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Saying that a band has a “unique” sound is one of the most arbitrary musical descriptions possible. Not much music sounds particularly unique when the Internet exposes us to massive amounts of accessible music each day. With that said, Merchandise is one of the most unique bands making music today.
By now it’s a time-tested cliche: “The record only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band.”
I’ll preface this with a disclaimer: I’m far from an authority on hip-hop. To contextualize—I’m currently sitting at my desk listening to my dad’s copy of U2’s War on vinyl with Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 “Hamlet” adaptation playing in the background. In the reductive language of stereotypes and essentialism, I am currently the whitest man alive.
There are an insane number of musical genres. Like, there are way too many for anyone to even try to keep track of. And I’m not just talking about big genres—rock, rap, country (and western), jazz—the ones where you can just lump any group or artist that sounds a certain way. Each of these broad categories has an absurd multitude of offshoots (post-punk, west coast gypsy jazz, anyone?).
Wednesday marked the would-be 46th birthday of Kurt Cobain, the indie kid that drove punk rock from the sweaty underground to the heights of MTV without sacrificing a shred of dignity. In just over five short years, he was transformed from an outsider weirdo recording under the name Fecal Matter to the messiah for an unfulfilled generation–the posthumous ideal of a tortured artist, fated for perennial evaluation and reevaluation. What more can be said for the guy that hasn’t already been rendered banal by every entitled fan or controversial critic in the last two decades?
Watching the evolution of Nick Cave is a bit like watching the evolution of man.
Yesterday, I ran a column that investigated the influences of the Internet on the music business. In a nutshell, I said that the Internet has interacted with how we consume music in ways that aren’t necessarily obvious. Unknown artists are now more than ever able to become mega-stars with the ever-growing prevalence of viral videos. And because of the Internet, it’s unclear if music consumers or producers play a more significant role in deciding what rises to the top of the relevance scale.
Yes, they’re back and looking as undeniably emo as ever.
In 2010, Local Natives released Gorilla Manor in the United States, their debut album that, despite its energy and ingenuity, slipped through the cracks of the rising indie/post-punk/psychedelic scene. Sandwiched in among new albums from Vampire Weekend to LCD Soundsystem and released only about eight months after The Temper Trap’s Conditions, Gorilla Manor unfortunately got lost in the mix.
In 2009 I went to my first concert. Travis Barker had survived a horrific plane crash and his band, Blink-182, was playing at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheater in Tinley Park, Ill. As I walked through the parking lot after the show—eardrums still ringing (as they would for about a week)—a group of teenage boys came sprinting up to me.
In 1982, the Descendants released a slew of 15 succinct hardcore punk vignettes collectively titled Milo Goes to College. The record was a chronicle of things that ticked the band off: authority, politicians, parents, this, that and who cares.
Hidden among well-known commercial businesses, the unimposing record store remains unnoticed by those walking down West Gilman Street in Madison. Its sign almost blends in with the monochrome gray building in which the store resides. Walking up the creaky staircase to the second floor makes it feel as though a dreary apartment living room probably lies behind the cracked wooden door.
In the 21st century, most artists already have a perfectly designed genre to describe their band’s music. Adding the suffix “core” and the prefix “post” can instantly place any obscure or underground act into a pre-determined niche. Post-hardcore, grindcore, post-punk, post-punk revival and even the hilariously named post-blues (this is a real thing, I am not making this up) are among the myriad of ridiculous examples of sound identification today. This brings the discussion to another baffling style: slowcore.
I love Skrillex.
Patrick Stickles is a smart man, or, if he isn’t, he should be. The sort of intellectual nerve he threads through the music of Titus Andronicus is well vaunted and fearsome. Those live readings of Shakespeare and Camus from The Airing of Grievances, and the various speech extracts peppered throughout The Monitor (along with the overarching frame of the Civil War a.k.a. one of America’s bloodiest and most resonant soul-searching episodes) are not for show or flair.
Let’s play a game. I want you to invent a word for a genre that doesn’t exist until you create it and use it for generalizing music that has yet to be categorized in a way that makes one feel safe. It can only be one word and takes two steps to effectively create: the first part of the word must be an adjective, preferably abstract or otherwise absent from basic conversation, and the second part must end in either “wave,” “core,” “step,” “hop” or “trap” (for the relevant hipsters out there). If you’re feeling innovative, add “post” to the beginning for extra historical value. How many can you conjure from the recesses of your socialized mind?
You’re looking through your iTunes replaying your favorite songs over and over again, wishing you had some new music for jamming, or you’re grinding through another week of classes thinking that you owe it to yourself to let loose at a live show soon. Look no further than The Frequency, a venue that can satisfy both of those hungers without forcing you to travel great distances or spend too many precious dollars.
For a number of years now I have considered myself a fan of ska music. While some would consider the genre to be a few years past its prime, there’s just something about the fast drum beats, syncopated guitar riffs and blasting horn section that can’t help but get my musical senses fired up. As you can imagine, upon learning No Doubt was back together and working on a new album, I couldn’t help but get excited.
In the year 2012 emo has become a pejorative term, a scathing ball of spit to lob at the mascara-fouled MySpace refugees and the kitschy bands of our middle school years.
Welcome to Chicago at its hippest. Okay, Chi-town is always pretty hip, but the metra is especially packed this weekend for Pitchfork Music Festival—three days of those bands that will probably be your favorite a year from now. But to keep our loyal readers ahead of the game, we’re providing coverage from the trenches.
Solutions by The State News
