Indie Guilt: C/D

In that case, I don't even know what "Indie" is. Can someone enlighten me? phil

Indie-est albums on my cd rack above my desk = Shipping News, Storm and Stress, Sugababes, Kelis, Pink, Box Tops.

Oh yeah, there's some Piano Magic buried at the back that I haven't listened to in forever.

Speaking very generally, people who listen to a single genre (or network of interrelated genres like "indie" or "dance") of music exclusively or near-exclusively I find less interesting - on the boards or in real life, talking about music or not - than people who listen to a lot of different kinds of music. In my experience this particularly applies to American indie rock. There are of course exceptions to this and I'm not proposing this as anything other than a personal preference/prejudice.

eh...that thread never gets anywhere close to an honest answer. it just trashes indie, which is as positive or negative as making fun of anything else, but evidentally not here at ILM, where the "good old days" and the golden hindsight (or is it sepia?) of nostalgia seems to pale anything recent.

m.

And sorry I missed gygax's link to Jess' website - gygax, that was fuckin' weak man.

Why the frontin'? is the question this morning, folks. And the anticipated hip-hop/pop response followed by Sleater Kinney are godz apology is the most interesting so far.

only stupid indie-people think everything has to be a fucking apology.

man msp nobody whined about stuff like that back in the day -- ethan ([email protected]), May 29, 2002.

oh i agree. we were watching cartoons. i do remember whining about not getting a transformers toy...but then i realized how much radder go-bots were... only to now be completely embarrassed by both!

it doesn't "just trash indie", it includes my observation that LPs with the same number of cuts on both sides are all terrible -- mark s ([email protected]), May 29, 2002.

i WAS heavy handed when i said that...it did have some good points here and there and people made the good case that they've moved on, broadened their horizons, etc etc. so have i... but i still have little or no desire to purchase just about anything top 40 radio programming has to offer and that probably most of purchases, regardless of genre, are tiny re-issues or limited release crap that 3 folks in the basement of co-op put out with money they spare changed and gave blood to make. and some of that includes some rock, and some of it is still pretty worthwhile listening even stacked next to "legends and greats"...

so back to gygax's question...what's the haps? what makes indie a object to be deplored any more than anything?

m.

Indie guilt wouldn't exist if people weren't persecuted in some respect for their musical taste, whether by friends or strangers. If everyone found all music to be acceptable, regardless of its origin or popularity, then the people who carry indie guilt wouldn't feel compelled to obscure their tastes in public or private discussion. But the question was: Is indie guilt a classic or a dud? I think it's classic only because it will continue to be around as long as there exists music elitests who insist on belittling others' tastes in music. And in that regard, I suppose it's of anthropological/sociological interest to study people's actions and reactions in response to that guilt. But just the same, I wish it was a dud because people should be able to enjoy what they want without feeling the need to justify an interest in music to which others might object.

But if there was an Indie Guilt Meter, this place would have the needle slamming in the red all of the time.

Sterling's comment about feeling Palace was his own, private "special" thing that he couldn't share resonated with me, but for me the special thing was jazz. After a brief stint with classic rock, I was a jazz nerd for most of high school - I was a musician, and I was "serious". I also didn't even really know anything about punk or indie - they just weren't on the radar at my school.

Only in college, in my giddy days at the alt weekly, did I realize that post-rock was kinda like jazz and could be my special thing too, and so could old folk and blues records that were too scratchy-sounding for most people to ever like.

But the point is that, holed up in the office on a Friday night, I could happily wallow in my deep lonliness, appreciating what was going on in the new Paul Bley trio disc, seething at the athletic teams and the administration-ass-kissing daily paper, while the drunken whoops of frat brothers echoed in the distance. I certainly couldn't share my late 60s Miles Davis, my Sea and Cake, my Mississippi State Penitentiary songs with a woman, and I couldn't share much of anything else with a woman either.

Out in the world and away from college, into drab offices and co-habited apartments, we are ashamed of our private, special things. We want, understandably, to experience shared humanity, hence the oft-cited point that indie records don't sell and "nobody" listens to them (and you indie fuxors even think of yourselves as nobodies).

-- ethan (ethan...), May 29th, 2002.

lol

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love the talk of nu-ilm upthread from 2002

I miss this thread. I wish it was started every day.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever),

how about now?