Tuesday, February 2nd 2010
Blogs, STFU: ________ Is Dead
Is Indie Journalism Dead?
So apparently a plucky journaliste over at Paste Magazine has penned a silly editorial (to be the February cover story), asking the age-old question: Is Indie Dead? We didn’t see it, because we don’t read Paste Magazine. It’s nothing personal; We don’t read Pitchfork or Spin or NME or any of those magazines that pay the bills by churning out empty headed nonsense and bullshit top ten lists that only serve to suck off the hip acts of the moment and bring nothing to contribute to the legacy of the institution of recorded music.
We only found out about it because Flavorpill asked “ten writers and editors from some of [their] favorite music sites to contribute a response” for a follow-up they were working on. One of their “favorite” sites’ writers must have bailed, as they wound up publishing a lengthy missive of Johnny’s, that had made its way over indirectly, instead.
Paste’s Rachael Maddux constructs her essay by the book, opening and closing with quotes (Nietzsche, of course), over 8,000 words in all, chock full of Googled statements by arbiters of Indie cred providing the points and counter-points. It’s the kind of thesis that a high school English teacher would reward with a big red “A++” and a promise that its author will be a great writer someday. Yet in a collegiate examination, it’s somewhere in the vicinity of the Sex Pistols quote where Maddux winds up out of her depth in a shallow pool.
In one of the author’s overwrought daydreams, the Punk movement’s “earliest adopters” are transported to the present day, and “hang themselves by their guitar strings” as we awkwardly explain to them how our Indie bands are kinda indie but not really, and our Punk bands are kinda punk but not really. This is just one of many passages in which the line between Indie and Punk is ignored, or at least written off as too difficult to define. It’s also the most obviously out of touch tangent, floating way beyond the jurisdiction of any expert, reality-based anchors. Its pace has certainly quickened, but the cycle of counter-culture becoming commercial culture is hardly unique to our generation. This notion of a golden era of utopian purity is a juvenile fantasy.
The basis of the author’s position (yes folks, Indie is dead) is centered on the idea that as a religion, its tenets have been compromised, just as Nietzsche’s God’s observable power had been trampled to death by the conceit of Man. Yet if this is true, then Indie and Punk were both born dead, years before Maddux (or anyone she quoted) had even heard either word spoken. If the commercialization of a movement is enough to kill it, then Elvis Presley killed Rock long before Malcom McLaren, who killed Punk long before Green Day came along, before Avril Lavigne, before Paramore, before whoever’s coming along any day now to kill it some more. Either way, it’s relatively safe to assume that you have no clue who Richard Hell or Big Mama Thornton is. And that is the tragedy we should be mourning over.
The only people who ask silly questions like “is (Indie / Punk / Rock / Hip-Hop / God) dead?” are those who didn’t pay attention when the answer to the question of what they were in the first place was given. The Sex Pistols are credited with initiating the Punk movement, yet they were assembled like a boy band, based soley on their fashion. But hey, they mean it, man. They were designed to sell the concept of being not for sale, just as today’s “Punk” acts are. But hey, tell that to the evangelists. Take a bullhorn and some Nietzsche down to Birmingham.
What we can contribute to the conversation is that the word indie describes two things, that can be found together or separately: 1) It is a business ethic. 2) It is a sound. However, it is a subjective label in both cases. Which means that it is applied based on human perception, and is only really helpful to the perceiver and those with like minds. It’s anything but empirical.
The same is true of punk. For instance, Johnny Cash’s At Folsom Prison is a punk record. Never Mind The Bollocks is not. The Sex Pistols sound punk. Johnny Cash does not. However, this is my opinion, and yours may be different.
The most hilarious passage from the Paste article is where Maddux mentions, in parenthesis, a friend who actually re-labels artists in her iTunes if they “get bigger,” explicitly revoking their Indie designation based on their commercial success. What a dysfunction! And yet, now I see the purpose of Pitchfork: When in doubt, the religious must have a bible to turn to. I can’t help but suggest that what would have been far more valuable, not to mention entertaining, would be an 8,000 word interview with this misguided friend.
As we could go on and on about how silly this debate is, and how the question itself is bullshit, the most important point to pull from all of the soapboxing is that these titles are as exclusive as they are intrinsically meaningful. For the life of me, I can’t find who originally said this, but it’s immortally true: While a lot of people have differing opinions on what punk is, one thing it most certainly is not is giving a shit about whether or not you’re punk. [Update: It was Jonah Matranga of Far, in an Antiquiet interview.]
Uh, so is indie dead? Uh, so is punk dead? Well, you tell me. Is chivalry dead? Is fun dead? Only if you’ve lost the energy to keep it alive. Everyone around you will continue to abuse it to their benefit, perhaps even to your detriment. They’ll attain unprecedented wealths of fame and glory, they’ll get your girl, they’ll become poster children for your causes, and you’ll have to settle for consolation prizes of authenticity and pride. God forbid you find critical or commercial success in your lifetime; You’ll be attacked by those behind you as a fraud. This is the way it has always been, and the way it will always be.
To be truly Punk is to not care. To be truly Independent is to not complain. To ask if independence itself is dead is to bid farewell to your youth, and if you decide that it is, then you’re dead. As dead as Sid Vicious, Elvis and Nietzsche.
Well said. In my opinion, the only band to stay true to a label like “indie or punk” would be Fugazi. They did it how they wanted to and on their own terms while turning down the big deals. Call it what you want, but any “indie” band would jump ship for a pay day if given the oppurtunity.
Great article!
Pitchfork sucks!
I wish indie music, in its current state, was dead. Unfortunately, Animal Collective are still putting out albums, it seems.
The problem isn’t that they’re putting out albums. More power to those shitmongers. It’s that people are falling for the “genius” of it.
The last paragraph is a real killer, well done, Skwerl.
I think bands are becoming more “categorized”/defined by who they sound like, rather than what genre or principle they’re supposed to keep alive. None of this “is Indie dead?” matters to me at all.
If everyone would take the time to think for themselves, instead of following trends and other people’s ideas or tastes, there would be absolutely NO space for bullshit. No Animal Collective bullshit, no Green Day bullshit, nor any other bullshit.
Are you Implying that people would not like Animal Collective or Green Day if they weren’t popular? Admittedly, I would more than likely never had heard of either of them if they weren’t popular. However, I’m sure if I happened to stumble across them somehow (had they not been popular) I would like them just the same. If I understand what you are saying correctly, when personal tastes coincidentally match up with popular opinion those taste should be disregarded as synthetic and worthless? But isn’t that basing your opinion on whether or not something is “trendy” and ultimately, not thinking for yourself?
I concur. And you did it in only 1,068 words.
Where ‘indie’ was once a defineable term and box that had lines that s/he who claimed the term wouldn’t step one toe over for fear of losing their precious cred, it’s evolved into, as you say, the way that you operate and what you produce. More often than not, what’s produced is flaccid and pandered to the lowest common listening denominator as that’s what markets and sells and finds product placements. But I’ve never adopted the snobbery of commercial success killing indie because there’s just no love in wanting to relegate a quality band/artist that you truly love to a life of never being able to ditch their day job, never having their hard work and passion bear fruit. Fuck that and the fucktards who are that narrow-minded and selfish…although I do appreciate bands being under the radar enough so that I can see them in tiny venues on a regular basis. But that’s just making it all about me.
Man this dude’s a badass.
fuck labels
Great article, first of all.
But Sid Vicious is way more dead than Nietzsche. He always was.
Also, we can look back half a century to Jackson Pollock’s struggle with genre, relevancy, and popularity to see how these critic-based labels apply to the entire spectrum of art and how they’ll continue to dilute the integrity of the work itself by bunching artists they deem “similar” together, without really considering the implications. (See “Grunge”)
That being said, Johnny Cash was way more punk than Johhny Rotten, no doubt. But as much as I hate to admit it, the Sex Pistols were credited (by Joe Strummer) with having been the sonic force that “created” the Clash, a band that went on to play Shea stadium… like the Beatles. How is that punk? Johnny Rotten is hawking British butter now to pay his tour costs. Nice. Iggy Pop sells fookin’ auto insurance in England. Classy. Nice hair, Iggy.
Even Henry Rollins, a pillar in the hardcore/punk world, is ripe with contradictions. On the one hand, he’ll (justifiably) lambaste Bono and U2 for being rich and out of touch with the big tours and best of albums, but then he’ll show up in over-produced, money-makers like “Bad Boys 2.” Ummm, you’re in a 200 million dollar blockbuster movie with Will Smith… punk? Ya, about as punk as Adam Lambert.
The whole dissection and categorization of the music industry is fubar… more than literature, music is the first form of “art” that is more of a commercial product than a creation. There are a lot of bad books out there, fluff, as it were, but none of them have the kind of advertising Avril Lavigne’s last album got, and none of them are as accessible so many media channels: TV, radio, internet, performance, etc. It’s overblown… if music were limited to only live performance, it would separate the good from the horrible. The sentiment from the spectacle.
So, who was the first “punk” band? The Who, the New York Dolls, Velvet Underground… all contributed to the Pistols aesthetic, but they all took influence from sources the “punks” would claim to despise: rock opera, stadium rock, glam rock… no to mention all those bands were way fookin’ better than that red-headed step-child and his band of whiners… just like The Clash were way better than Green day, etc. etc.
Great Art Rises Above Any Class or Categorical distinction. However, there seems to be a distinction, a line, however blurred and ambiguous, that separates artists and this line seems to be based on popularity and paycheck. William Burroughs, Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson… punks… so was Cobain… they all lived without compromise and then died before they could really sell out. Picasso, Pete Townsend, these guys shed their indie skin because their ambitions outgrew that adjective. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it can be. The more popular you get the less authentic you appear. The bigger your exhibits, the bigger the arenas you play in, the fatter your paycheck, the further you are removed from where you came from.
Or, to paraphrase a true punk, Charles Bukowski: “If too many people like you, you’re doing something wrong.”
the bukowski quote encapsulates punk attitude. playing stadiums, i suggest, isn’t inherently antithetical to being punk, as to be punk is to not give a shit either way. yeah, fine, i’ll play your stadium, i’ll take your money. i’ll get up there and do my thing for a million dollars. but i’d just as soon do it for 5 dollars, or for free, and if you want me to tone down my act, you’ve got another thing coming, i don’t care how much money you’re waving in my face.
again, this is my definition of punk and it’s never black and white. rollins appearing in bad boys ii is only not punk if he takes acting / not acting seriously, you know? if he does, then its a compromise of values. otherwise, he’s just doing some work, and taking a check, and there’s nothing inauthentic about that. but you can’t really make those calls without getting into the head of the defendant. or at least i’m wary of doing that. but it’s well documented that mclaren thought rotten looked cool, and brought him in to meet jonesy with the intent to create a punk band he could manage and market. that is indefensibly not punk, and the opposite of independent.
but you asked me about art on twitter, and i said art was expression, that if you’re not saying anything then it’s just entertainment. and yet maybe britney spears is convinced she’s saying something. nothing is empirical, it’s all opinion based on perception. and ultimately, arguing whether or not something is or isn’t punk or indie is a waste of time.
i think this decision is essential if you’re trying to be the anti-pitchfork, as i suppose we are. we try and judge art in the context of the entire history of art, rather than by boxing it in to some niche and then only judging it against its equally evanescent peers. it wasn’t always this way. when i was a kid, it sucked if it wasn’t metal. but eventually i found much more to appreciate in the longer view.
Been thinking about this article ever since first reading it earlier today. It’s not only a perfect response, including all of my objections to the Paste story and more, but it’s also proof that Skwerl has a solid understanding of the curmudgeonly (and oft-disingenuous) slant being taken by a number of music journalists/writers/bloggers from certain previous generations of late.
Well played, Sir.
The thing is, “indie rock” has become such a loaded term over the past few years that it doesn’t really mean anything anymore. Johnny wrote that there’s a difference between indie rock and “hipsterism,” but I think they’re kind of inseparable by this point (like the hippies are to the late-sixties rock scene). You’re right about punk being a spirit more than a sound—The Clash, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, X and Bad Brains all interpreted the punk ethos in different ways, but all had the same artistic drive. The problem with “indie” is that it doesn’t really stand for anything. It has nothing to do with resisting the major label infrastructure (indie rockers and DIY artists aren’t necessarily the same thing); it rarely tries to advance a set of ideals, and even if every indie band in existence is working to skewer the boundaries of pop music, does that really make them any different from the alt-rockers of the ’80s and ’90s? Maybe I’m just looking at it negatively, but whenever I hear the term “indie rock” the first thing I think of is some asshole sitting in a Starbucks with a Mac on his table, and a blown-up picture of Zooey Deschanel on his desktop, typing up a novel or sifting through the Pitchfork archives, as “Veckatimest” blasts from his ear buds.
I have no idea if that article’s talking about the death of indie as a sound or an ideal or what. I don’t think any genre really dies—it just gets broken down and re-envisioned as time goes on. Every once awhile a new band will come along and harken back to the fundamentals of a style—The Bronx with punk rock, The White Stripes with blues rock—but genres continually evolve, whether you want them to or not. Look at the way hip-hop has gone from Run-DMC to Rakim to NWA to Company Flow to cLOUDDEAD. Music is more organic than a lot of people realize, and in all honestly, the indie scene has been long overdue for a metamorphosis. I mean, the past few years of indie rock have been almost nothing but left-field pop songs laden with self-consciously obtuse lyrics about nothing. In other words: narcissistic pseudo-collegiate bullshit. I don’t really see that changing anytime soon. Then again, hipsterism at least seems to be on the wane. And maybe I’m just optimistic, but it looks like people are starting to see through the conceited bullshit that passes for music journalism these days. Who knows? It’s a brave new frontier. Or a wasteland. Fuck if I know anymore. Great articles guys.
Great response Skwerl !! Totally well written and true….
Love how you label Johnny Cash “Live at Folsom Prison” as a first punk-rock record and being great fan of that album it is great observation and very accurate.
it’s gone the fun is gone it’s all gone