Which artists legacies have improved/worsened during the 2010s?

I was 19 when SY split. circa like 2006 they were patron saints of not only indie rock but also noise/experimental music, huge gateway band with a lot of credibility that was still active AND giving a leg up to new bands like Black Dice, Magik Markers, Lightning Bolt, having Jim O'Rourke in the band for 5 years, they were revered & relevant to me and my friends, a model of how to have a band last 25+ years.

Totally not the case any more, and TONS of teenagers still listen to Pavement. every indie rock band that got big this decade cited Pavement as a major influence. Pavement's stock has gone up because they get new fans every generation, like a Nirvana and unlike The Who. I think the same would've been true of SY if their split was conventional, but because of the circumstances, the work is complicated.

TONS of teenagers still listen to Pavement

very gratifying to know, if true!

I would say that bands that unabashedly ape some retro style have gone up in status. That sort of thing would’ve been played for laughs in the ‘90s but lots of bands do it now in complete sincerity and are taken seriously. Sounding new and different in indie is less of a goal, unless sounding new is redefined to mean crate-digging some underexposed style to imitate.

Indie rock still has a huge, huge, slobbering presence in all online media except now all the bands have one girl in them

And all have names like POWER NAP and BUSINESS CASUAL

lol

Morning Meeting is opening for Work Retreat at the Echoplex this weekend.

yeah i'm not saying it's gone away completely, but we no longer live in a GAPDY world

The most-played Pavement song on Spotify is not what I would expect.

Moved that to the other thread

So Sonic Youth lost fans because of a messy divorce? I mean probably someone from every single one of your favourite bands went through a messy divorce, I don't get this idea of holding up artists to some borderline-spiritual standard of behaviour. If it's Ryan Adams or someone I can see it, otherwise...who cares?

declined: the vague not-really-a-genre-but-it-all-went-together of indie rock that your 2000s college dorm-mates who were into indie rock listened to: of montreal, the decemberists, regina spektor, feist, etc.

I would say that bands that unabashedly ape some retro style have gone up in status. That sort of thing would’ve been played for laughs in the ‘90s but lots of bands do it now in complete sincerity and are taken seriously. Sounding new and different in indie is less of a goal, unless sounding new is redefined to mean crate-digging some underexposed style to imitate.

― o. nate, Friday, July 12, 2019 1:50 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Being very sincerely passionate about something that was at one time considered "novelty" is a popular power move among hip people to get out in front.

Good!

(Xpost)

katherine otm

Wilco's stock has gone down as they inch closer and closer to Weezer style self-aware self-parody

Has it really gotten that bad for them?

they're flirting with disaster

Last I heard some of their recent albums were solid but unremarkable. Not exactly Raditude

the album titles, the festivals, the IPA's, they're in the same direction but Weezer went sicko mode last year

Their last two albums are the first I've liked. Whatever they're doing, it's working.

(Everyone has a beer now: https://pitchfork.com/news/parquet-courts-and-goose-island-announce-limited-edition-beer-for-pitchfork-music-festival-2019/)

I'm ecstatic.

She was never made fun of the way you describe but Beyoncé has definitely improved.

I was just thinking of her in this context. She's obviously been a star for a long time now, 20 years, but it's in the past few years (afaict) that she's been practically deified. I saw Donald Glover interviewed by Jimmy Kimmel, and 90% of the interview was "zomg, Beyonce, what was that like!?!" Didn't hear stuff like that when she was in "Austin Powers."

So Sonic Youth lost fans because of a messy divorce?

I'm still unsure what evidence there is for this tbh.

every indie rock band that got big this decade cited Pavement as a major influence.

And is this really the case? What indie bands got big this decade? Tame Impala, Big Thief, Father John Misty, Alvvays? Parquet Courts?

Black Keys?

Feel like Bon Iver and Sufjan worked hard this decade to get *small.* Though I guess that didn't work so well.

Yeah, it's just not obvious to me that there's a major Pavement influence over all those.

SY is not gaining as many young fans as they would've if Thurston + Kim were still a fairy tale couple. this is crucial to the question of the thread, whether a band's legacy has worsened this decade - SY's legacy has indisputably worsened since their split

Well Parquet Courts for sure but yeah the others not so much

Xp

So on what data are we basing conclusions here besides anecdotal?

If a band's not touring, and not putting out new records, I'm not sure what's left.

well we could look at sales by year, but that's tough to find

sonic youth has 1.15 million monthly listeners on spotify
pavement has 1.05 million monthly listeners on spotify

I’m not sure how many young indie fans really get excited about a fairytale couple in their 50s.

this isn't the New Jersey thread, the status of an artist's legacy and cultural cache is more than data

xp you'd be surprised! I was one and so were many of my friends... they were, erm, idols. Crucial to remember how revered they were as curators and as a gateway band... now everyone (rightly) views Thurston as a joke instead of a sage

Your awareness is not proof of anything regarding a culture wide shift, teenagers are not going to give a single shit about Kim and Thurston’s split but rather they’re just not going to give a shit about any noise rock indie band that hasn’t put out new music in many years regardless of the inside baseball about how it ended!

Thurston’s a dork but even if he was cool dad Thurston still no one would care

I’m not sure how many young indie fans really get excited about a fairytale couple in their 50s.

― Siegbran, Friday, July 12, 2019 2:49 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The SY fanbase should've instantly shifted over to Yo La Tengo if this was the case.

A lot of these examples are situations where the artist in question was young in the 2000s and just got old in the 2010s and their youth was a large part of their initial appeal, imo-- Devendra Banhart was once-exciting because he was 19-22 when he had that initial blush of fame. Fleet Foxes, Conor Oberst, a lot of that stuff was popular because the participants were young, and they're just not any more, so it's not as interesting or popular.

What is more interesting to me is seeing certain acts who are creeping toward 40 or are well past it and found greater success in the 2010s. Tegan And Sara were the first to spring to mind, and I realized that a lot of queer women (or queer catnip women, i.e. Tori) feel more popular now than they did in the 2000s, which is cool and nice. Conversely, I think gay men (Rufus, Patrick Wolf, The Magnetic Fields) have had a bear market.

Some dichtomies that I feel but can't prove: Peter Gabriel down, Phil Collins up. Joni Mitchell down, Buffy Sainte-Marie up. Robert Palmer down, Lionel Richie up.

In general too I feel like contemporary classical music, especially electroacoustic music, has had an immense uptick in popularity. Kranky-style ambient, too. I attribute the rise in popularity of those musics to be a response to music's disposability and inescapability and availability-- Stockhausen feels like a treat after hearing CRJ in every corner of every public place, Stars Of The Lid also, and now you can enjoy this "more obscure" music more easily so people tend to do so.

Joni Mitchell down, Buffy Sainte-Marie up.

Agree re: Buffy, but Joni's appeal/profile never seemed to lag throughout the '00s-'10s.

Robert Palmer down, Lionel Richie up.

While true, also a little unfair, as Palmer is no longer around.

Conversely, I think gay men (Rufus, Patrick Wolf, The Magnetic Fields) have had a bear market.

nice one

I'm a little baffled by the thought process involved in which an artist's aesthetic contributions, both in terms of their own output and in championing the works in others, is somehow entirely negated by their cheating on their spouse. infidelity and divorce are very common.

xp to Tarfumes, ya, at first I was gonna say "Human League". And it's not really true of Palmer, either, I think he's becoming kind of hipster, DJs play his deep cuts more often now and "Johnny And Mary" is in high rotation in my purview. (But not like "All Night Long" which I think I've heard every day for the last three years.)

Joni Mitchell down, Buffy Sainte-Marie up.

lol what

next you'll be telling me Charlie Pride is a hipster darling

Chris Brown. Way down from early 2009, slightly up from late 2009.

I'm a little baffled by the thought process involved in which an artist's aesthetic contributions, both in terms of their own output and in championing the works in others, is somehow entirely negated by their cheating on their spouse. infidelity and divorce are very common.

Kim Gordon is iconic though, and their relationship was central to that band's appeal, in my view.

A genre of music that hugely declined over the past 10 years and I'm sad about it, frankly, is not freak-folk specifically but the adjacent stuff that predated it (Current 93) and was alongside it (Six Organs Of Admittance, James Blackshaw). I'm sad about that! I was really upset when James Blackshaw effectively said "can't support myself with this anymore, bye"

In general too I feel like contemporary classical music, especially electroacoustic music, has had an immense uptick in popularity.

Can't say I've noticed this at all (quite the opposite, really), unless we're talking about the Boomkat school. Major classical labels are less likely than ever to release music by 'difficult' living composers. EA is a different matter entirely.

I think Current 93's stock is probably higher now than ever? Fairly high profile collaborators seem to be lining up to work with him at least.