Indie Rock: What's Going On?

1. bonnie prince billy - i see a darkness
2. talking heads - sand in the vaseline
3. new pornographers - mass romantic
4. cat power - the covers record
5. various artists - city on a hill
6. r.e.m. - murmur
7. johnny cash - love, god, and murder (box set)
8. radiohead - kid a
9. widespread panic - another joyous occasion (live)
10. jane monheit - never never land

i want to go to ian's school. heh. and who buys r.e.m. albums online when you live in athens, fucking hermits? i walk two feet outside my door every day and there's r.e.m. getting shoved in my fucking face. jesus christ.

Not a pop title in the lot! Probably because there are so many huge record stores here. The UC Berkeley top ten is a bunch of stuff I haven't heard of and Fiona Apple. The number one DVD in Berkeley is Pierrot Le Fou, but almost the entire top ten for the UC Berkeley campus is anime. It's so predictably weird!

1. _All That You Can't Leave Behind_ - U2
2. _No Angel_ - Dido
3. _One_ - The Beatles
4. _O Brother, Where Art Thou?_ - Various
5. _Kid A_ - Radiohead
6. _White Ladder_ - David Gray
7. _Play_ - Moby
8. _Music_ - Madonna
9. _The Green World_ - Dar Williams
10. _Brand New Day_ - Sting

My alma mater is apparently too technologically ignorant to have an Amazon purchase circle. (The fact that there are 10 record stores I can think of off the top of my head within a 15 minute walk of Harvard Square might also have something to do with it. Also, if they're keying the purchas circles off of addresses somehow, the Harvard mail system seems to have been expressly designed to confound this type of data collection.)

But, then, if we slide down to New Haven, CT (home of Jenna Bush), we find the following:

• Tori Amos - To Venus & Back
• Radiohead - OK Computer
• Portishead - Dummy
• Cesaria Evora - Cafe Atlantico
• Leo Kottke - Six & Twelve String Guitar
• Dar Williams - The Green World
• Buena Vista Social Club
• Radiohead - Kid A
• Astor Piazzaolla & New Tango Q. - Tango Zero Hour
• Talib Kweli & Hi Tek - Reflection Eternal

Clearly, this is indicative of the listening habits of the well-off upper-middle-class element that haunts the halls of Yale. It's also indicative of folks not keeping up with the times - psst, Radiohead has a NEW album out, kids. So does Portishead.

The uniquely popular list is Dar Williams, the O Brother soundtrack, the Gladiator soundtrack, Emmylou Harris, Santana's Supernatural STILL, Enya, Paul Simon, and fucking Moby. The bestseller list is O Brother, Beatles 1, Enya, new U2, Dar Williams, Paul Simon, Santana, Emmylou Harris, fucking Moby, and Mark Knopfler. I think the similarity is significant. There's not much in the way of music stores around the school either.

For the U of Minnesota (it doesn't split it down by campus, so the other cities with campuses may fuck things up but probably not by much):

The uniquely popular list is Butch Thompson and Laura Sewell, the Blenders, Miles' Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel, Stacey Earle, Puccini's Turandot, Semisonic, Mississippi John Hurt, the O Brother soundtrack, the last Sleater-Kinney, and Bell. The bestseller list is O Brother, Beatles 1, Eva Cassidy, U2, Enya, Dido, Emmylou Harris, David Gray, Mark Knopfler, and Paul Simon.

If I look at the Minneapolis circles instead the uniquely popular list gets a bit more arty (?) and the other stays the same. Since a large number of UM students would list their addresses as being just in Mpls or somewhere close, and not the U of M, this may be significant. I wonder what one of the little liberal arts colleges around the Cities would have on its lists, but I'm getting bored.

-- "Hardcore" was used by early-'80s punks to set their culture apart from the first wave of UK punk and CBGB bands.

-- "New Wave" was used by bands or club owners who didn't like the stigma of "punk" or "hardcore."

-- "College rock" referred to college-radio staples like R.E.M. and the Smiths, bands that were neither New Wave nor hardcore.

-- "Emocore," later "emo," was a cathartic response to macho D.C. hardcore, created by Rites of Spring and other Washington hardcore bands in the mid-'80s.

-- "Indie rock" became a late-'90s term for bands on independent labels who wanted nothing to do with punk. "Indie" also denoted self-avowed punks (e.g. Beat Happening) who didn't care whether you thought they were punk or not. Now "indie" is associated with anything that sounds like these bands, regardless of whether they subscribe to the DIY ethos. It also refers to bands that play the club circuit established by non-corporate bands.

-- "Grunge" came into wider use in the mid-to-late '80s to describe any heavy, dirty band that wasn't metal. Then it became a media buzzword after "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

-- "Alternative" or "alt-rock" followed a similar route, but was originally rooted in the whole idea of alternative media and alternative culture.

-- "Hardcore" was "reclaimed" by late '80s punks to set their culture apart from "college rock," "emo," "indie," "grunge," and "alternative."

Also-rans: Underground, DIY, New Music, Love Rock, Post-Hardcore, Post-Punk, Underground Pop, Goth, Industrial, Speedmetal, Grindcore, etc.

Funny, but there isn't a genre named above that wasn't coined before the '90s.

(Answer: you already have)

(Reply: so why aren't I richer??)

Now for bestsellers here:

1.V/A "O Brother, Where Are Thou?" Soundtrack

2.THE BEATLES "1"

3.DIDO "No Angel"

4.U2 "All That You Can't Leave Behind"

5.DAVE MATTHEWS BAND "Everyday"

6.DAVID GRAY "White Ladder"

7.SADE "Lovers Rock"

8.EVA CASSIDY "Songbird"

9.ENYA "A Day Without Rain"

10.COLDPLAY "Parachutes"



All in all, pyook!

Exactly like SFA, Beck, Flaming Lips, Manitoba and lots of others have done.

Meh.

I agree with the second poster, in that 'rock' has been left out in the proverbial cold along with it's bastard child, 'punk.' I'm not sure if it's lack of heart, lack of talent, or lack of balls; but any manifestation of sincere agression in the independant scene has failed to be explored on account of who knows what exactly. Perhaps these retroized, ghettoized pansies got scared off and sold all their Nirvana discs when Korn commercialized RAGE(tm). Case in point - Radiohead. Like, can someone say "it's time to stop pussying out, Yorke, and pick up a guitar and fucking strike it!" Hail to the Thief, Kid A, and Insomniac had their moments, but could also double as anesthetic in the ER.

In other words, we'll get rock n' roll (and a REAL scene again) when pomp acts get their heads out of the clouds and back in the gutter.

What do people get out of this 'emo' music anyway?

It's pop music Backstreet bullshit for kids from big cities who want to think they're 'hip' but lack the essential imagination to abandon the music of their parents.

maybe you should ask on the rolling teenpop thread.

How about.... tunes? You know, actual ones, not just miminalist repetition?

I mean, I am no big fan of My Chemical Romance, but compared to hip-hop or R&B they are a huge leap in the right direction.

You tell 'em Geir! Ha. Thank god they do not cover songs by African-American artists like the Beatles did.

Lol

they were probably mixed up with Elliot Smith.

Tom's blog from the first post is still archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20001206155500/http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~tewing/2000_08_20_singlesa.html

Apparently the offending emo bands were Get Up Kids and Samiam.

what is indie rock's "What's Going On"

^"Float On"