What's the future of the music industry?

Dummy record has some cool ideas and some lovely moments. Don't think they're fully realised yet but there's something there. Can just about see why someone would write them an 8000-word advertisement, if they were friends with them

acts that get the Big Push from the big obvious places

We call it the Big P

wet leg down with OPP (Obvious Places Push)

you don't follow as much music as you frankly should as a critic/forum shitposter

― slide into my KMFDMs (morrisp)

my experience as a shitposter is that shitposting works better when you _haven't_ heard the band in question

wet leg? sounds like they peed themselves! haw, haw, haw!

(this works even better if this is, actually, the inspiration for their name - see also "i'm coming out? sounds GAY")

i heard about five seconds of them and didn't like it and nobody outside of this board has ever mentioned their existence, so i'm probably not gonna listen to any more of their stuff

how dare you question the cultural ubiquity of wet leg

poptimism is not about celebrating what is popular per se, it is about celebrating ALL music AS pop, and the issue then becomes exposure

i really like this

I didn't realise there was an album-listening qualification threshold for posting to ILM

Yeah I mean probably the best poster on ILM is someone who mainly posts about the same 2 artists. I would welcome more posters who are really deeply into one thing, I'm glad if that stuff can be posted here instead of on a fan board for the artist where i'd never come across it. And I don't think good criticism has to be "on the bear" either.

i really like this

I don't, especially. Adopting a pop-centred framework for looking at all music doesn't strike me as particularly beneficial, empowering, or enlightening.

i get why people see music that way (re: poptimism) but it doesn't work for me.

i heard about five seconds of them and didn't like it and nobody outside of this board has ever mentioned their existence, so i'm probably not gonna listen to any more of their stuff

I highly suggest you try out the tracks Convincing -> Loving You -> Your Mom(!)

I think they're truly great indie-pop/whatever

poptimism was a particular strategy at a particular time. i’m glad it happened and in many ways it “won” but it’s kind of meaningless now imo. though maybe not quite so meaningless as saying “all music is pop music” lol. what a strange thing to say. not all music is pop music. but hoo boy am i looking forward to not getting into an argument about it.

there's nowhere online where wet leg is more inescapable than ilx where posters who don't like wet leg can't stop posting about how hard it is to not see posts about wet leg

'ALL music' was an exaggeration. I did actually clarify at length earlier to Sund4r on a private chat, so it's annoying he's now relitigating what I've already clarified, lol

It's an idea that's crystallised following the peoples_pop polls on Twitter
Seeing straight up pop being celebrated in the same breath as art stuff, metal, psych, whatever
Polled against it, treated equally
Made me realise what the Ewing/FT poptimism project was actually about, which is something I agree with

Yeah, but with no scorn against commercial or simplistic pop music
A full acceptance of all music as having a right to one's approval

Perhaps it centres pop, but it also allows anything to try and be pop

Some things might be more obviously pop, but there is an effort on the part of the dedicated poptimist to hear any non-classical music as pop, and even some classical in a few cases
It only has to succeed as songs, really
Any song that one might call a banger, lol
The song is at the heart of pop
The album is a more classical format in a sense, imo
More literary, less immediate

these were my clarifications fwiw

I wasn't relitigating it with you; I was replying to Deflatormouse after he endorsed your original formulation, the only one on the thread xp until now. I do still think that you're describing a pop-centred framework for listening fwiw.

Anyway, we can agree on Wet Leg sucking.

I think that that is, or has become, my preferred framework, even when I'm listening to full prog or extreme metal or whatever. What would you say yours is? You're a musician, so perhaps your framework is more about performance and process?

I measure everything relative to "Fox on the Run" by Sweet. Pop is too broad.

(Will give a serious answer after I stop procrastinating and actually play some music; thanks for the reminder.)

i like wet leg too but a band's first single having a lavish video

Isn’t the video just them walking down a lane and sitting on a porch?

Anyway, we can agree on Wet Leg sucking.

I think that that is, or has become, my preferred framework, even when I'm listening to full prog or extreme metal or whatever.

checks out.

Sund4r, why do you think Wet Leg are bad? You have fairly considered taste, so I'm interested in your thoughts

i have been confusing wet leg and dry cleaning for this entire thread

Dry Cleaning played Glastonbury so they're presumably part of Big Indie anyway.

Yeah, the writer covered the bases:

Wet Leg, one of many mediocre British post-punk groups who you’re more or less informed that you like, because you’re into guitars, right, idiot?

I'm into mediocre British post-punk groups because I like bass, really.

lol post-punk was 40 years ago

poptimism was 20

I highly suggest you try out the tracks Convincing -> Loving You -> Your Mom(!)

I think they're truly great indie-pop/whatever

― slide into my KMFDMs (morrisp)

i might but honestly i have a backlog of about a billion things to listen to, and somehow i just keep listening to _dots and loops_

maybe after i catch up on the david axelrod thread

Morrisp, I should admit I've only listened to the singles/advance tracks and not the whole album and was shooting off my mouth about an ILM darling. In what I've heard, I just find the the music kind of basic and monotonous and the detached vocals unengaging in a way that feels dry and enervating more than fun or catchy or droll. The humour doesn't land for me at all. But honestly, it's not really the kind of thing I generally seek out in contemporary music so I should probably not be commenting. I'm not exactly sure what postpunk this stuff is supposed to be reviving but it doesn't recall for me the qualities I enjoy in Joy Division, Wire, Slits, etc.

one obvious post-punk precursor is the Flying Lizards, fwiw,

(I only just realized this now, but I stand by it)

What's the future of the music industry?

arguing abt indie authenticity on a message board obv

as for the past...

Having problems parsing the manifesto style commitment of Yeah, but with no scorn against commercial or simplistic pop music
A full acceptance of all music as having a right to one's approval

with punching up hit jobs, aesthetic or not.

No implicit scorn. Case by case judgement

the position that Wet Leg make bogstandard indie

there is nothing wrong with the bogstandard. the bog has a very reasonable standard and we of the bog strive to uphold it proudly. haven't heard wet leg but wanted to say a word on behalf of the bog

i prefer fogstandard indie (music inspired by foghat)

maybe the quality of peat is different over there

what's funny to this American is I just looked up bog standard, and it tells me it means having no or few interesting qualities

Dunno about y'all experiences with bogs but if something is coming from a bog, it sounds like it *will* have something interesting or cool about it. Maybe there are more bogs in the old country

Born on the Bogyou

I sort of imagine half of England as a giant bog.

Bog standard indie is when a perfectly preserved album made in 1992 is discovered today

I'm endlessly fascinated by bog butter.

i bet you are

Did ppl complain about "careerism" in rock even in the pre-punk era, or did that ethos only start around then?

Like were there bands on ESP-Disk sniffing about the Velvet Underground – "Wonder how they got on Verve, with Warhol as their 'manager'... must be nice"

oh in jazz that was def. a thing

There were artists who weren't on ESP-Disk who thought some of the ESP artists had a whiff (or more) of careerism about them.

I prefer logstandard indie btw, which takes its inspiration from Kate & Anna McGarrigle's "Log Driver's Waltz".

Didn't folk aficionados think Dylan was selling out by going electric? I do wonder about rock bands feeling that way about other rock bands, though.

I always love this story Archie Shepp told me when I interviewed him in 2014:

What was your relationship like with John Coltrane? You played on A Love Supreme, though the tracks weren’t released until later, and you were on Ascension, and you recorded his songs on Four for Trane. Was there a sense from Impulse! that you were being groomed as the next man in line?

Oh, I don’t think so. What eventually happened was rather fortuitous for me, in the sense that I had the chance to meet John Coltrane and it was he who was the intermediary for me, in connecting me with Bob Thiele and Impulse! Records. In fact, Bob was totally negative in terms of doing that recording [Four for Trane]. I had been calling him for months, trying to get him on the phone, and his secretary always told me he was either out to lunch or he was gone for the day. [laughs]

But by this time I had met John Coltrane, and John’s always been a hero to me, and was certainly very helpful in my career. I spoke to him personally and told him that I’d been trying to reach Bob, and I never could get him, and so he told me – the way he would answer was, he wouldn’t say he’d do it, he said, “I’ll see what I can do.” And the next day, after months of calling Bob Thiele, I called him again, and his secretary Lillian, whom I got to know rather well after some time, she said, “Well, Bob’s out to lunch, but he’ll be back in an hour.” [laughs]

there is nothing wrong with the bogstandard. the bog has a very reasonable standard and we of the bog strive to uphold it proudly. haven't heard wet leg but wanted to say a word on behalf of the bog

― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi)

if someone's coming out of the bog with a wet leg i don't want to use the bog after them

Unless you've just changed your togs in the bog. Then it would make sense that you might have a wet leg.