• quarrk [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    87·
    1 year ago

    It was a pseudo-revival of mid-century folk music. It didn’t last because much of it didn’t have genuine proletarian roots like real folk music. It mimicked the aesthetic and sounds of folk music but none of the content. It never will when it’s just wealthy urbanites cosplaying as poor country bumpkins.

    Folk music and related genres (like soul and country and blues) have all suffered for the same reason. Their class character is fake and purely aesthetic today. At least, for the super mainstream bands that make it on the Starbucks Spotify playlist.

    There was a megathread a while back about Woody Guthrie. His music lasted because it captured a genuine aspect of working class America in a way that stomp clap hey never can. This Land Is Your Land was a political song. We don’t do that enough anymore, in the name of mass appeal and profit and merchandising. Even Bill Withers, who was merely center-left as far as I know, made music that mattered with lyrics opposing racism and war.

    • quarrk [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      44·
      1 year ago

      This pattern occurs with leftist/populist expression all the time. It’s heard by many for what it is, but for others it’s merely a catchy tune or a nice painting. I’ve mentioned the Surrealist art movement a few times here, but that’s another example. Salvador Dalí is ostensibly the face of the movement in the average person’s mind, but the Surrealists and he didn’t get along; he ultimately rejected their political message, believing that he could drop the political baggage and just focus on the abstract aesthetics of the movement. While I wouldn’t say his work was necessarily bad (he still applied his paranoiac critical method inspired by Freud) it didn’t have the same significance as Surrealists imo.

    • Shinji_Ikari [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      23·
      1 year ago

      I used to/still do listen to a lot of folk and folk punk, and people would always be “oh you would like this band!” and it was always this, to quote Futurama, “Vaguely folkish alterna-rock”. I never wanted to be mean and be like “look just because there’s a banjo doesn’t mean I would like it”. but it was always really frustrating.

    • Tachanka [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      21·
      1 year ago

      it’s kind of a good sign that booj have to pretend to be proles to seem cool, even if in the process they entirely hollow out genres and render them fake.

      spoiler

      it means they're scared lenin-shining

    • mittens [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      19·
      1 year ago

      It mimicked the aesthetic and sounds of folk music but none of the content.

      The whole hipster subculture was a grotesque imitation of working class americana, is it a coincidence that it emerged shortly after the subprime mortgage crisis? no it isn’t, shopping from goodwill became popular out of necessity and then the aesthetics of thrifting emerged as a response because rich people felt alienated from the moment (the moment being the 2008 financial crisis). the saddest thing are fascists today trying to co-opt hipster aesthetics, a coarse imitation of an imitation that only vaguely retains its working class signifiers. a trend so passé that even having hipsters as the butt of the joke feels completely out-of-touch.

      • quarrk [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        15·
        1 year ago

        A class analysis of the broader metal genre would be really interesting and I don’t think I know enough to answer. I have some hypotheses and hot takes but nothing concrete.

        I think metal in general evokes power and importance. Some have interpreted this to mean metal serves to reinforce masculine ideology and hetero norms, which may be true for certain artists. In recent decades though, metal fans have a more even gender split. One could make a contrary argument that metal serves to empower a powerless individual, whether they feel that way due to their class or personal issues like bullying or abuse.

        Metal commonly includes themes of fantasy. Is this a form of escapism for an audience that doesn’t want to cope with the material world? Some subgenres focus quite heavily on worldbuilding. I notice that frequently these worlds involve overt evils to fight or evade… is that a reaction to the obscure and abstract exploitation of capitalism? Sometimes these worlds are plainly reminiscent of past times, precapitalist societies with simple social relations. Perhaps these would be the reactionary artists, the ones who want to go back instead of progress forward on a material basis.

        • ScrewdriverFactoryFactoryProvider [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          8·
          1 year ago

          I think most novel genres are originally created by and for the working class, but heavy metal has the material constraint that it requires heavily distorted electric guitar, so its history tightly tracks the history of our ability to produce guitar amplifiers, and how affordable they are in various areas of the world at a given time. The bedroom studio revolution is directly responsible for djent among many other subgenres, and the big names in n the first generation of that group are mostly people of color, although their class character is more muddled.

          I’d super love someone more knowledgeable about heavy guitar music in the periphery to share some analysis of that.

      • VILenin [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        25·
        1 year ago

        They’re not restaurants anymore. They’re Gastropubs and Creameries with thirty dollar burgers (with “housemade aioli”) and six bucks for a scoop of (“organically-churned grass fed”) ice cream, it’s the worst food you’ve ever had, the cracker couple sitting next to you is bitching and moaning about the blacks stealing from Walgreens underneath the BLM sign, the crackers on the other side are discussing their VC ghoul fake money bullshit, conspicuously noted 10% “mandate surcharge” to try and turn you against laws forcing small business tyrants to pay a semblance of a fair wage, those obnoxious fucking plastic stools, gluten-free Frankenstein disgusting dish, five dollar juice served in a decapitated jar that’s impossible to drink out of and spiked with alcohol because fuck you that’s why, “farm to table” (as opposed to food that materialized out of thin air), “locally grown” (it’s imported from Africa after paying the locals half-cents on the dollar), “this is not a dish, it’s an EXPERIENCE”, local craft artisan IPA (they just fired the workers for striking), “vegetables greens meat flesh dessert Apre-meal”, bottomless mimosas, servers treat delivery technician, everything is slathered in disgusting “truffle” oil, mashed potatoes potato pureéééé, here’s your bill better take out a loan to pay it, don’t forget the parking is $30 every 15 minutes.

        Thank you for dining at Chrysanthemum & Millefuckelwanker located in the thriving SoCaGoMaGooGooGaGa district.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        14·
        1 year ago

        Those places tend to be like a temple to whatever rich jackoff owns it, with pompous slogans and insincere epiphanies scribbled over the wallpaper, on the tables, even in the fucking restrooms.

        I hate that shit so much. corporate-art

  • Tachanka [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    49·
    1 year ago

    styles are always overrated in their prime, despised immediately after their prime, and then longed for wistfully 2+ decades later. pattern-noticer gang is weary and opening their bibles to ecclesiastes.

  • keatsta [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    43·
    1 year ago

    I think this genre bugged me more than any other bad genre because I really liked the previous era of indie rock - early Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Wolf Parade, Neutral Milk Hotel, Animal Collective, The Unicorns, Stars, Final Fantasy/Owen Pallett, The Microphones, ahhh, I’m getting powerful nostalgia just listing them out. Not that all these bands sounded similar to each other, but there was this weirdo/folko/p4k-zone that they all occupied that I found really moving and relatable, I think cause most of the people making it were depressed and anxious or otherwise mentally ill like me.

    When all this stomp/clap “indie” bullshit started it felt like they took music I love, stripped everything interesting from it, and gave it to the rich kids with no problems that were often CAUSING me mental illness. It felt like some cruel ironic punishment from Greek mythos.

    • CptKrkIsClmbngThMntn [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      12·
      1 year ago

      I feel the exact same. I loved most of those names you listed, and my poor Sufjan banjo brain was not ready for the onslaught of assembly line indie that came barreling in after them.

      Some of those original indie darlings are goddamn weird people, and they brought all their quirks into their music. There’s a very messy personal artistry you get with bands like The Microphones or Neutral Milk Hotel that is completely polished away in the generation of indie bands that exploded in the early 10’s.

      I’m glad some of the earlier scene is alive still though. I saw Owen live this year and I can tell you he is still fucking killing it.

    • TheLepidopterists [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      Holy shit I love Stars they’re still one of my most listened bands, and if you don’t count listening to Hybrid Theory on repeat when I was 12, In Our Bedroom After the War is probably my most repeated album of all time.

    • FakeNewsForDogs [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Same. I’ve always thought of frightened rabbit in particular as more of a touchstone than they get credit for. A lot of their earlier stuff sounds like the groundwork for this fake ass bullshit that came after. Shame, because they were actually really good.

    • Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      17·
      1 year ago

      2011-2015 Was pretty awful when it came to music ngl.

      Nowadays there’s some decent stuff coming out, but maybe the difference lies in me being a kid who was forced to listen to top 40 Radio when riding the car with my parents vs being an album listener nowadays.

      But I suppose the “hey let’s party and have fun!” era was particularly grating to my ears, considering I lived in Italy during the crisis era German plunder of southern Europe.

      • reverendz [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        That’s crazy talk.

        Peak pysch rock revival era.

        Am well into middle age and 2011-2015 there was some amazing music. Every era has stuff you’ll find annoying and stuff you’ll find brilliant.

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.eeEnglish
      11·
      1 year ago

      The thing about the “this generation of music sucks” phase is that we’re the first generation to enter it since ClearChannel media monopolized the airwaves and pushed out any music that isn’t guaranteed to be profitable.

    • mittens [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      7·
      1 year ago

      bro i never left, i still listen to Lo Boob Oscillator and pester people with comments about how brilliant its krautrock-influenced motorik interlude is, i never even watched high fidelity

  • ElGosso [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    40·
    1 year ago

    This stuff was fine in small doses but it was everywhere and I got so tired of it so quickly. Ever since artists stopped being able to make money off album sales there’s been a race to the bottom to make bland, palatable music so you can license it out to be in commercials, which means it just gets oversaturated in like a month.

  • betelgeuse [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    33·
    1 year ago

    I hated it when it came out but I’ve been going back to it recently.

    The older you get the more you have nostalgia for different times. You don’t only have nostalgia for your childhood. You’ll have it for your teenage years, college, your 20s, etc. This music was big when I was in college so that’s what it reminds me of.

    I concede that it has nothing to do with the quality of the music.

    • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      14·
      1 year ago

      The older you get the more you have nostalgia for different times. You don’t only have nostalgia for your childhood. You’ll have it for your teenage years, college, your 20s, etc. This music was big when I was in college so that’s what it reminds me of.

      The real sign that you’re old is when you have nostalgia about that time when you have nostalgia.

  • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    31·
    1 year ago

    lol i was thinking about doing a halloween costume based around exposed suspenders, flop undercut, beard, and full sleeve tattoos. because that is 1000% NOT my look, but i could affect it quickly for maybe $20 in materials. it’s sort of my thing to wear a costume that is obviously a costume, but also has like a dozen answers to “what are you dressed as?” and let people guess.

    last year i wore a track suit, a flat cap. dyed my facial hair, and had a bunch of fake tattoos on my face, fingers, hands and neck. funniest guess was “post malone”.

    i got the idea one year because i dressed up as “anti fascist santa” and the libs always guessed i was “some kind of terrorist”, which still makes me laugh.