I find indie music boring because it tries so hard not to resemble any other genre that its features seem to be what it lacks (musically) rather than what it has. This is dumb. Invent some new styles that are weird and wacky, don't just do standard old 4/4 all the time! Do something radical like serialism was radical, or do you actually want to have commercial appeal?
And I find indie music pretentious because it masquerades as high art, supposedly worthy of my time, when in fact, I completed all the theory necessary to understand it (generally) in grade 10 at school. I haven't had much of a look at lyrics though; they could be interesting, but the music has put me off.
Possible scenario 1
I find indie lyrics to be good (as subjective as that is)
- Consequence - There is no reflection of the intricacies I find in the lyrics in the music. Therefore, indie music is pretentious and boring (to me)
Possible scenario 2
I find indie lyrics to be bad
- Consequence - There is a reflection of the content of the lyrics in the music. Therefore, indie music is pretentious and boring (to me)
Saturday, 28 May 2011
Saturday, 21 May 2011
What Holly Kruse thinks about indie music
Kruse, Holly. (2003) Site and Sound: Understanding Independent Music Scenes. Peter Lang Publishing. New York.
Chapter 2 – Telling the Story of Independent Music. pg 5-28
Chapter 2 – Telling the Story of Independent Music. pg 5-28
In the beginning of 'indie' when it was known better as 'college' rock, bands could find themselves shot to national stardom without receiving any commercial airplay. This kind of success created a mentality that you do not have to sign to a major label to become popular. The mentality has continued on in the realm of 'indie' music ever since and has developed indie into a genre that defines itself as oppositional and its participants as outsiders. The chapter also looks at how the genre was hard to define back in the late 80s. A record store manager said that it was difficult to describe the genre as bands like Public Enemy, a hip-hop band were huge on college radio waves as were bands like Jane's Addiction, which is a more typical 'alternative' band. There were so many different sounds floating around the airwaves in those days that it was difficult to say what this 'indie' or 'alternative' or 'college' rock was. The concept of music being alternative is problematic because (from Jim Greer), “'A lot of music that's potentially mainstream-bound fails because it's bad. Does that make it alternative?'” For some, being successful on an indie label was a way of saying “fuck you” to the mainstream record companies. The chapter then goes on about the history of indie music and the scenes involved.
It seems as though a successful indie band, such as R.E.M., lives in the contradictions between mainstream and marginal, authenticity and artificiality and local and national.
What Matthew Bannister thinks about indie music
Bannister, Matthew. (2006) White Boys, White Noise: Masculinities and 1980s Indie Guitar Rock. Ashgate Publishing Limited. Hampshire.
Chapter 3 – What does it mean to be alternative? Indie Rock as a genre. pg 57-90
Chapter 3 – What does it mean to be alternative? Indie Rock as a genre. pg 57-90
The chapter is about indie rock and what it means to be alternative. Early on in the chapter, Bannister talks about indie being concerned with “what not to do” and that is how it differentiates itself from mainstream music. You can see from this why and how indie has changed so much since the late 80s. But even within the apparently shapeless thing that indie is, Bannister writes that there are formats that people follow such as the angry punk aesthetic, Andy Warhol's Pop Art and Brian Eno's minimalistic music. Each of them show a level of detachment in their delivery, says Bannister. He then discusses the use of the terms 'rock' and 'pop' in music publications and how indie differentiates itself from both. It is interesting to note that punk began as a reaction to rock music and now indie has to separate itself from both mainstream punk and mainstream rock as well as pop.
Bannister's claim (which I like :P) is that indie is NOT a style-less genre, despite its free-artistic-expression ethos. It has formats and rules much like any other genre. The rest of the chapter is devoted to describing the stylistic features typically found in indie (Bannister notes that any genre description is not fully satisfactory): styles of production, musical characteristics, semiotic aspects and behavioural aspects. This shows what (I find) problematic about indie: that it is somewhere in between fitting to a style and being a free artistic expression. Bannister says that this is why indie is so “gesturally restricted: not obviously black or danceable or too macho and 'rock and roll' – few blues scales or phrases, little syncopation, relatively uniform in tone and texture, performed loudly but understatedly and without much individual expression.”
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
What Vincent J. Novara and Stephen Henry think about indie rock and what I think about what Vincent J. Novara and Stephen Henry think about indie rock
Novara, Vincent J. and Henry, Stephen. "A guide to essential American indie rock." Music Library Association 65 (2009): 816-832.
Business Stuff
In this article, Novara and Henry look at a timeline of indie recordings and the way they and the artists' attitudes develop from 1980 until 2005. It begins with alternative rock groups like Dinosaur Jr., who were "successful in working...outside the boundaries of the commercial mainstream," and follows this path until there is a split between the 'mainstream' alternative rock and indie rock in 1992, with the band Pavement, when lo-fi recording came to prominence (Pavement - Summer Babe, Pavement - Zurich Is Stained. This era of indie rock is alternative rock's stubborn attitude towards "selling-out", as many thought Nirvana had done. From here, the article looks at late-90s post-rock and how indie music begins to draw from varied sources for the influence, such as jazz. This era seems to be a reaction against the music industry's search for a new Nirvana. The final section looks at indie of recent years and how they have become a large force within the music industry.
In Hibbett's article, he contrasts post-rock and the lo-fi era, while in this article, they are compared as one genre building on another.
Something interesting of note from this article is that early indie artists had little reason to go to a major label because on their indie label they were given higher royalties, had more creative control and had better access to upper management, so they weren't just on an indie label because it was cool. This was until the explosion of Nirvana, whose story promised mounds of money for bands who wanted to make the switch to a major label.
Rant Stuff
This kind of resisting the mainstream makes sense to me (if you can even call it that; it seems more like the path of least resistance). Bands were with their indie label not because they are ideologically opposed to a major label, but because they could write music how they wanted to and were paid better, both of which helped their careers in the end. Maybe indie today, in some ways, wants to re-create the 'old-days' and this is one way to do it.
Business Stuff
In this article, Novara and Henry look at a timeline of indie recordings and the way they and the artists' attitudes develop from 1980 until 2005. It begins with alternative rock groups like Dinosaur Jr., who were "successful in working...outside the boundaries of the commercial mainstream," and follows this path until there is a split between the 'mainstream' alternative rock and indie rock in 1992, with the band Pavement, when lo-fi recording came to prominence (Pavement - Summer Babe, Pavement - Zurich Is Stained. This era of indie rock is alternative rock's stubborn attitude towards "selling-out", as many thought Nirvana had done. From here, the article looks at late-90s post-rock and how indie music begins to draw from varied sources for the influence, such as jazz. This era seems to be a reaction against the music industry's search for a new Nirvana. The final section looks at indie of recent years and how they have become a large force within the music industry.
In Hibbett's article, he contrasts post-rock and the lo-fi era, while in this article, they are compared as one genre building on another.
Something interesting of note from this article is that early indie artists had little reason to go to a major label because on their indie label they were given higher royalties, had more creative control and had better access to upper management, so they weren't just on an indie label because it was cool. This was until the explosion of Nirvana, whose story promised mounds of money for bands who wanted to make the switch to a major label.
Rant Stuff
This kind of resisting the mainstream makes sense to me (if you can even call it that; it seems more like the path of least resistance). Bands were with their indie label not because they are ideologically opposed to a major label, but because they could write music how they wanted to and were paid better, both of which helped their careers in the end. Maybe indie today, in some ways, wants to re-create the 'old-days' and this is one way to do it.
Friday, 6 May 2011
What Ryan Hibbett thinks about indie rock and what I think about what Ryan Hibbett thinks about indie rock
Hibbett, Ryan. "What is indie rock?" Popular Music Journal 28 (2006): 55-76.
Business Stuff
This article is broken into four sections. In the first, Ryan Hibbett talks about the role of "cultural capital" in indie rock and gives a brief analysis of the actual term. In the second, he looks at recordings he considers more like indie than anything else and then contrasts them with post-rock bands who don't downplay their production of music but aim for complexity to distance themselves from everyday sort of music. In the third and fourth, he looks at how indie culture is "disseminated" through how-to-indie websites and Amazon's way of marketing similar music through the apparent taste of its customers. The article really focuses on the complexity of indie rock's claim to high art and how the claim manifests itself in music and mass media.
Using the cultural capital idea was a good way to demonstrate indie rock's attitude towards itself and other forms of popular music. It also shows how indie rock is always running away from popularity; the more people there are chasing cultural capital, the less valued cultural capital becomes.
The soyouwanna.com section of the article also shows this (link below, now at eHow). As a how-to guide, the site tells people how to fake being an indie expert. It takes a step back from the indie "mainstream" and looks at it with an ironic and detached viewpoint, which is just how indie views most other things. So "faking" being an indie expert is hardly faking, it is the very essence of indie manifesting in a new way!
How to fake being an indie rock expert
Ranty Stuff
Hibbett mentions, in relation to indie rock, the acquisition of cultural capital, an idea from Pierre Bourdieu. Cultural capital is basically special knowledge that allows you to understand "cultural" things like music and artwork. Already this makes indie sound like a bit of an exclusive club, resisting the mainstream, as you'd expect. But it goes further. Using Michel Foucault's idea that "power and knowledge directly imply one another", Hibbett says that you can apply this special knowledge to gain social distinction. You can also use beer and a ute to gain social distinction. But these people want the top. They want to be looked upon with wanting eyes, a la the Mark Zuckerberg character in The Social Network, and we all saw what that got him: more money to make friends with and an ex-friend. Is this the need to be needed? Ugh.
So basically, all those wierd-looking people you see on the bus listening to someone you have never heard of have a great amount of influence on what is "high art". Fair enough, but Hibbett says they define high art differently from the way (perhaps) ABC Classic FM does. And I can't see why their music should be considered high art. The fans are the only ones saying it (as far as I can tell). But classical music has a history of being appreciated by lots of different types of people: poor people and rich people, silly people and smart people (although there seems to be more of the latter of both), even bad people, like lawyers, Patrick Bateman and the main dude in A Clockwork Orange! (Check out my irrelevant cultural capital that allows me to refer to these characters! (I haven't even read/seen A Clockwork Orange!)) I can't back any of this up with statistics or anything so feel free to criticise this claim (feel free even if I could back it up).
This article is broken into four sections. In the first, Ryan Hibbett talks about the role of "cultural capital" in indie rock and gives a brief analysis of the actual term. In the second, he looks at recordings he considers more like indie than anything else and then contrasts them with post-rock bands who don't downplay their production of music but aim for complexity to distance themselves from everyday sort of music. In the third and fourth, he looks at how indie culture is "disseminated" through how-to-indie websites and Amazon's way of marketing similar music through the apparent taste of its customers. The article really focuses on the complexity of indie rock's claim to high art and how the claim manifests itself in music and mass media.
Using the cultural capital idea was a good way to demonstrate indie rock's attitude towards itself and other forms of popular music. It also shows how indie rock is always running away from popularity; the more people there are chasing cultural capital, the less valued cultural capital becomes.
The soyouwanna.com section of the article also shows this (link below, now at eHow). As a how-to guide, the site tells people how to fake being an indie expert. It takes a step back from the indie "mainstream" and looks at it with an ironic and detached viewpoint, which is just how indie views most other things. So "faking" being an indie expert is hardly faking, it is the very essence of indie manifesting in a new way!
How to fake being an indie rock expert
Ranty Stuff
Hibbett mentions, in relation to indie rock, the acquisition of cultural capital, an idea from Pierre Bourdieu. Cultural capital is basically special knowledge that allows you to understand "cultural" things like music and artwork. Already this makes indie sound like a bit of an exclusive club, resisting the mainstream, as you'd expect. But it goes further. Using Michel Foucault's idea that "power and knowledge directly imply one another", Hibbett says that you can apply this special knowledge to gain social distinction. You can also use beer and a ute to gain social distinction. But these people want the top. They want to be looked upon with wanting eyes, a la the Mark Zuckerberg character in The Social Network, and we all saw what that got him: more money to make friends with and an ex-friend. Is this the need to be needed? Ugh.
So basically, all those wierd-looking people you see on the bus listening to someone you have never heard of have a great amount of influence on what is "high art". Fair enough, but Hibbett says they define high art differently from the way (perhaps) ABC Classic FM does. And I can't see why their music should be considered high art. The fans are the only ones saying it (as far as I can tell). But classical music has a history of being appreciated by lots of different types of people: poor people and rich people, silly people and smart people (although there seems to be more of the latter of both), even bad people, like lawyers, Patrick Bateman and the main dude in A Clockwork Orange! (Check out my irrelevant cultural capital that allows me to refer to these characters! (I haven't even read/seen A Clockwork Orange!)) I can't back any of this up with statistics or anything so feel free to criticise this claim (feel free even if I could back it up).
How this is gonna go down
So basically I'm going to structure this as: business stuff first (for those reader(s) in charge of grading) followed by extra rant stuff if I feel like ranting. I will label it so it is obvious.
Monday, 2 May 2011
Introduction
I don't like indie music. For the most part, I find it far too simple. Four chords (if you're lucky) and quaver-based 4/4 rhythms just don't do it for me. I've heard it all before. I am not a fan of indie music and I do not listen to much of it, whatever it is, (because I find it boring) so my perceptions of it are likely to be uninformed. To me, indie musicians seem to want to project an I'm-not-professional-I'm-just-following-my-dreams kind of image and this conscious image-seeking seems to manifest in the writing process. A professional musician might try to extend their chord "vocabulary" beyond I, IV, V and vi, experiment with dissonances or play in a time signature other than 4/4 and 6/8, but indie musicians seem to want to resist any kind of development of ability.
Anyway, blah blah blah, I don't like indie music - rant over! From reading through academic articles, I hope to achieve with this blog is a more empathetic understanding of the indie scene and its ideals (and get a good mark). In other words, if I can like indie music (or at least get some musical/intellectual satisfaction from it) by the end of this, then I will have succeeded. Now I just have to hope I can keep an open mind.
Anyway, blah blah blah, I don't like indie music - rant over! From reading through academic articles, I hope to achieve with this blog is a more empathetic understanding of the indie scene and its ideals (and get a good mark). In other words, if I can like indie music (or at least get some musical/intellectual satisfaction from it) by the end of this, then I will have succeeded. Now I just have to hope I can keep an open mind.
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