trusted the bands more than I trusted anyone else who was trying to get me into their music. I had to work for it. To think about how you can use this idea today with how easy it is to find music, you cannot honestly say that everything sucks. Put a little work into it, you’ll be rewarded.
This isn’t a rant directly against you Mr. Little Avell0, though it may sound like it. Maybe I’m wrong and you really don’t like anything besides what you like, but I think there’s a lot more out there. I love pop-punk as much as the next guy who loves pop-punk, there’s a scene, it’s exciting and unpretentious yea! But that’s not all I want to listen to all the time. Sometimes I want to smoke doobers and listen to fucking Earth, Wind and Fire. Sometimes I feel a little pissed and need a little T.A.T.U to snap me back to reality. Music is personal to the listener. Why put bands you like in a death match? You are allowed to like the Arcade Fire AND The Descendents. Fucking eat it all up my friend, you can like all of your “SST and SupPop” stuff, and still sneak in those Phish mp3s you love. It is really ok. You don’t have to love everything all the time. Everything doesn't have to walk the perfect line of, "other people like it, but not too many where it's uncool".
For a post that had “no point”, I really took this a little far. I hope I don’t come off as too preachy and harsh, I’ve been where you are and have probably said some of the things you just said, but I’ve changed, and reading your post kinda bothered me.*
*Actually, reading your post again now after writing my retort, it’s just kinda looks like you were posting something just to post, and there was barely a thought there. My entire blab was talking about a post that didn’t exist. Maybe somewhere, not your though. Looks like your only point is that you like pop-punk more than other music. To that I say, well, there’s still a plethora of catchy poppy-rock style stuff that I’m sure you’ve never touched on, so go search it out.
Post a Comment