Commemorating the late 90s

For those of us who were late to grunge party that was early 90s, albums like Modest Mouse's The Lonesome Crowded West (1997), The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin (1999), and Belle and Sebastian's If You're Feeling Sinister (1996), were a big deal. For me, they helped to lay the groundwork for the musical exploration of my late teens, and gave me a (loose) standard against which I could evaluate other albums.

The albums mentioned above are the first three entries of the Pitchfork Classic series. Each video is comprised of a series of interviews (what amounts to an oral history) with band members, producers, engineers, record label execs, and so on.

Pitchfork is known mostly for its overblown album reviews and so it's really refreshing to see them take a hands-off approach and let those involved speak for themselves.

atlas sound/sacred space

You can say what you want about Pitchfork, but they've got that whole "end of the year" thing down to a science and their off-shoot for music videos, Pitchfork TV, continues to showcase new ways for fans to approach their favourite artists. One of their best features, "Cemetery Gates," places musicians in the empty sanctuary of a gothic cathedral. For the well-behaved choir boys like Grizzly Bear and Jonsi it seems like a perfect fit, while bands like Of Montreal are forced to rethink their over the top stage presence. The video below finds Deerhunter's Bradford Cox performing material from Atlas Sound's 2009 release, Logos. One of the best songs on the album, "Attic Lights" sounds like it was meant to be played in this sort of context and it's all the better for it.

rant of the day: indie music

Is it fair to say that, in this age of internet domination, viral marketing, and commercial apathy, the term/category/genre/qualifier known as "indie" has entirely lost its cache?

Perhaps this is because the "independent" tag no longer defines the sounds of new hipsterdom; or, perhaps the problem is that the "indie" lable has become synonomous with hipster culture. Perhaps the term is vacuous because most independent artists appear to have little or no problem hawking a song to whatever company is savvy enough to tap into counter-culture, not that I'm accusing them of selling out. I think we're well beyond that. Beginning in the late 70s and 80s as a boldly noncommercial take on popular music, often released on small DIY labels, "indie" has come to represent a variety of things; but more often than not, it refers to guitar/synth pop by image-conscious scenesters.

The ever-insightful British pop historian Simon Reynolds offers some background:

Originally we talked of 'independent' music, meaning music on independent labels, and at that time there was still a shared (if loose) framework of ideology and sonics that traced back to punk . . . . It was an oppositional term: independent music opposed itself to the mainstream rock and pop released on major labels. The idea was that on independent labels you would find more experimental or adventurous music, people exploring esoteric and non-commercial directions, making sounds too abrasive or weird to be on daytime radio. The lyrical content would be radical or challenging, either exploring the dark side of human condition, or being political in various ways, or just very sophisticated, ironic, and so on.

By about 1984/1985, though, 'indie' meant a style of song-oriented, guitar-based music whose opposition to the mainstream took the form of no longer being contemporary – spurning synthesisers and drum machines and sequencers, avoiding the R&B and dance music influences that dominated the pop charts, and instead looking back to rock's archives, principally the 1960s. 'Indie' meant jangly guitar groups. By 1986 'indie' pretty much equated with a refusal of the pop present. Because it now meant a style of music, not a means of production and distribution, it could be uncoupled from the independent label system, and that is what gradually happened. (The Independent, 20 July 2008)

The trend from an ethos to a style seems familiar, though the role and evolution of popular media cannot be underestimated; the rise of indie music in the 00s is not unlike the mainstream co-optation of "alternative" music from the late 80s through the early 90s, but now more than ever it's become apparent that cultural markers like musical taste and critical status depend upon new technology and social networking. In fact, rarely can you get one without the other.

When was the last time you read a review that made a point of a band's "indie" status? Was it right next to a feature on the Black Eyed Peas? Did you find it in Spin or Rolling Stone? (Does anyone read paper magazines anymore, let alone look to these grizzly monoliths for new bands?) Does the ever-growing Pitchfork camp even bother calling something "indie"? Speaking of the Peas, in a recent interview with the Associated Press Fergie explained that her group's new album would take inspiration from various genres and styles, such as "indie." If this isn't proof that the indie ethos is dead, I don't know what is. And what, you ask, was I doing reading an interview with the Black Eyed Peas? I guess I was bored with the rest of the newspaper.

"Indie music" used to suggest a simple dichotomy between fringe recording/production and mainstream polish, the unheard and the oversaturated. As most bands know there is no pure space independent music, nor is there any sense, for critics, in holding the music of one side over and against the other. To name a recent example, the new Gorillaz record deserves just as much (if not more) attention as the new Broken Social Scene record. And it just so happens that Gorillaz's label, Virgin, has handled distribution for some of the "Broken Social Scene presents . . ." albums, so Art & Crafts, like a lot of other big independent labels, have more or less closed the gap on the majors. "Indie music" has become the laziest of catch-all descriptors; it's become redundant, and it's time we moved on.

There will always be lesser-known, more/less innovative artists producing great music that doesn't get heard. For the average middle-class musician it's now easier than ever to offer one's music to the public. Sifting through all the inevitable trash is the job of the record label. Clearly, the process isn't this simple and most of labels haven't been doing a great job. But the job isn't theirs alone.

more reasons to love cokemachineglow

It's summer, and that means that a good many people have places to go and music festivals to attend. These days it seems like the internet's favourite festival belongs to Pitchfork (at least, according to websites I frequent). Believe it or not, a couple years ago, I almost decided to go; but then I realized I had now real way to get there or money to spend on a frivolous trip to Chicago. It's a shame that I stumbled on this a week late, but cokemachineglow has done the shut-ins of the world a great service: CMG's Guide to Not Attending the Pitchfork Music Festival.

Funds, day job, infant, IBS; whatever the reason, you won’t be there, unable to observe a hoard of perilously cute early-20s scenesters, unable to disdain them by being older and thicker in the waist and, because you’ve started caring about your health, closer to death. Who will you stare at with thinly veiled contempt? Your cat? 

Having recently attended the Winnipeg Folk Festival, I felt a strong connection with the second point on their guide, which is probably the best reason to stay away from large music festivals: where a nasty amount of heat and an even nastier amount of substance abuse have joined forces to make your trips to the portapotties feel like some obscene punishment.

2. Poop in a real toilet. Though my uncle once told me that sitting over an uncovered john for too long could predicate some serious colon trouble (bacteria gets in there too easily?—he didn’t specify), now’s the chance to really enjoy the cold safety of well-cleaned porcelain against your unthreatened behind while the festival throngs stand in line waiting to make in a fetid pile. In fact, why not spend a whole set on the toilet? Bring the laptop in the bathroom with you; if Kevin Drew [of Broken Social Scene] only knew you were laying cable while watching him sing…

Oh, and they also have a regular Guide to the Pitchfork Music Festival, which is just as entertaining.

The decade lists keep rolling out. Pitchfork was ahead of the game, posting theirs earlier this fall. Now Rolling Stone has unveiled its own authoritative list, complete with a snazzy cover design (in fact, this is probably the best Rolling Stone cover of the past 10 years). The magazine has gone through some fairly major changes over the decade to cut costs. They've cut back Rolling Stone's size, format, etc., while websites like Pitchfork have expanded in every way. Now we've got old print giant on the one hand (trying desperately to keep up with the culture it once spoke for) and the new cutting edge P4k website on the other (which is where the growing majority discover new music; if consensus can exist anymore, P4k has the sway to shape it). Rolling Stone has little influence among anyone under 30; it really belongs to the boomers...especially because hardly any young people actually buy magazines!

Simon Reynolds has hatched a theory about popular music tastes that he's developed by scanning the "best of the decade" lists from places like Rolling Stone and Pitchfork. The lists predominantly feature albums from the first half of the decade. You're likely to see albums like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Kid A, Stankonia, Is This It, Funeral, etc. dominating the list, while obviously great albums from the last couple years won't even break the top twenty. What's behind this trend? Well, Reynolds argues, it has nothing to do with the quality of music (in fact, each year brings new albums that are just as good, if not better, than the year before); it has little to do with having some distance from the album; it isn't even because lists are essentially vehicles for personal nostalgia (which I think to be the case). No, it's because we as listeners of popular music are less able to reach consensus on definitive albums (You can read his full article/theory here). Instead, because of a variety of factors, the pop music canon has become increasingly fragmented over time because there is exponentially more music being made today than yesterday; musicians now, more than ever, can pick from a growing range of genres and experiment. Add to that the decline physical media (cds, tapes, etc.), which has definitely had an effect on consumer habits and buying patterns.

This makes sense, especially when you consider how music is currently being produced and consumed, not to mention this decade's blatant shift from physical (both in print culture and music) to digital media. Reynolds also stresses that music responds to social need/convention. In other words, consensuss builds when we need it to. To use Reynolds' point against him, if you look at the beginning of the decade, there was a strong feeling of urgency about the music being made (a lot of fear, resentment, and so on). The future looked bleak and we needed albums to rally around. Looking back, it's hard to ignore the fact that 00, 01, and 02 are the most favoured years. And I don't think it's ludicrous to connect that with the 9/11 watershed (though I shudder at the thought). Like all historical measurements, commemorative lists are bound by the projections of their makers. That event was symbolic on a number of levels and we're bound to interpret the music from those years in light of what took place. Could something like this happen again in popular culture? The once powerful tastemakers like Rolling Stone and Spin aren't going to convince all of us that x or y have captured our cultural zeitgeist, but I think a lot of us will still be looking for someone to do so when catastrophe hits.

This is a new low, probably.

I've never been into hockey pools (or any other pro-sports pool, for that matter), not because it's a form of gambling I should probably condemn, nor because I its so trivial and doesn't amount to anything (unless you win the $20 pot!). There's a draft and everyone takes turns choosing their players, keeping in mind al l the minute details regarding injuries, playing time, etc. A friend and I have developed the same sort of thing for Pitchfork's list of the "best" albums from the past decade, which is already well underway (pissing people off). We take turns picking albums until we each have ten and the one who has the best ranking with his select albums in P4K's top 20 wins something. The only problem is we already both know who's taking home the top spot.

It will be a major upset if Radiohead's Kid A isn't number one, especially considering how the site has hailed it as the "Last Album" (just read their review of the reissue) and how unabashedly they love all things RH. That said, P4K is known to make stupid ranking decisions just to throw people off and show themselves to be a step above the predictions of common folk. We can also safely assume that Outkast, Animal Collective, TV on the Radio, Arcade Fire, The Knife, M.I.A, Modest Mouse, LCD Soundsystem, Jay-Z, Interpol, the Books, and Sufjan Stevens will clean up. I also expect to see the White Stripes, despite the fact that almost all of their albums have been written off and panned by P4K writers. Kid A deserves to take this thing home. We all know how this should end. My list is in the works and you'd better believe Kid A/Amnesiac will be leading things off not with a bang, but a whimper.

old media nostalgia

A couple months ago, I was walking down an back alley in Wolseley and something familiar caught my eye. Sitting atop a mound of garbage was the video companion to 1997's What's Up Matador?, a compilation of various artists on Matador Records during the mid 90s. A number of years earlier I bought the compilation on cd and, among standard favourites like Cat Power, Spoon, Pavement, Yo La Tengo and Liz Phair (well, pre-Space Egg) found some new/old bands that I took to right away (Helium, Chavez, etc.). Last weekend, I finally got a chance to watch the video on an old VCR. It all looks incredibly dated: the grainy resolution, the washed out images, the bold, over-the-top aesthetic, the heavy-handed video concepts, the leering irony/sarcasm, the concsious attempts to produce a hit. What's Up Matador? made me a bit nostalgic for indie rock before "indie rock" became a mainstream genre: before the internet took hold, before small record companies started withering away. Even fifteen years ago, independent music meant something else: it's not that it was more purely independent or more DIY (probably less, actually); rather, it was thought about very differently. It's been fascinating to watch this shift in popular culture take place over the better part of my adolescence.

I was reminded of this again when I visited Pitchfork yesterday and noticed that the website had halted regular reviews to accommodate for the first of many lists and features that will help conclude the past decade in music. P2K: The Decade in Music begins with the Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s, which is a broad smattering of singles with a handful predictably obsure songs thrown into the mix to remind amateurs like me that they're the experts. Above the title is the image of a shattered compact disc. We've come through a period of transition and there's no going back - unless its vinyl we're talking about. The cd encapsulates the best and worst aspects of the music industry through the 90s: overpriced, cheaply made, overproduced, soon-to-be-out-dated pieces of plastic. It's really surprising they lasted as long as they did. Remember mini-discs? In retrospect it seems like we were always trying to anticipate the next medium and now, all of a sudden, here we are with ipods and illegal downloads; here we are with less centralization and further atomization (we all know albums will soon be a thing of the past), which all serves to provide even more consumer information to the entertainment industry.

I've always bought cds, and I have over 350 sitting in my bedroom - when I'm moving in two weeks, 75% of my packing will be takien up by cds, lps, and books. Things used to be relatively finite, but we've fallen prey to the illusion that information is infinitely accessible, infinitely available, and can be infinitely reproduced. Digital media may be practical, but just think how empty our rooms would be had we not been such massive consumers during the 90s and 2000s.

Here's an old favorite, featured on What's Up Matador? (VHS), by Yo La Tengo from their (best) album, 1993's Painful.