What has happened to music, seriously?! I've noticed a disturbing trend lately in the bands grinding out albums on independent labels, punching, kicking, and biting their way to the top of blog posts and Best Of lists. After spending a number of years in retail hell hearing the AM Gold of the '70s, I thought I'd developed a high pain tolerance for easy-going acoustic guitars and stoned-out, blissful harmonies, but I never thought it would filter down to the music I listen to for pleasure. Granted, it's 2009 and originality in rock is pretty much impossible outside of some outlandish genre melding like country and ska, but how did soft rock become the inspiration of choice for indie rockers across the globe?
It turns my stomach to think that the easy living, coke-addled singer-songwriters of the '70s have so much pull. How am I supposed to get excited about tracking down new music when its all so, well, BORING?! James Taylor and The Eagles have become the patron saints of the indie rock tradition that started with punk rock and hardcore, sped through the '80s with van-touring roughnecks like Black Flag and Dinosaur Jr., went a bit grunge in the '90s, and has now become a numbing catchall for anything that isn't mass-produced auto-tuned garbage.
Maybe history can illuminate why music has become simplistic aural Velveeta. All those nasty assassinations and that pesky war made the kids of the early '70s ready for soppy platitudes and multi-tracked harmonies. Their parents were sick of hearing guitar feedback and anti-American lyrics on AM radio, so things eventually got a bit mellow. Sounds a bit familiar, eh? Everything that goes around comes around, and it looks like we're in for a whole lot of soppy wimp rock like Fleet Foxes, Vetiver, and Frightened Rabbit.
Vetiver's last album Thing Of The Past, from 2008, has probably the most self-congratulatory set of liner notes ever penned. In the age of on-demand digital downloads, liner notes for a new release is a straight-up egotistical jack-off move. It would be OK if they were propagating some whacked-out conspiracy theory or rambling about unicorns or zombies, but no, we get this:
Current songs are nice, too, but we always seem to prefer the ones that surprise us and come out of nowhere. How did we find them? How did they find us?
Can you patronize us anymore, guys? How precious it is that you sat around working up Loudon Wainwright III and Townes Van Zandt covers for us musically ignorant folks that ignore truck-stop cassette racks or don't know how to work Google. I like music that mellows my mind, too, but that record has no guts or brains, just a whole bunch of cotton-candy sonics that mean nothing.
New genre time: Wallpaper Rock. These mellow gold revivalists pump out calming, non-threatening patterns that are pleasant enough, but ultimately fade into the air when you find something shiny on the floor. Monotonous and pretty, but paper-thin and unsubstantial. Instead of engaging the brains, balls, and heart, it settles for the doctor's waiting room or the toilet paper aisle at Target.
New genre time: Wallpaper Rock. These mellow gold revivalists pump out calming, non-threatening patterns that are pleasant enough, but ultimately fade into the air when you find something shiny on the floor. Monotonous and pretty, but paper-thin and unsubstantial. Instead of engaging the brains, balls, and heart, it settles for the doctor's waiting room or the toilet paper aisle at Target.
You can't be a hippie if you own a computer, and there's no room for argument there.
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