Idolator

I read that earlier today, and really just had to shake my head. Anyone who's sincerely invested in what direction the indie zeitgeist is headed in 2008 deserves to be disappointed on a daily basis, and trying to urge everyone's attention toward a well known pop song, even a really good one, as an alternative to inbred indie influences is at best a futile display of how "popist" you can be. It's always going to be tempting for a music writer to resort to this kind of prescriptive criticism -- going ahead and spelling out, "hey everybody, this is what you should do, these are the guidelines you should follow to get a rave review from me" -- and I think it's a pitfall to be avoided at all costs.

I was really surprised, I threw on Miss You Much last time I DJed and the dancefloor cleared within 30 seconds.

I love Matthew, but I had roughly the same reaction to this post as Al Shipley above. If you want to talk about how great the sound of RN1814 is, then do that. Adding in the "wah wah indie music needs to deepen its influence pool by looking to the obvious" element just seems preachy and arrogant. I'm as tired of blog rock as everyone else is, but omg c'mon...as long as people have been making music, there's been good stuff and bad stuff and it's been your responsibility to find the good stuff.

@brasstax: Is it his responsibility to find the good stuff? Or is it his responsibility to talk about music and his opinions on it? Do critics really only serve as discriminators, filters, and/or shopping guides, or are they here to push the conversation in other ways beyond putting a yes/no vote on record? Obviously there is always going to be good and bad, but the frustration Matthew's running on clearly comes from his belief that the ratio is way, way, way out of wack at the moment. If you disagree, a response should probably take place at that level.

And @Al Shipley: That comment about the indie zeitgeist is pretty defeatist! This is Matthew's industry and job you're talking about here: his professional identity is tied up in what independent music looks like. That's like telling someone who works at GM that cars are clearly a losing bet and you shouldn't bother having an opinion on the subject!

Also, full disclosure, I'm a friend of Matthew's. I have my own problems with the piece, most of them related to tone, but I don't think he's wrong that we've entered a uniquely incestuous phase in the creation of music that's been fueld by the seismic shift in how music gets distributed and heard. People really have stopped listening outside their own little camps and communities now that there's no "mainstream" and it is causing a large number of previously well-known values to get lost and ignored. Hence Matthew's agitation for songs people claim are "well-known" but which it's pretty clear nobody's actually THOUGHT about it in a while.

I agree that this concept is a little shakey, but Matthew is far from a knee-jerk "poptist" and deserves the benefit of doubt. Let's see how this series progresses, and what other songs he puts forth, before judging too harshly.

@dyfl: Let's please not take this in a techy direction. It's not about the internet - indie kids have been ignoring mainstream dance pop for decades. In fact I'd say they're currently paying more attention than ever, so let's not accuse bands of being solipsistic in addition to being unimaginative.

@dyfl: I wasn't saying it was Matthew's responsibility. It's EVERYONE's responsibility. The people who are perfectly okay with listening to the 57th band this year who sounds just like My Bloody Valentine or Can or whoever else probably aren't proactive enough to bother with research and really don't care. But for people (like me) who are always searching out something interesting in a sea of sameness, the disappointment never comes. There's always something to be found. I'm just saying that if you're frustrated, it's only because you've given up.

@Al Shipley: @brasstax: I liked the article and think that a lot of the points that he makes, particularly about arrangement, dramatic tension, and negative space would be nice to see taken to heart by a few bands. Tonally, I'm fine with people being pissed off; it's fuel to get shit done just like anything else.

Also, re: being invested in the indie zeitgeist, There's nothing wrong or inherently more or less deserving of attention about caring where the indie world goes next. Not any more so than caring which band becomes the next Nickleback, which Jonas brother develops a coke problem first, or whether or not Lil Wayne is going to evolve into a great artist instead of an intermittently brilliant jackoff. There's gonna be a point where the <2month hype/backlash cycle is going to put the heat on artists and some interesting shit is going to come out, don't slag the whole enterprise just because it's growing pains have yielded some wackness. It's also incredibly presumptuous to say that pieces like this are a "how to get a rave review" thing. Assuming he brings up 4 or 5 new concepts with each song and does one of these a week for a few months, that's much more like cartography than it is spelling out a critical schema.

@dyfl: All I'm saying is that if you ever try to observe contemporary indie rock as a whole, instead of cherry-picking what seems worthwhile or up your alley, of course it's eventually going to look like a "seemingly infinite wave of faceless, deeply unimaginative indie bands and their tired, worn-out influences." If anything it speaks to Perpetua's naivete that it took him this many years of constant indie coverage to arrive at that observation. When you have as many artists working the same narrow field as there are today, it's always going to become a blur of sameyness. And besides, what good is the independent/individualist ethos of indie rock if you approach it with the same emphasis on trends and hero worship as pop music?

@RaptorAvatar: Sorry, I just didn't get anything especially insightful out of what he wrote about "Miss You Much." And honestly, anyone who's lived in this country in the past 20 years who has no appreciation for the collective works of Jackson/Jam/Lewis is probably not going to see the light because of a couple paragraphs of description, especially when presented within the grandstanding agenda of assigning them "your new influences." Do you really think that if someone who's playing in a mediocre shoegaze band puts away the delay pedal and tries their hand at bombastic synth pop, the results will be closer to "Miss You Much" than "we're playing cheap Casios, lolz 80s!"?

@Al Shipley: @brasstax: IAWTC. This is shading dangerously into the same territory that got Sasha F-J into so much trouble last year.

@Al Shipley: "especially when presented within the grandstanding agenda of assigning them "your new influences.""

^^^THIS! This is what bugged me the most about the entire thing. It's the edict-issuing that drives me nuts. I got in the same kind of twist when Stereogum started declaring certain artists "okay to like" a while ago. I get all reactionary at that kind of attitude and say "Fuck you, motherfucker. I'll like who I want to like thankyouverymuch."

I know the beginning of that post is kinda whiny, but it's venting a lot of very sincere frustration. I feel that I had to include that preamble, or I would not effectively explain what I was trying to do with the series. Basically, the idea is that I'm presenting older songs that ought to be considered as potential jumping-off points for contemporary musicians of whatever genre. As I said in the piece, I don't want people to clone the songs, and I would prefer that people have their own identity. My modest goal is that maybe some people would read these posts and think about what I'm pointing at in these songs, and go "hey, maybe I can apply that to what I'm doing" instead of recycling the same old tired things. From this point onward, the posts will just be a way of spotlighting old songs and going "hey, what about this?" I also know that the concept is kinda arrogant and obnoxious, and I actually put off doing it for a while because of that. But really, I just came to this conclusion: Why SHOULDN'T we be encouraging people to do better, and to make more distinctive and interesting art? Critics on and offline have spent the better part of this past decade patting people on the back for giving us pale imitations of a handful of canonized bands from the 80s, so is it any shock that we've got so many new acts who don't seem particularly motivated to be at all interesting? No one is asking any of these people to try, so why not give that a shot? -- Fluxblog http://www.fluxblog.org Fluxtumblr http://perpetua.tumblr.com/ Pop Songs 07 http://popsongs.wordpress.com

@brasstax: Yeah, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that the heading was at least partially tongue in cheek, but it's still very off-putting (also pretty presumptuous as to Janet Jackson being "new" to any significant number of readers).

@Al Shipley: Nah, he's coming at this whole thing from the wrong place. An angry "I know what's best, so listen to me" kind of place. It bums me out.

[perpetua.tumblr.com]

I say, let the crappy bands fall by the wayside. Just like, don't even acknowledge them -- for heaven's sake don't try and make people change their artistic direction. Should we, as critics, stick to lauding bands that are deserving of praise, giving constructive criticism to bands with potential that are almost-but-not-quite-good, etc.?

Also, is it just me? Though I've noticed a slight uptick in shoegazey stuff, it doesn't seem all that widespread. If nothing else, I'm sick of bands that are trying to do dancerock and are failing miserably.

And, just because a band has great influences certainly doesn't mean that their product will improve with taste coaching. Sure, it might help, but ultimately, talent is innate, as is the capacity for revolution and innovation. Scolding people for not having this quality will certainly not improve anything, IMHO. It will only serve to make bad bands more defensive and uppity AND feed more grist into the "critics are snotty assholes" mill.

Oh, hey, critics! What do you guys do? Seriously. That's the crux of the argument as far as I can tell.

Now, I'm no critic, but I'll tell you what I like. I enjoy good music crit for the author's ability to share how they listen and what they hear. For example, it's nice to consider what role a writer (and their editor) think politics or personal history play in the consideration of a song. (Personally, I don't care as long as it sounds good)

In that context, Matthew's post is completely appropriate to me because it's an honest reaction. For the same reason, the prescriptive tone doesn't bother me at all. Critics' have had many roles but there was never, ever a time where they had that kind of say so. Where's the harm?

@janine: Just because it's honest doesn't mean it's right.

@the rich girls are weeping: 100% agreed. Let's let bands work their direction out on their own. If you don't like them then don't listen or write about them?

al is right. if matthew has decided that he is tired of new shoegaze bands and new animal collective-like bands than he should stop checking for them! he wants them to try and incorporate pop influences into their music? that sounds awful. why not just stick to the artists who do that in the first place (of montreal and lcd and i guess electric six, all of whom he rates in his end of the year ballot for this site). i don't think his main idea-- that there are lazy bands aping the same influences-- is necessarily wrong (maybe trite though), but i think asking bands that grew up on sonic youth and mbv and pavement and generic popular indie for dummies to incorporate sounds like janet jackson is a worse idea than what they're doing in the first place.

"This is the problem we're facing: We're stuck with a generation of young indie musicians who are more interested in fitting into pre-existing genres and aesthetic communities rather than developing their own concepts, sounds, and styles. "

when was this not the case? has there not always been a glut of bad indie bands? have the past 3 or 4 years really been that especially bad?

One needs only to look at one sentence in Perpetua's post to really get at the crux of what he's talking about: "I don't ask that people clone these songs, but instead give thought to what makes them tick, and apply that to their own work." I think that is *always* valuable. He's not asking that people "incorporate songs like Janet Jackson." Read the post. He's looking to the very heart of the song, and hoping that people come out of it with some new ideas. It's not like he's asking for a mash-up of every current band with old dance-pop songs. To be honest, that superficiality is part of the problem--the idea that every band wears its heart on its sleeve instead of in its chest. Too many people think that the total outward sound of a group/musician is who they are, without considering why the sound worked in the first place. Think about how many terrible Gang of Four ripoffs we had four or five years ago. That's why people aping MBV or Jesus and Mary Chain so often fall short--they take the skin instead of the guts.

@jordan_s: "he wants them to try and incorporate pop influences into their music? that sounds awful. why not just stick to the artists who do that in the first place"

But isn't this line of thinking partly responsible for the ultra-nichey-ness (not a real word, i know) of the indie music scene these days? Certain types of bands keep going back to their same specific well and don't bother to bring any new outside influences into their work. I don't think he's looking to replace shoegaze with Janet Jackson cover bands, just that they maybe look elsewhere every now and then when seeking inspiration.

And to everyone who suggested that he just not seek out/write about these types of bands, i think that's a little easier said than done. If you're a music critic and part of your job is to find new and interesting music, you're going to have to wade through a lot of crap. And though you may not go on to write about a lot of what you have to listen to, that doesn't mean you didn't have to sit through it in the first place. I think that is what's driving the frustration in the post (which, admittedly, kind of drowns out the tongue-in-cheek aspects).

I don't think he's looking to replace shoegaze with Janet Jackson cover bands, just that they maybe look elsewhere every now and then when seeking inspiration.

Funny thing is this -- there's a brief 1990 year-end article in Melody Maker I still have around where the writer -- pretty sure it was Simon Reynolds, but not positive -- looks at all the bands who had already come up in MBV's wake to one extent or another, and basically says, "There's some good stuff here folks, but it's all too obvious. Try listening to some other things once in a while and take it from there." History repeats, again.

Hey, if there were a shoegazy band that nonetheless took some structure and arrangement cues from Janet Jackson in her prime, I'd be very interested in that. In that respect, what Matthew said was interesting, and I thought his analysis of that song (particularly majoring on the arrangement and production) was illuminating and spot-on. I don't want any of my favorite guitar bands to start churning out late '80s pop singles, but I do find myself thinking, sometimes, that they could learn a thing or two about arrangement and songcraft. (Why not wait until the third chorus to stomp the delay/fuzztone combo? That alone would be an improvement in many cases.)

On the other hand, there are indie dance-oriented bands that don't have a lot to learn. I think Cut Copy is fantastic.

hey everyone, matthew responded to these comments because (sigh) idolator's system is wonky. check it out!

[perpetua.tumblr.com]

@the rich girls are weeping: Right, hunh? I never argued that he was right (or wrong). My point is that if you're in the opinion business, it's not possible for any of you to be right. I don't even know what you mean by right. A critic can be interesting, a critic can be right on, but a critic can't be right.

Besides, even bad bands and we silly non-"tastemakers" are big boys and girls. It's laughable to think there's a danger of us doing what Matthew (or you) say. That's objectively wrong.

Besides, as a reader, I think that nothing sounds more boring than some universal pact among critics about what you will and won't do. I imagine if I were a critic, I might work to differentiate myself and find my own voice, but not try to circumscribe the whole endeavor. (Exception: If the critics of the world want to rise up in a common cause, I'd get behind the assurance that Kate Schatz never gets another 33 1/3 deal. That was wrong.)

I love the bigheadedness of this kind of assessment. Not really. You know what I would really love? 20,000 people to email this link to Janet's inbox.

I gave a significant amount of earplay to her two pop masterpieces: Control & RN1814. (OK, maybe 3 with most of the Janet album) And I was in the middle of my Intelli-Brit Pop era (Ebtg, Swing Out Sister, Curiosity Killed the Cat etc...I'm still there, actually. Love you Tracey Thorn!). But I gave in HARD to the Jam & Lewis sonic candy.

Janet Damita Jo Jackson could still make a relevant hit if she did just one thing: Go get Jam & Lewis, get angry, mad or depressed about something (start with the ebonics that spew from her Mini-mongrel's mouth) lock themselves in a studio with a LOT of incense and get to crackin' on something better that the hodge podge of hot musical mess she's been spewing. She could only go up from here.

If she could humble herself enough to admit she needed J & L, and ONLY J & L, that would be the best lesson she could give to any indie band: Make good music that people can't help but love.

@blockofice:

fair enough, but isn't it not possible that these bands he's referring to (wish he would've named names but i understand why not) have already been looked at something like a janet jackson song (or a timely equivalent) and decided that the "heart" of the song and what "drives" it doesn't appeal to them? maybe it's a flat-out rejection of pop in general-- which i think makes for a sad living-- but i wouldn't straight up and down assume that new shoegazey bands have pigeonholed themselves since the age of 12. of course it's possible that they have, but either way we are painting the scene with too broad of a brush.

Oh, I don't think they've pigeonholed themselves since the age of 12, but it's easy to work yourself into a rut. I think this is all fake controversy, actually, although it has illuminated a little about what people think the role of the music critic should be. I think a music critic taking a song people might have forgotten and highlighting what made it great from a real, honestly critical standpoint is totally positive. And your argument that they might have already done it is fine, I guess, but don't we all want to improve the music we listen to? Saying "but maybe they WANTED to do it that way" is all well and good but that kind of deflates any need for music criticism at all--and as long as critics like Perpetua are stretching out to interact with the audience AND the artists instead of just offering buying advice music criticism is going to be something I'm interested.