pitchfork

it's not a. a particularly large listening demographic b. a 'movement' c. a trend w/ enough coherence that you can really make a statement about it. when you gotta use anco in your definition of 'pastoral nationalism' you know you're stretching things.

anco are only one of the links in the chain. pastoral yes, nationalist no. but they're not a perfect synecdoche, either. there is no perfect single-point representation.

and when we're specifically talking about a. pitchfork and b. indie music, then hell yeah, the demographic in question and the trends within it are worth making statements about. some of these bands have had #1 records in the last few years. they're as worth talking about as any music out there.

sure they're worth talking about but when you're making big social statements you need big pieces of evidence and I don't think the small-scale success of a few bands is that evidence. maybe people liked 'my girls' cause it's a super catchy song not because of the american national political/context.

sure, maybe...

the idea that post 2000 indie is in some sense marginal - outside the mainstream, not "worth" engaging in serious terms - strikes me as a weird kind of defensive denial. the neon bible debuted at #2, the suburbs at #1. national public radio (think about those words) has dedicated itself to the promulgation of this music to an audience that will someday assume leadership positions in american culture, business and government. this is the youthful soundtrack of white american privilege, and pretending that it's somehow not central to the narrative of the nation strikes me as bizarre.

hey self, why the scarequotes on "worth"?

In Sufjan Stevens, indie adopted precious, pastoral nationalism at the Bush Administration’s exact midpoint. In M.I.A., indie rock celebrated a musician whose greatest accomplishment has been to turn the world’s various catastrophes into remixed pop songs. This is a kind of music, in other words, that’s very good at avoiding uncomfortable conversations. Pitchfork has imitated, inspired, and encouraged indie rock in this respect. It has incorporated a perfect awareness of cultural capital into its basic architecture. A Pitchfork review may ignore history, aesthetics, or the basic technical aspects of tonal music, but it will almost never fail to include a detailed taxonomy of the current hype cycle and media environment.

this is key, as much as i want to defend MIA's catastrophe pop. it does a neat job of tying a good point about the basic structure of indie aesthetics (built in from its 80s-era roots) to the way indie tastemaking works online today, in a post-marginal commercial environment. carles uses HRO to make the same point over and over and over again.

― Little GTFO (contenderizer), Saturday, 21 January 2012 04:34 (37 minutes ago) Permalink

idk as a writer for pitchfork i cant say that the bulk of my writing deals w/ a 'detailed taxonomy of the current hype cycle and media environment' any more than is necessary to provide context of an existing discussion, and that's rarely the point of what i write

this piece, amongst other problems, has the same issue most pieces critical of the site has, in that it treats many different writers of many different styles approaches & eras as a monolith

I literally can't fathom the obscene lack of self-awareness it would take for someone to turn in a piece of print writing with the word "ILX" in it.

― all shitley (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, September 6, 2011

the other thing is that his generalizations about who the audiences for indie are and how they've changed, while intuitively tempting, don't have any actual evidence to support them, which is really irresponsible writing

when you're making big social statements you need big pieces of evidence and I don't think the small-scale success of a few bands is that evidence.

i can't imagine what kind of evidence one might find that the popularity of an artist or genre is in some way related to national events. when it comes to speculation of this sort, proof isn't really what i'm looking for.

his generalizations about who the audiences for indie are and how they've changed, while intuitively tempting, don't have any actual evidence to support them, which is really irresponsible writing

yeah, that i agree with 100%. frankly, i think the audience hasn't changed much. the difference is that the tastes and attitudes that define that audience have changed. but i don't have any strong support for that point, either.

I don't think fleet foxes are central to the narrative of the nation. the youthful soundtrack of white american privilege is mostly kanye west and jay-z.

again this kinda analysis has no room for separating success that comes from tapping into ~the zeitgeist~ or whatever and success just for writing music that happens to appeal to a lot of people. arcade fire's music is pretty easy to appreciate, hey they won a grammy, really old people vote for teh grammys. so I guess they are big, and if there were lots of other hugely successful bands that sounded like them that might mean something. but with this limited datapoint no, there's just not enough evidence that this 'means something important'.

xp

I mean if you really wanted to make a solid argument you'd have to look at the numbers w/r/t 'white american privilege'. back in the day there was a facebook page that allowed you to see what the top bands were by undergrad college. the beatles were the top band for most ivy league schools. does that mean something about the future of white maerican privilege? I mean I guess it means *something* but it's not a movement, it's just a lot of people who like the beatles.

this piece, amongst other problems, has the same issue most pieces critical of the site has, in that it treats many different writers of many different styles approaches & eras as a monolith

also OTM. piece is waist-deep in unsupportable generalizations, especially as they pretend to specifically indict pitchfork. nevertheless, i agree with what i see as the author's buried point: trendspotting and the handicapping of cultural capital have become a much more visible component of the pop-critical conversation in the internet era (though again, i'd point more to carles and PRR more than pitchfork itself for evidence of this).

he wrote. “We reach more people right now than Spin or Vibe ever did, even if you use the bs print mag idea that ‘every copy is read by 2.5 people’ . . . hell, I should stop caring, get back to work, and let people keep underestimating us.” Then he posted two more times. Then he wrote, “Alright, I will get out of this thread.” Then he posted eighteen more times.

this was the best part of the article imo

back in the day there was a facebook page that allowed you to see what the top bands were by undergrad college. the beatles were the top band for most ivy league schools. does that mean something about the future of white maerican privilege? I mean I guess it means *something* but it's not a movement, it's just a lot of people who like the beatles.

i think it does mean something about the future/present/past of white american privilege. for one thing, it reflects the whiteness of white american privilege. for another, it reflects the durability of that culture's totems. i'd say that "pitchfork indie" is a clear extension of this.

I don't think fleet foxes are central to the narrative of the nation. the youthful soundtrack of white american privilege is mostly kanye west and jay-z.

no. what do privileged white americans listen to that everybody else listens to, white or not, privileged or not? kanye and jay-Z, fine.

but what do privileged white americans listen to that other groups are substantially less likely to listen to? pitchfork indie. of course i don't have the statistics to back this up right at hand. just a hunch...

that's my problem, this needs statistics

I don't think fleet foxes are central to the narrative of the nation.

is any music at all central to the narrative of the nation?

the youthful soundtrack of white american privilege is mostly kanye west and jay-z.

i don't think so.

he wrote. “We reach more people right now than Spin or Vibe ever did, even if you use the bs print mag idea that ‘every copy is read by 2.5 people’ . . . hell, I should stop caring, get back to work, and let people keep underestimating us.” Then he posted two more times. Then he wrote, “Alright, I will get out of this thread.” Then he posted eighteen more times.

this was the best part of the article imo

haha otm

the thought of nice, earnest, young mr. beck reading hundred-plus post ilx thread derails kinda warms my heart.

is any music at all central to the narrative of the nation?

I don't think so today.

And I'm sure this is something we've discussed a bunch of times:

This has something to do with the site’s diligently cultivated readership: no genre’s fans are more vulnerable to music criticism than the educated, culturally anxious young people who pay close attention to indie rock.

like, i don't think this is indie-specific, i think this is educated, culturally anxious young people - specific.

that's my problem, this needs statistics

i don't think it does. it's speculation, criticism, a shot across the bow. i read this sort of thing more for ideas than for ironclad proofs. if i felt that the author's assumptions were factually inaccurate in relation to statistical evidence that i might actually obtain, i might do some research myself. that's why god gave us google, after all.

like, i don't think this is indie-specific, i think this is educated, culturally anxious young people - specific.

yeah, reflective of the myopic, self-damning tone you find in many attacks targeted against pitchfork and indie culture.

feel bad for going all bonkers on this thread. can't help it sometimes. i get a feeling.

http://a2.twimg.com/profile_images/215868785/Twitter.jpg

i think he's cuet tbh

does help explain the passionate inconsistencies

this is all probably obvious but...

trendspotting and the handicapping of cultural capital have become a much more visible component of the pop-critical conversation in the internet era

i wonder if we couldn't look at sites like Pitchfork as evolving along with the rapid explosion of information about and availability of music (briefly mentioned in the article) and therefore these kinds of sites are a kind of "control technology" in the formal sense of that term. curating, handicapping, and value judgements become kind of urgently necessary when you are faced with the potential to listen to almost anything. without those kinds of bottlenecks (which are themselves proliferating) i think it'd almost be a chaos of choices. what's unique about pitchfork then would be what counts as information to them, what distinctions they find worth drawing, and the like, and not so much any relation to the music that pitchfork might stake out but in fact a relation to other forms of media and models of music consumption. criticism is always really talking to other criticism.

you know, the first half of this article's not bad as a primer for people who were aware of pitchfork but didn't really know what it was all about. would email to my mom!

6.8

Pretty good article, although the first and last few paragraphs were a bit of a mess. I agree with a lot of contenderizer's points.

It does a good job of painting a picture of the transition through to the internet/file sharing era (c. 1998-2004), this was more interesting to me than anything he had to say about Pitchfork itself.

^^ That is exactly how I feel. The lead-in and end are shabby at best, but it's a very interesting article nonetheless. And I too agree with Contenderizers thoughts on it.

Missing Whiney here btw

For these people, indie rock has offered a way to ignore the fact that part of what makes your dead-end internship or bartending job tolerable is the fact that you can leave and go to law school whenever you like.

Apart from its wrongness, this is a disgraceful sentence.

Reading through the archive, watching Pitchfork begin to discover thoughtful, politically liberal rap groups like A Tribe Called Quest and Jurassic 5, I felt a shock of white suburban recognition

like Jefferson discovering Montesquiou.

the idea that post 2000 indie is in some sense marginal - outside the mainstream, not "worth" engaging in serious terms - strikes me as a weird kind of defensive denial. the neon bible debuted at #2, the suburbs at #1. national public radio (think about those words) has dedicated itself to the promulgation of this music to an audience that will someday assume leadership positions in american culture, business and government. this is the youthful soundtrack of white american privilege, and pretending that it's somehow not central to the narrative of the nation strikes me as bizarre.

whaaaaaaaaaaat

what on earth makes you think that NPR's audience "will someday assume leadership positions in american culture"??? NPR's audience is mostly rich baby boomers. they have already assumed "leadership positions in american culture"

dunno if that's right either, max. Many NPR listeners are in the boonies listening to the one affiliate in town.

In the last thirty years, no artistic form has made cultural capital so central to its identity, and no musical genre has better understood how cultural capital works. Disdaining the reserves of actual capital that were available to them through the major labels, indie musicians sought a competitive advantage in acquiring cultural capital instead.

like, huh? is this dude familiar with "the art world"?

well my point is more about the idea that NPR listeners are in a position where they might someday assume something. im not sure what counts as a "leadership position in american culture" in any event

*thinks about the words national public radio*

argh sorry i dont actually want to have this conversation i just cant *deal* with tunnel vision people get when they talk about pitchfork

i think what the guy was saying, poorly, is that just like it was a big deal when Obama was not just the first black president but the first president who listens to hip hop, in 20 years or whatever we'll probably have our first President Tumblr White

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I, President Tumblr White, will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Doesn't seem like music is really as important these days as it was in the past, so maybe this guy's writing from a false premise, because the points he makes are kinda whatever.

Some of the points he does make remind me of a NY Times Style Section article. "The people I hang out with are like this, so the world must be like this!" Fart-sniffing and navel gazing, basically.

"Tumblr white": ?
Or is this a "if you have to ask..." sort of thing

Doesn't seem like music is really as important these days as it was in the past,

Evidence?

ex: hippie movement in the 60s, punk movement in the 70s, and the general rush of new types of music appearing in a small period of time. Things aren't like that anymore, and expecting it to be like that is applying past standards to the present.

Just seems like there's still this shadow of music's importance hanging over our culture when it doesn't really exist anymore. Like, music "should" be important, but ... it's just not, at least in my opinion. and I love music.

"Tumblr white": ?
Or is this a "if you have to ask..." sort of thing

― Scrutable (Ówen P.), Saturday, January 21, 2012 10:15 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

a white guy with a tumblr used this phrase as an insult on ilx a bunch of times recently

I like it, sounds like "Hustler White" + when you tumble dry your whites.
I'd just never heard it before last week

is any music at all central to the narrative of the nation?

One way to gauge this, albeit anecdotally, is what concert tickets would be accepted gratis by the broadest, largest strata of people? I'd suggest, beyond the usual Macca and whatnot, that someone like Gaga wins this, a top 40 act whose presence extends beyond the charts and into many peripheral facets of society. Like, my parents know who Lady Gaga is, probably. They've never heard of the Arcade Fire.

what on earth makes you think that NPR's audience "will someday assume leadership positions in american culture"??? NPR's audience is mostly rich baby boomers. they have already assumed "leadership positions in american culture"

i think the author was referring to the very real phenomenon of young whatevers, presumably eventually to make up a lot of the upper ends of the managerial class, leadership class, creative class, etc. (and probably already in careers in those classes), listening to npr 'indie' stations, reading about chicago juke and cascadian black metal on the npr website, etc.

this week i was working with a johns hopkins grad student who was really excited about going to see big freedia at a local hipster restaurant/venue