Last Week's Good Records Sales Charts
LOCAL TOP 5
1. St. Vincent - Marry Me
2. The Polyphonic Spree - The Fragile Army (ltd. ed.)
3. The Polyphonic Spree - The Fragile Army
4. Voot Cha Index - The Talking House/Cradle 7"
5. Glen Reynolds - In Between Days
OVERALL TOP 20
1. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (ltd.)
2. Interpol - Our Love To Admire
3. St. Vincent - Marry Me
4. Justice - Cross
5. National - Boxer
6. Iron & Wine - Boy with a Coin
7. Panda Bear - Person Pitch
8. M. Ward - Duet for Guitars #2
9. Matthew Dear - Asa Breed
10. Ulrich Schnauss - Goodbye
11. Amiina - Kurr
12. Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger
13. The Polyphonic Spree - The Fragile Army (ltd. ed.)
14. The Polyphonic Spree - The Fragile Army
15. Jaylib - Champion Sound
16. Black Moth Super Rainbow - Dandelion Gum
17. Patton Oswalt - Werewolves & Lollipops
18. Miracle Fortress - Five Roses
19. Blitzen Trapper - Wild Mountain Nation
20. Bonde Do Role - With Lasers
Don't ask me why the font is all weird.
posted by stonedranger at 12:58 AM
41 Comments:
why is the font all weird?
I saw one comment and I knew what it would be!
In all seriousness...Why is the font all weird?
Defensive Listening, why is the font all weird? See, SR, I didn't ask you.
I stepped into the Cavern last night and it reminded me of something I thought about last time I went to The Party. How did indie rock(ers) and dance music unite into the same scene? Seems like an odd conflation. Anyone?
Personally I think it was the Rapture record Echoes that more or less got the whole thing going. Not that it was the first or the best, it just seemed to be the catalyst for what you're talking about.
The font's weird because Stonedranger is a neo-con who refuses to use a Mac.
Looks like you got some CSS style attached to your text. Still DL's comment is funny!
Mirror is Rapture's only good record. just my opinion but i think it's the only one that has repeat playability as the years stack on.
to me it makes total sense that indie rock and dance music would merge. duh. cocaine.
oh yeah one more shitty opinion.
!!! = catalyst
i think the indie rock + dance music phenomenon can be partly ascribed to the kind of retro culture that's currently cool. we're in kind of an 80s-throwback-old-school-hip-hop phase right now, so it makes sense that indie rockers who embrace retro culture would want to cut a rug every once in a while.
next, whenever hippie stuff or mid-70s album rock becomes the dominant retro vibe, the dancing will taper off and they shall behave accordingly.
Andrea, when you are old i figure you'll be one of those wierd "cat ladies" that the kids in the neighborhood all tell stories about. I see it in your future...
I fully plan on it, Anon 1:45.
I think the album rock craze has been trying to happen for a while, but I'm pretty sure cat ladies will be the next big thing.
FYI... Taylor mosely, AKA the kid that burnt down the tomato, is playing at shq this friday with ribelle scaltro and george neal. It might be saturday. not sure.
Actually, my wang will be the next big thing.
...yup, there it is.
Andrea,
I'm interested to hear more from you on this, but I find the previous statement a bit presumptuous.
I'm not so sure that there is really such a thing as an "indie rocker" anymore. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I just don't know who that would be. If you look at the people who hang around Central Booking events, for example, I would bet that many of them take electro/dance music very seriously (or believe it is seriously fun), and probably don't just listen to it as part of a passing fad or as a secondary form of entertainment when they can't find their arcade fire CDs. My above statement in the previous comment might have seemed liked an acknowledgement of the existence of "indie rockers," but to me, one of the most exciting thing that has happened over the past few years is the replacement of the 90's based idea of an "indie culture" with something else that I'm not even sure I can define. I just think that at a certain point, the line from Husker Du to Pavement to Modest Mouse to the Strokes to Justice has been broken, and I don't really see the current culture of "indie dance" as an extension of anything that happened with "indie rock" in the 90's. To me, the phrase "indie rock" means less than it ever has, and I can't find any kind of identifiable sub-culture that corresponds with whatever indie rock music is supposed to be. Not that people don't listen to BSS or The Shins anymore, I just don't think it's a distinctive subculture these days, whereas the scene that often gets labeled "indie dance" is an entirely new thing all together that seems to have very little to do with anything that came before it, even though it does make drastic nods to the past at times. To me, there is a new level of self awareness that goes beyond the popular usage of the word "irony" in these dance circles, and that stands as a factor that truly sets some of these new cultural developments apart from the past.
Are there people who tirelessly chase trends? yes. Is this a bad thing in and of itself? I don't know, but I can think of a lot worse. Either way, I don't believe that all the Euro disco and party music you hear these days is just some flavor of the month that will eventually end with the rise of the next trend in Brooklyn. This kind of thing happened in Europe a long time ago, and it is still going on over there today.
I'm with sd, I think !!! and the rapture definitely reminded the kids that it's ok to twitch a little.
SR,
thanks for putting way more thought into this than me.
no, there's no such thing as an indie rocker. as you've said, the diversity of the sub-culture that used to be indie-rockness has now pretty well destroyed it, as it's just too varied to be called one thing or the other. but i think there's some kind of unity to the group, though the term "indie rocker" might not be the best thing for it. i'm just going with the nomenclature of anon 11:07.
i don't want my comment to be construed as saying that the indie-dancers (to use the term you mentioned, SR) don't genuinely enjoy the indie-dancing. just because it's hip and trendy and all the cool kids are doing it and you're doing it because all the cool kids are doing it doesn't mean you don't really like it and it's not really cool. cause it looks like a hell of a lot of fun, if you ask me.
but I gotta disagree with you, SR, when you say "I don't believe that all the Euro disco and party music you hear these days is just some flavor of the month that will eventually end with the rise of the next trend in Brooklyn." It's a total fad. Yes, in four or five years, you'll still have the serious fans who love it and wanna go out and party and there will be a lot of them. But I doubt events like The Party or this Monday night Cavern shindig will be just as popular Modern popular/hipster culture is too post-post-modern self-aware-of-irony-deconstructionist-blah to be able to sustain that kind of enthusiasm for one variety of nostalgia for very long. We'll be on to the next fun retro thing ASAP.
-AG
denton rulz
Whats up w/ the font here?
omg i dunt get it y is tha font all weerd?
Hey, you got indie rock in my hip hop! No, you got your hip hops in my indie rock!
Good point, SR. Indie rock is an out-dated term. Like the way the word 'punk' wound up being used to describe bands with 3-chords, mohawks, and torn clothing, 'indie' is used to describe bearded sad sacks who sing charmingly off-key. It's just a genre tag now.
I think the reason all that shit comes together with The Party has more to do with the tastes and playlists of the deejays themselves. They're not shy about throwing various kinds of things together.
You're also correct about people looking at electro as a legitimate form of music. it really has bridged the gap between those two worlds.
Andrea -- I think SR was trying to say that the electronic/dance/party music thing that's big right now wasn't just going to be a tiny blip on the radar. And I agree... the electronic scene in Europe has only become bigger since it began. Things will get more electronic, overall, as a general thing. To say this is a bad thing is the same as saying that acoustic guitars are expressively superior to electric ones.
"Retro culture" tends to go in 20-year cycles... due to typical generation gaps. The interesting thing is how the rapidly accelerating rate of information and media-consumption will affect possible nostalgia-focused trends.
Everything IS much more of a bricolage right now. You're not just finding your cool Uncle's records... you're finding everything, all at once, and immediately. Kids know more bands, more music, more movies, more pop culture, than ever before... it's no wonder that that culture has an escalated sense of irony and self-awareness. The binaries are collapsing, the boundaries are a lot less hard-edged, and the whole thing is kind of ironic and funny.
Personally, I see "indie dance" or or the euro-dance thing as a naturally more electronic progression out of the post-punk revival -- which, I thought, was what started killing off indie rock.
On further review, I realized my comment below was a little biased.
"To say this is a bad thing is the same as saying that acoustic guitars are expressively superior to electric ones."
Sorry. That's a different argument for a different day. I was just trying to comment, above, not argue.
no more electronic dance!
ITS TIME FOR ELECTRONIC METALALALLALALllllll
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666 and all that.
Most "indie" types that I knew never just listened to indie rock. Most of the folks here listen to multiple genres. Most indie folks dig for music.
The electronic revolution that seemed like it should have challenged modern rock in the mid 90's never happened, or at least fizzled out(prodigy, moby). Anything good stayed underground.
I also think Radiohead have been a gateway band for many young hipsters into listening to music that is electronic, but not just "dance" music. But most electronic music leads back to dancing.
Then enter bands like the rapture, which SR pointed out.
It's easy to say irony is there, because of the throwbacks in fashion and sound. But I think some people that think that's bad should just chill out and try to enjoy themselves.
I'm not really a fan, but why should I give a shit what other people like?
Yes Lars, that is what I was getting at. Of course, I acknowledge the fact that this particular kind of electronic music and the fashions that go with it will change and evolve soon, but I don't think all the people hanging out at Cool Out and The Party are going to start listening to retro hippie music or whatever you were talking about just because some magazines or whatever say it's the new cool thing. I think electro dance is a different strand of culture all together, and although it may change, evolve, and fade in and out of favor with the public at large, I think it's new and it's here to stay. In the late 80's and early 90's, large "Rave" clubs were considered merely a passing fad in England... and look what happened there. Probably the most important musical movement since punk/post-punk.
rave 'til dong
and the "you" I used in that last post was directed to Andrea, not Lars.
i think SR is totally hitting on andrea
One genre to rule them all, One genre to find them, One genre to bring them into the darkness and bind them.
HAHA! that's what ya'll sound like. it ain't that deep DUDES!
rofl 10:35
youz so funny
: (
Three Genres for the Punk-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Indie-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Hippy Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his metal throne
In the Land of Denton where the Shadows lie, DUDES!
im so glad there's serious discussion on wsjr. Especially on the post e-comm information proliferation's effect on music culture.
also indie should mean "independent"
or "boring with guitars"
booyah
Now that was worth reading the comments. Intelligent discussion.
Lars, that was your best post ever, by far!
Yes, it's nice to actually talk about music on here again... make me think more and more about regulating the comments.
SERIOUS discussions only take place at
Deny's/IHOP/Waffle House
Don't leave out Taco Cabana, or I will get mega pissed.
I am glad there was a discussion about music today, too.
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