What's the future of the music industry?

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.

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?

― flamboyant goon tie included, Thursday, 28 July 2022 14:22 (thirty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't see the point being made here. Those articles were surely nonsensical even at the time?

xxp you're not a critic until you set out the case law - why you think it's good or not. Until then you're just a bogstandard punter.

ooooh! well, you're on

What is Sicilian about Kate McGarrigle, though?

Per Wikipedia, she was born "in Montreal, Quebec to Irish pianist Francis McGarrigle and French Canadian mother Gabrielle Latrémouille".
So, not Sicilian at all.

Got me. That's just what wikipedia says.

Did Waronker and McGarrigle have children together? Is this some secret thing? I’m suspicious of your intel, Josh

lol, maybe there is more than one Remi Wolf? This one apparently was also a competitive downhill skier.

yeah apparently her real name is remi francis wolf, so idk where that last name would've come from

I see that biographical detail on this website (which lists her body type as “Medium fat”) – but it looks “sus,” as the kids say

That's just what wikipedia says.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, July 28, 2022 8:26 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the shit you posted wasn't even on wikipedia! christ

anyway, the real remi wolf is fun. she's got a song called "grumpy old man" that sounds like "brimful of asha" or "how bizarre," but with a "ramble on" bassline

xpost I know! It was just a weirdly generic but still specific entry. I found the other stuff when I googled her. And honestly the only reason I googled further was because she was from Palo Alto, usually a place of privilege, and a childhood competitive skier (ditto) and American Idol candidate. My first suspicion was that she was the child of tech people!

But yeah, I only stumbled on it when I was googling acts I'd never heard of. Frankly, I have a lot of trouble figuring out the Wainwright/Roche/McGarrigle family tree, anyway. I'm not even sure Lenny Waronker and Kate McGarrigle were ever a couple, come to think of it.

Meanwhile, Flea and the kids today

Girls and boys you might not believe this but there was a time when music journalists, when writing about youth culture music, wrote about the music.

— Flea (@flea333) July 28, 2022

The Grateful Dead formed in Palo Alto btw

Wish I could go back in time and buy a couple of houses then.

yeah come on the 2022 median home price in Palo Alto is $*dies*

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

― slide into my KMFDMs (morrisp)

did that.dog ever "make it"

how about charlie haden's kids, is it ok if they "make it" because he was a jazz bassist

fairly sure morris was being sarcastic