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Attention Journalists: “Brooklyn Is Musical Hotbed” May Not Be That Original Of An Angle

oyveysignb.jpgAccording to a tipster with perhaps a little too much time on his hands, yesterday’s New York Times piece “All Hail Brooklyn: Alt-Rock Thrives In Alt-Borough”–in which the Times-reading populace is informed that there may, in fact, be bands making “dense and challenging” music residing in the borough right now, although thanks to always-rising real estate prices they live in Bed-Stuy instead of Williamsburg these days–had an all-too-similar angle to an MTV News piece two months back that also covered the depthless creativity of the borough. While both pieces do name-check artists like Yeasayer, Dirty Projectors, and Grizzly Bear, and both pieces do in fact continue the slightly nauseating trend of turning the opinion that Brooklyn is a heaving mass of everything that is awesome into journalistic fact, I would like to point out that this particular angle cannot really be one that anyone calls “first” on unless they somehow take a time machine back to 2002. (NB to anyone who might be able to do this: Please bring me along so I can lock in a super-cheap apartment.) Video of the MTV News piece after the jump.

A Queens resident’s postscript: Isn’t Brooklyn’s “alt-anything” status sort of played by now? I mean, anyone who wants to really go against the alt-monoculture grain knows that the place to go isn’t Brooklyn, but Staten Island.

All Hail Brooklyn: Alt-Rock Thrives In Alt-Borough [NYT]
[Photo via brooklyn-usa.org]

 
By Maura at 1:45 AM on Mon Mar 10 2008
Posted to:
  • Anonymous

    yeah man. Brooklyn is overrated. I am going to move from there to the new up and coming hood: the internet.

  • James Tiberius Quirk

    Brooklyn is overrated: the music, the t-shirt, the double-wide stroller, the midwestern rich kids, the F, G & L trains, the endless breathy articles about how all things 'alt' were are and will be in Brooklyn.


    But where is that bubble tea place? Sounds tres outre...

  • drjimmy11

    they are mentioned nowhere in this post or the comments, but I'd nevertheless like to take this opportunity to say once again how fucking awful TV on the Radio are.

  • the rich girls are weeping

    @Clevertrousers: OMG, there's bubble tea in Sunset Park? I *really* need to get down there.

  • Clevertrousers

    R. Morast - we need to stop telling Nebraskans this stuff anyway. That's how Emo was invented by Oklahomans. Do you really want to go through that kind of long, national nightmare again? Not I, sir. Not I.

  • Clevertrousers

    2002? How old are you idolator kids, anyways? Never heard of They Might Be Giants? Oy Vey, indeed. Meanwhile - all you white hipster motherfuckers need to stay the fuck out of Sunset Park, if I see any more of you kids buying dumplings and bubble tea on 8th Ave I'm gonna kick ya'all right in the cock in front of your girlfriends and confiscate your Brooklyn Not For Tourists guide! Seriously!!!

  • Catbirdseat

    "I mean, anyone who wants to really go against the alt-monoculture grain knows that the place to go isn't Brooklyn, but Staten Island."


    Pffh, Maura! I already saw that story on NY1 or something a few months ago.


    No, I'm serious.

  • Anonymous

    way to latch onto an aesthetic that peaked years ago. you know when mtv and the new york times show up that they represent the real actual kiss of death to anything vital.

  • the rich girls are weeping

    Yeah, but part of me is kind of grumpy with Mr. Dirty Projectors for outing Bed-Stuy as a secret hotbed of experimental indie rock. Seriously, my 'hood and the wilds of Greenpoint are like, the last decent places to live around here.

  • R. Morast

    sorry to bleed the mainstream journalism mindset into this, but for the NYtimes readers in nebraska or new mexico, this probably is "news." though, it's worth noting that a NYtimes reader who is oblivious to this "news" probably doesn't care about this "news."

  • Anonymous

    Brooklyn was alt-hip in the alt-90's, pre-willyburg; this is nothing new...nor is any band with vampire in the title.

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