Do we have a PAZZ AND JOB 2009 thread yet?

why the fuck would i ever care what my co-workers thought of my music, is the larger question i have for you

I will admit to caring a tiny bit about what my coworkers thought of my music after sharing my iTunes library when I realized that I had a copy of Mocky's "Fuck All Night" in there. Basically I like avoiding HR.

that's kind of a different situation though--i mean, who really cares what is on your ipod? shouldn't we just like stuff and not worry about what other people think?

This is what you should do, yes, but when you start tying self-esteem to things you end up in very odd places.

Like, for example, Animal Collective shows

Just to bring up a point I made earlier, I've been looking at the percentage of voters who voted for the #1 and #2 albums since 1990 -- there's a clear trend downwards in the 00's, most notably since 2005. That's also when Xgau mentioned the close finish between Kanye and MIA in his essay -- this was the first time in 20 years that the % of voters voting for the #1 album was less than 30% (possible exception was 1999 but I don't have a reliable number for how many voters participated that year).

Anyway, I think my theory that what's happening to P&J is not dissimilar to what's happening to the pop charts may be somewhat to blame for some of the conversation here -- the fact is that fewer people agreed on the top albums in the past five years than at any time in the past 20 years (I haven't gone further back than that). On average, nearly 39% of voters voted for the #1 album in the 90's, compared to 24% in the past 5 years. Likewise, the difference in percentage points between people who voted for the #1 and #2 album was 11 in the 90's and about 3 in the past five years. This means that the trend is away from consensus albums and a move toward the kind of mad rush that better characterized the remainder of the Top Ten than the top two (sometimes three) slots through the 90's.

It suggests to me (as do the charts) that putting a #1 in front of something doesn't really mean what it used to. Not a direct swipe at Vampire Weekend, mind.

does anyone have any sort of general idea how many people actually consume music criticism regularly? like, how many people actually click through and read the P&J essays or Stylus Decade essays or anything any of us here would consider well-written, generally high-quality music criticism? i have a distorted perception of the whole thing since the only people i regularly discuss music with on any sort of a serious level post here.

And I mean, it's not like there aren't drooling, barely literate indie rock fans either -- ever take a look at Stereogum?

Fixed.

haha

massive lols

consensus is definitely weaker than it used to be, but I don't think that in itself is necessarily a bad (or good) thing -- there's way more records now, so it's probably healthy that there's a longer tail in these polls now, and a more even slope when you break down the statistics

The "drooling, barely literate indie-rock fan" is totally a 00s discovery for me. Not like indie types in my formative years weren't sometimes elitist, chauvinistic, or reactionary, but usually they were congratulating themselves for being geeks or liking something obscure or weird. It's still new and fascinating to me to see people who just want stuff to sound like Band of Horses and find other music to be weird, pretentious, trying-too-hard, or whatever. (I guess maybe if I were slightly older I'd have met more 80s/90s rock traditionalists who were like that?)

To be fair, there were probably some indie dudes you/me/any of us knew in high school or whenever that were sensitive geeky souls in person, but if you put them in front of a computer and gave them a comments box to go nuts in, they'd say some pretty dumb shit.

Btw, I don't think this perception of indie as "educated" music is a healthy thing. It may be too late for indie to shake off the "educated" music pigeonhole, but probably the best thing for the continued vitality of the genre would be for it to go back to being slightly dangerous and disreputable again.

ha nabisco, as someone who was an ardent industrial/EBM fan in high school, I absolutely encountered indie guys who found some music too weird to listen to

Yeah, the more I think about it, my view's totally skewed: I'm sure there were plenty of trad-rock reactionaries in the 80s praising the Replacements or something in exactly the way we're talking about. I'm probably biased by growing up in small-ass places where anyone who liked anything remotely irregular was really conscious of it as a weird choice.

there have always been people who wanted a more modern version of classic rock to embrace. u2/rem/replacements/etc. something a little different, but not too different.

xposts, yeah I'm not really making much of a judgment one way or another. In fact, if it takes a smaller percentage of the voters to put something to the top, then simply finding more critics in a particular taste cluster [there should be a candy bar called "taste clusters"] will increase the chances of raising a given genre or non-indie fave up the charts more so than in the 90's/early 00's -- this might be what's happening with metal on the charts, maybe the only other clear "cluster" slightly out of sync with the P4K overlap.

One thing I can't seem to find are the stats on how many albums total have been mentioned in this time period. I'd bet that this number increases at about the same time that # of voters voting for a given #1 album decreases but I can't find the numbers beyond the past few years.

well, Indie is, to be reductive, socially less about being an individual and more about fitting in than it was when we were young nabisco. I don't know that there is anything more sinister to it than "the internet exists" and all the attendant effects that had, but as we've said before I find a lot of truth your original thought. (at the same time, things that are weird and leftfield can gain a larger audience and don't seem as weird as they once would have)

xpot: Seward is right. A lot of the popular indie stuff is, like I said earlier, just a 2009 version of what used to be mainstream rock. The idea that critics like straightforward guitar rock with roots in classic rock or new wave is the norm; it's not new. That stuff just exists now outside of radio/tv-- there are few markets in old-school media circles for guitar music made by and for 20 and 30somethings-- so it's all lumnped under the meaningless big tent of "indie."

Hasn't "indie" just be defined by what it's not for the last five years? By audience rather than by genre, distribution, or label.

this is why i support genuinely misanthropic bands like Clockcleaner because we need bands to break up this cuddle party

remember when underground bands had unrepentant assholes in them?

YES

I think an interesting thing about "indie" now vs. in the '90s or esp. '80s is how well-behaved it is. I mean look at the indie champions of '09 - they tend to be carefully constructed, technically accomplished, pretty melodic, and eager to please. This is a far cry from the former dominant forms of indie such as lo-fi, grunge, post-hardcore, noise, etc. This is not ironic, angry, shock-the-squares indie. This is indie your parents could appreciate (at least the effort, skill and sincerity that went into it, even if they still might think it sounds weird). Is this the death of irony, a generational sea change? It may help to explain its ability to crossover.

i have to say, if i had to choose between old pazz & jop's john hiatt or steve earle love and new pitchfork/blog/whatever pazz & jop's vampire love, i'll take the vampires. (i probably have the same problems with the new fogeys that i did with the old ones. but its more probable that the new ones would turn me on to something i might enjoy. maybe.)

remember when underground bands had unrepentant assholes in them?

yeah, I still miss the original lineup of Parts & Labor too ;)

now it's like bands are all appreciative I'm at their show, like they want some sort of approval instead of narcissism and monetary gain alone

what's wrong w/ cuddle parties guys :(
http://ilcomunicatore.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/cuddle-party.jpg

i loved that last clockcleaner album. are they gonna put out a new one?

we need bands to break up this cuddle party

kinda happening: I don't think it's a coincidence that noise and some of the todd p punk has found inroads in the face of your sufjan/oberst/gibbard/murdoch types and/or the "indie hivemind" that the internet creates

some of the noise dudes are even nicer than the indie ones!

ha, well, I don't mean the noise guys are assholes! Just that the music isn't as cozy and cuddly as so much of this decade's indie.

might be what's happening with metal on the charts, maybe the only other clear "cluster" slightly out of sync with the P4K overlap

Yeah, but talk about a voting bloc which probably has no use for singles...

Indie is, to be reductive, socially less about being an individual and more about fitting in than it was when we were young

Indie has been about this for over a quarter century, as far as I can tell. (Actually, Frank Kogan wrote a lot in Why Music Sucks about indie/fanzine culture being a "lonely hearts club" in the mid '80s. So it's nothing new, at all.)

oh def, the internet has assuredly helped noize, but i'm just saying i wish there was some total jerks to break up this attitude of "I listen to indie rock because i'm enlightened and smart"

Actually, I think part of why we perceive critics as always loving "indie" is that our definition of the word itself has drifted closer and closer to just being "critically acclaimed" or "what critics / music geeks like" -- it's become a tautology. (It's sort of like when people say Pitchfork only covers music that's "indie-approved," but their definition of what's "indie-approved" is strongly influenced by what Pitchfork covers.)

I just posed this question somewhere else, but if I made a playlist somewhere that was, like ... LCD Soundsystem, Madlib, Solange Knowles, Santigold, Basement Jaxx, M.I.A., Annie, Gnarls Barkley, Janelle Monae, Brazilian Girls, Erykah Badu, Lupe Fiasco, Dizzee Rascal, Passion Pit, Chromeo, Of Montreal ... you know, what would you call this? "The sorts of acts critics like?" Indie-leaning or indie-approved? "Blog favorites?" A cross-section of similar sensibilities from a few different genres? I don't think there's a consensus answer to that question, which makes it hard to pick apart critical tastes from "indie" tastes from "blog/internet" tastes from genre distinctions . . .

(xpost - quick summary of something I've said before: I think the growing tension between "smart and serene" accessible indie-rock and the desire for weirder, rougher-around-the-edges stuff within that audience will hopefully make for some really interesting developments soon)

like our generation doesn't really have Gibby/Yow/Albini figures, our "noisy" bands are all meta-indie and play their muck-rock with the same nice guy zeal as Conor Bloberst

yeah I remember when the guy from the Black Lips threatened to beat up the fag from Wavves as a real breath of fresh air, had been waiting years for someone to act like that big of a dick

what would you call this?

music?

Actually, Frank Kogan wrote a lot in Why Music Sucks about indie/fanzine culture being a "lonely hearts club" in the mid '80s. So it's nothing new, at all.

we were saying now it feels less like a sanctuary for otherwise psuedo-outsiders than it is a "fashionable" place to be in the first place. It's less ally sheedy and anthony michael hall and more molly ringwald and emilio estevez. and whiney wants more judd nelson.

I just posed this question somewhere else, but if I made a playlist somewhere that was, like ... LCD Soundsystem, Madlib, Solange Knowles, Santigold, Basement Jaxx, M.I.A., Annie, Gnarls Barkley, Janelle Monae, Brazilian Girls, Erykah Badu, Lupe Fiasco, Dizzee Rascal, Passion Pit, Chromeo, Of Montreal ... you know, what would you call this?

"ILM playlist"

some dude, i mean, for real, if he didn't gay-bash him, i would totally get behind someone smacking wavves, tbh

OK, so politically correct thuggery.

next time i'm in a band we'll have to arrange a bar fight and send out a press release about it

waka flocka was just shot, perhaps thats more up whiney's alley?

that one guy in crime mob raped a 12 year old girl

guys, whiney is looking for jerks, not criminals

there's always Kanye

"oh def, the internet has assuredly helped noize, but i'm just saying i wish there was some total jerks to break up this attitude of "I listen to indie rock because i'm enlightened and smart"

i've always felt like this is why indie types have been flocking to metal so much over the last few years. they're sick of the button down sweater brian wilson cuddlefests. which is what indie rock has been handing them for the last 15 years.

patrick wolf threw a stool (or whatever?) at his drummer & is a notorious dick - but i think because he's gay ppl call him a diva

i dunno, look at the last couple years of rolling non-indie punk threads, there's tons of cool shit that's not softserve going on. it just only exists in like the world of super small pressings, etc