What's the future of the music industry?

But also, like, I think imago is coming from that same UK weekly-influenced futurist background e.g. he thinks Wet Leg suck because they lack formal innovation.

(i think Wet Leg suck too ftr)

I also was thinking 20 years ago, or I guess like 17 years. What came through most clearly to my own brain/memory is the critique of rockism and a sense of exhaustion with its pretenses and its gatekeeping preoccupation with things like 'originality,' 'authenticity,' 'writes their own songs,' 'plays their own instruments,' 'deep' 'important' 'serious, the idea of an artist evolving and progressing over their career to become deeper and more important and more serious,.... etc. The way these things overlap with the social construction of masculinity, and the tendency of rock to be coded masculine and pop to be coded feminine dovetails with the idea of reclaiming and championing a huge range of listening and music-loving experiences that the rockist canon didn't take as seriously.

But I'm definitely not an expert, nor am I saying this in order to take a stand one way or the other on Wet Leg or this article... just following the tangent of 'what was/is poptimism,' and perhaps hoping to be corrected if I've had this wrong in my head all this time!

I was thinking a couple of hours ago that it might be a useful distinction if we thought of the assembly of pop acts as like casting a musical...somebody writes (substitute "creates" given how modern pop is as dependent on sounds as much as if not more than traditional melody/harmony/rhythm) the songs, and now it's time to find people to perform them. I loathe musicals, but that doesn't mean they're not a legit art form.

Now that Wet Leg have showed up on Barack Obama's summer playlist we can all stop talking about them, btw.

xp I guess you could frame it that way if you want to give all the agency to the songwriters, and none to the performers/artists

But also, like, I think imago is coming from that same UK weekly-influenced futurist background e.g. he thinks Wet Leg suck because they lack formal innovation.

― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Tuesday, 26 July 2022 18:40 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Nah. Before I embraced poptimism this is what I used to say. But now I say that their lack of formal innovation merely makes them not to my taste (or at least, not likely to be to my taste, given how I do occasionally root for basic stuff done well if it has that nebulous 'something about it').

What makes them suck is the hype, the coverage, the adulation. That is all that ever makes music suck. And the more that people go crazy about something, the higher a bar it has to clear to not suck. Why do you think I was laying into Bad Bunny earlier? It's harmless reggaeton in isolation. Wet Leg are perfectly serviceable indie - that one song (Angelica?) is kinda good even. But in both cases they're playing a formula that I don't think is particularly interesting, and people are going nuts for them. So, to me, they suck. It can only ever be subjective and I can only ever argue the case as I see it. I don't discount that others like these acts. But I'm allowed to not like them, and although it increasingly seems that ILM disapproves of such conduct, I'm allowed to say I don't like them.

Whatever is not expressly forbidden is allowed.

Blasting Wet Leg right now.

Off the top of my head, I would think it would privilege: the recorded medium, consumer formats and passive listening; individual tracks over larger works; song-based structures, studio production; beats, hooks, and immediacy - the earworm. It could certainly also have to do with spectacle and mass appeal but I don't think that's what was meant in a context where it is applied to all (or most) music.

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Tuesday, 26 July 2022 17:49 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This doesn't quite describe the sort of pop-centred framework I'm talking about.

Recorded format: yes. Passive listening? No way. Passive listening doesn't make you a poptimist, it makes you a regular human. All music nerds need to listen actively and well. At least, when they're being nerds. Individual tracks? Yeah, but albums too - it's a different sort of focus, but I think it's fair to say that albums are also subject to the tenets of responsible pop listening: willingness to meet the artist at least halfway, openness to yield to sensation while temporarily suspending judgement (beyond: 'this bangs!'), and above all never dismissing something out of hand because of what it is (yes, widespread adulation makes the bar much higher for me, but pop artists I regard as truly great will clear it effortlessly - the key is to not dismiss in advance NO MATTER WHAT IT IS) (certain exceptions apply in the case of evildoers). It doesn't have so much to do with hooks or immediacy. I've listened to the new Imperial Triumphant - avant jazz-metal - today. Not so much in the way of immediacy there (there is some!) but I wouldn't say the experience was fundamentally different to listening to a, say, Dawn Richard album and noting the profusion of bangers and general enjoyment

w/r/t bad bunny, there's no such thing as consuming an artist that big "in isolation," and idk what gives you (or any one single listener) the right to say what kind of music should be that popular instead

I mean, if you just want to advocate for open-mindedness, I'm not going to oppose that, although after a point I might question why you're naming it after one kind of music (and why you would still privilege recorded music in this case).xp

I'm not saying it shouldn't be that popular! Let people like what they like. I'll probably call them basics tho

I name it after pop because most of the music I like comes from the popular music tradition, or is hitched to it by dint of being a recorded product

part of being a responsible pop listener is knowing where the boundaries of your expertise begin and end. that's why people got annoyed with you in the bad bunny thread.

But I'm allowed to not like them, and although it increasingly seems that ILM disapproves of such conduct

I think it’s the calling other posters “basics” that rubs the wrong way

(I also doubt you’ve listened to the album? You only seem to know the singles, like a true basic)

I think it’s the calling other posters “basics” that rubs the wrong way

Surely not

Formal innovation, ewwww, go listen to some prog

Yes. Will do.

Blasting Wet Leg right now

TMI

(I also doubt you’ve listened to the album? You only seem to know the singles, like a true basic)

― slide into my KMFDMs (morrisp)

I'd cop to being pretty basic.

My very first unsophisticated thought re: Wet Leg is there's a haughtiness about them that rubs me the wrong way, in particular because they're not quite canny enough to pull it off ("I went to school and I got the big D" = red card). That aloofness and detachment is also what gives them their power, though, which is I guess the part that ties into the article that ppl in this thread were talking about & that i still haven't read. You're not going to get anywhere by working hard and touring, there's a big corporate machine controlling everything that everyone is desperate to become absorbed by, and that has to be bought and paid for. Wet Leg aren't showing you any desperation, they give the impression of 'oh, whatever, sure, we'll just go along with this, it seems easy enough.'

I can't *quite* wrap my head around 'the thing that makes music bad is other people liking it, now that i'm a poptimist,' i must be misreading that.

Not being sarcastic as i seem to always misread everything

Well there’s a ton of music that lots of people like that doesn’t end up winning ILM polls

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

KABOOM! This had been bugging me since i first heard them but i couldn't place it and is absolutely spot on. it seems so obvious in hindsight.

Yes. Whenever someone says "Flying Lizards" I think "monkey banana kitchen" but unfortunately that is pretty seldom what they mean, usually it's "Money" which is obv the case in this case

I can't *quite* wrap my head around 'the thing that makes music bad is other people liking it, now that i'm a poptimist,' i must be misreading that.

― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Tuesday, 26 July 2022 23:33 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

More people liking it just gives it a higher bar to clear, for me. Doesn't make it bad. I'll give anything a fair crack

Deflatormouse has a good point re: the haughty, unearned arrogance of Wet Leg too - they come off to me as smug without the sound to back it up, emperor has precious few musical clothes etc. And they slipped SO quickly into stardom that it feels like somehow they always knew they'd be stars - like, the contracts had always been drawn up. Maybe a false perception, but it feels like it's been handed to them on a silver platter (yes I'm one to talk blah blah)

That said,

That all said,

I'm happier with ILM discussing Wet Leg than I am with ILM's slow descent into being a classic rock forum (witness that cheerful musicians thread)

Now that Wet Leg have showed up on Barack Obama's summer playlist we can all stop talking about them, btw.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, July 26, 2022 4:21 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

fine, but if you think this will get me to take this Arooj Aftab LP off my turntable, you're nuts

I'm happier with ILM discussing Wet Leg than I am with ILM's slow descent into being a classic rock forum

we will all sleep better knowing that.

Classic or Dud: U2 [Started by Mark Richardson in March 2001, last updated two minutes ago by JoeStork on I Love Music] 55 new answers
Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ? [Started by Patrick in February 2001, last updated three minutes ago by Josh in Chicago on I Love Music] 87 new answers

2001. An ILX Odyssey.

willingness to meet the artist at least halfway

I think this is important, too. Both the part about meeting the art on its own terms (though I don't know how well -isms or agendas will serve anyone to that end) and also the meeting halfway, the collision between the music and listener, or the idea that art is something that occurs at this meeting point, it's alive, it can't just be stored away and preserved but has to be activated by an audience.

And there's no better example of this on ILM than the Bruce Springsteen thread. What Lily Dale has done there = completing art.

Whenever someone says "Flying Lizards" I think "monkey banana kitchen" Fourth Wall

I always get those two mixed up, apparently

hey come off to me as smug without the sound to back it up, emperor has precious few musical clothes etc. And they slipped SO quickly into stardom that it feels like somehow they always knew they'd be stars - like, the contracts had always been drawn up. Maybe a false perception

yeah, that seems a false impression to me. I've seen them twice and they seem to be having a great time, the 2 women clearly having fun together/friends, and perhaps bemused at the whole thing. and the crowds are having fun along with them.

Rhian Teasdale also did the DIY thing; that's probably how she met the bassist-with-management-connections that the Bandcamp writer feels is such a grave injustice (or maybe he's a family friend, who gives a shit)

The idea that each newly formed band has to start fresh and methodically build up a fanbase via touring and self-promotion, before being signed by a succession of ever-bigger labels over a decade, and finally Reaching the Top and Looking Back With Satisfaction is not only boring but like an ethos based on how it may have worked for a particular slice of bands in the '80s (talk about "classic rock")

Was looking at who was appearing at Lollapalooza and found another one:

Maude Latour was born in Sweden. Her father is Almar Latour, former executive editor of The Wall Street Journal and CEO of Dow Jones & Company, and her mother is a journalist for S&P Global. She lived in London and attended Hong Kong International School before attending the Brearley School in Manhattan. Latour graduated from Columbia University in 2022 as a philosophy major.

The Wiki for Remi Wolf says she was born in Palo Alto to "a Sicilian mother and a Russian-Persian father." That mother is Kate McGarrigle, that father is Lenny Waronker. She grew up with Rufus and Lucy Wainwright.

Com3t is Dani Thorne, actor/model/sister to Bella (and other less successful Thorne siblings).

So Remi Wolf is logstandard indie! (What is Sicilian about Kate McGarrigle, though?)

remi wolf isn't bad, you couldn't pay me to listen to dow jones jr. tho lol

The dark hilarity of "rich kid indie" is that most of the rich kids who get into it are so fully committed to cosplaying DIY that you can be close friends with them for years and have no clue, none at all, that their entire thing is parent-funded

Generally if you want to know "who's rich?" just follow the loudest voices on Twitter complaining about how "poor" they are

Personally I like it when rich people decide to make albums and pay people to help them, better than them getting into bitcoin and real estate with that money

I think also

That it's brutally ironic that this thread is a pile of articles over fifteen years about "the music industry is dying" and "nobody is listening to new music any more"

And then it becomes a pile of shit talk about "a new young rock band comprised of two women signed to Domino records that has become too popular for people's liking" like

There is a correlation here, no?

“Another one”? None of those artists Josh names are pretending to be “indie”

I didn't mean to imply they were pretending to be anything, just kids of privilege who likely had good connections.

Also the irony of the apparent democratisation of "A full acceptance of all music as having a right to one's approval" - coupled with the proviso of it being judged by individuals on "a case by case base", with an erratic and bizarre set of prejudices (e.g. too popular, didn't pay enough dues on the touring circuit, received hidden patronage or benefited through contacts in the music industry)

Would be a shame to see a child of Lenny Waronker make it as a musician, huh

As I explained already several times, popularity/instafame/loadsamoney/nepotism doesn't preclude it being good, it just means that the acclaim has a higher bar to clear so as to seem justified (to me, the subjective critic, who has a measure of cynicism about how acts sometimes make it in the popular realm). I went and examined my prejudices yesterday by listening to an entire Bad Bunny album - it was good! Maybe today I'll listen to the entire Wet Leg album.

It's just another way to skip to the front of the line, I guess. Of course, there *is* no line, and anyone that thinks they're entitled to success in the music industry due to their hard work is almost as bad as someone that uses their privilege as a shortcut. There are far, far more popular acts that came from nothing or nothing special than there are acts that came from particularly privileged backgrounds, and while there *are* some shortcuts, I don't think there is any real rhyme or reason as to who gets successful and how. Even actual talent is generally not enough to get you there.