Post a controversial opinion

thread has turned into ILM Lite

Lol lechera, can't believe I so hastily
Identified with millenials, must be tired :)

I haven't really posted since maybe 2005 and I just really needed to vent on this total madness. All the AFTP wowsers (the ones I know personally) are over 40. I have never met a person who said Document was their favorite REM record.

All the AFTP R.E.M. wowsers I know personally are over 40

I miss bros and hipsters. The male cultural archetypes jave merged somehow. Finance dudes have those severe Hitlerian haircuts you used to only see from guys in indie bands. People you would once call hipsters are fully plugged into the zeitgeist. The culture is too constraining to be a contrarian and besides there is no such thing as obscurity in the age of youtube and spotify.

I mean, there is, but all anyone talks about is Trump anyway.

olds like murmur i think. i mean so do i.

finally bought Automatic used on CD about 6 months ago for a road trip... and then sold it back about 2 months later. Green was the last thing they did that i care to sit through.

so maybe my 'controversial op' is that Green is pretty damn solid, even if i p much always hated "Stand"

Document is MY favorite REM album, but everybody I know likes Murmur best, or claims to.

For "favorite" read "the only one I ever made it all the way through."

treeship, hipsters are still there, they just quit facebook 7 years ago and don't post on social media, which means they're practically invisible.

What ~do~ they do nowadays?

All downhill from Chronic Town.

For "favorite" read "the only one I ever made it all the way through."

― grawlix (unperson), Saturday, December 16, 2017 9:08 PM

I've been hearing people say things like this a lot and I don't know if they mean they literally haven't listened to a whole album or that they just don't tend to? I cant imagine just switching albums off so easily.

I don't agree that "hipsters" as they were 10 years ago or thru the 00s exist anymore. I think treeship is right, although I don't particularly miss them or bros. Everyone is plugged into the same thing, everything orbiting Trump is sadly otm, even if it's like "i don't give a shit." writing an anti-Trump song or make a statement is the most predictable and boring thing an artist could do. totally different than the GWB years, when Lightning Bolt wrote "what the worlds needs is another dead cowboy" and Kanye West said "George Bush doesn't care about black people" on national tv. the Dixie Chicks were pilloried by the media and their fans and Clear Channel.

the hipster subculture/counterculture of the 00s that spawned all the new weird america bands and noise bands and wham city and fort thunder, that collapsed because of the decline of CD-R's and the corporate vinyl boom, which has made DIY touring so much harder for independent bands. indie bands with only a demo (if that) now hire managers, agents, lawyers, and booking agents really early, and those bands get written about.

anyway, bros and hipsters were v toxic and misogynistic. bros are obvious, and one needs only to look at old posts on ILX to see the typical hipster mindset/pose. I lament the loss of musical subculture and underground, and that brief period in the 00s when artists like Dan Deacon and Animal Collective could license their songs to Crayola without having to make some indie apologia. now everyone is doing car commercials and all the rock bands are incredibly boring. girlpool being an exception.

olds like murmur i think. i mean so do i.

― difficult listening hour, Saturday, December 16, 2017 3:39 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I meant to write Murmur!

We were making fun of hipsters on ILX in the 00s. At least the NY fappers were. I don't remember the misogyny at all.

I would take Stand over the Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight all day long. Olds like Murmur or Life's Rich Pageant.

Oh! I was like, Document??? Ok...

I don't like hipster obscurity for it's own sake but it sounds pretty refreshing now.

I don't either, but shallow obscurity =/= subcultural depth. what fort thunder and wham city did was real and powerful, free of corporate sponsorship, but most importantly, it spawned a lot of really great innovative music and art. it was also very integrated musically - now scenes based on genre (punk v. wispy indie rock v. electronic music v. avant garde v. hip hop) are very isolated from each other.

"=/="

Equals? Doesn't equal?

I still haven't heard Fort Thunder music but I know the artwork. Just seemed like they were having fun to me, though I'm sure some of the fans were into the obscurity aspect most.

I think I only saw hipsters once at a Boredoms gig though.

does not equal

fort thunder and wham city and all the bands listed in that poll whiney made a few years ago, the excitement and power of them was they were able to sustain themselves by touring and selling CDRs and limited run vinyl. some of the work was pretty out there but a lot of it was rooted in rock/pop traditions. sure, CDR punishers existed, but what made that era special was the freedom and how wide the horizon seemed. now artists in similar positions at similar levels of visibility get "people" much earlier in their careers. which isn't inherently a problem, but it feels constrained, safe, calculated. that 00s cottage industry of experimental and fringe artists had a lot in common with 80s hardcore/punk/alternative, all the bands written about in Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life.

controversial opinion: != > =/=

i live in portland. hipsters still exist.

Sometimes it seems like social justice kids only want Disney films and pop singers, but if I injected them with the blood of hipsters it might balance out nicely.

Take it to ILM ppl

con·tro·ver·sial
ˌkäntrəˈvərSHəl,ˌkäntrəˈvərsēəl
adjective
giving rise or likely to give rise to public disagreement.

whereas most of yr posts are just douchey

All downhill from Chronic Town.

^truth

≠ > != > =/= > <> > not(equal(a b))

not(equal(a b))

idk, the drum machine's a surprisingly good fit on this one

40+ and hip: Reckoning is better than Murmur
30-40 and hip: New Adventures In Hi-Fi is better than AFTP
20-30 and hip: *deletes all Lil Pump songs that don't feature Yachty*

I must be 40 and hip. I'm at least one of those.

This is a weird-ass detour for this thread, but I've been thinking lately every time REM pops up that, after a generation that has seemingly completely overlooked them, their time might be coming around again. Kids gonna be looking for more of that earnest, sincere, rootsy REM sound as the world is collapsing around their ears.

actually the only hip and truly controp is that rem has 5 tracks at best and none of their records are classics

I'd argue that's more a challenging rather than controversial opinion.

What's controversial is anyone under 30 caring about R.E.M.

REM should be killed

Xan on the Moon

lmao goddammit

What's controversial is anyone under 30 caring about R.E.M.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, December 16, 2017 10:26 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not controversial

i listen to 'what's the frequency kenneth' like twice a year

Like is this on yr calendar

I’m 38 and REM’s relevance had to be explained to me and I literally only started to like them when ILX voted “Harbourcoat” #1 and I listened to the rest of the record and thought “hey this is good”

My controversial opinion is that people bearing ill will and/or schadenfreude toward failing-artists that once capitalized-upon-a-kind-of-glorification-of-youthful-exuberance-are-themselves-mourning-their-own-loss-of-faith

nah man, lcd soundsystem blows

I’m 38 and REM’s relevance had to be explained to me

ok

xxp truth bomb

LCD were the best thing for exactly fourteen weeks in 2002-2003

i think they were also the best thing for a few weeks in 2004 when "yeah" came out, and then again for a few weeks in 2006 when "45:33" came out