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

the soft bulletin isn't too bad though - it's considerably better than deserter's songs for a start

clouds taste metallic is the one that holds up best

yes but "superhumans" is their best song

one of the strengths of both Embryonic and The Terror is that Wayne is probably the least obnoxiously goofy he's ever been on those

The Soft Bulletin is alright but has never really lived up to its gigantic reputation to me. skimming through it now there's some good moments and it's a little better than i remember but i still hate "A Spoonful Weighs a Ton" and "Waitin for a Superman"

I remember saying about the Soft Bulletin at the time “finally we have our own Pet Sounds” which was a very 1999 way of thinking. I still like it a lot, especially the second half’s pop meditations on death. I couldn’t get into Yoshimi though.

The Soft Bulletin was the beginning of the end for me. Then Yoshimi finished them off, I have listened to some of the stuff after that but just not really interested

some of the worst nauseatingly twee hippy shit I've ever heard

― calzino, Sunday, July 14, 2019 12:45 PM

I get people not being that fond of his vocals but he's not even within miles of worst tweeness of the era.

Both Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips are the perennial “oh well you obviously haven’t listened to [insert album here]” bands. Yes I have heard everything, Yerself Is Steam in particular I’ve made many attempts, I chalk up their popularity to there being no other good bands in Buffalo or OKC respectively, and people enjoying music that sounds like the way farts smell, or something else, but they are two completely unjustifiably popular 90s acts that I’m extremely happy to never speak of or listen to again and my day is already ruined by thinking of somebody telling me “oh well you obviously haven’t heard Boces”

mercury rev were two bands. the first one lasted two albums and was one of the best of its time, the other was mediocre at best and a pile of garbage at worst, and has existed ever since

The feeling of listening to “Race For The Prize” or “Carwash Hair” is doubly unpleasant because the music in bad to listen to, and you feel gaslit that these are considered to be masterpieces of the era. I would rather come down with a cold tbh

I’ve never been able to work up any enthusiasm for the Lips, and they’re not interesting enough for me to hate. I thought Soft Bulletin was a not-unpleasant experience, sort of like seeing that the bread you like at the grocery store is two-for-one this week. The earlier stuff doesn’t even rise to that level; it sounds like people getting together and thinking, “hey, it would be cool if we were a band,” and not putting in any further effort than that.

I was not really aware of Mercury Rev and Flaming Lips until the late 90s and even then not *that* aware, but a housemate in 2003/2004 was really into them, so I heard the entire catalogue at that point.

Mercury Rev have two or three good tracks per LP up until 2000s.

I like Clouds Taste Metallic, other FL albums are of less interest, cannot listen to Yoshimi with the exception of In The Morning Of The Magicians, which is great at least in the bits where he isn't singing.

Man, the Lips did make this one really amazing 45 minute long song that I listened to a lot and I can’t find any evidence of it because it seems they made far too much music in 2011 but Satomi sang on it iirc. Anyway.

I am surprised but not unhappy about the fact that despite so many Canadian indie bands’s caché kind of going poof in the past ten years, that Broken Social Scene continue to be very popular and loved and that is very fine with me

Has the critical/popular world finally realized that Mogwai/Godspeed You Black Emperor/Sigur Ros/et al was total crap?

Also--The Strokes are not "canonical" at this point, right?

fgti you might be thinking of the short version of 7 Skies H3, their 24 hour song. the short version is 50 minutes

Also--The Strokes are not "canonical" at this point, right?

They are for whatever SiriusXMU station made that list that we keep polling.

xp
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/sigur-ros-agaetis-byrjun/

This thread has made me think of some of the bands that people were really into when I was in college circa 2003-2008, and among the sounds I can say has gone down *significantly* in terms of cultural cache is Deerhoof. Do people still listen to Deerhoof? They still make albums!

I think the trend that's made me saddest is similar to the one expressed about Six Organs of Admittance, etc. There was a moment in the mid-2000's where groups like No-Neck Blues Band and Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice were getting a lot of love, and while I'd argue that Excepter influenced a generation of weirdos and that shit still slaps, there doesn't seem to be a lot of love for the former aleatoric/free/noise type thing despite the reassessment of the Dead and "jam" type shit that's happened in recent years. I can't stand the Dead or Phish or any of that, but still listen to some No-Neck sets and tapes etc. Perhaps it's because the fanbase was more firmly grounded in more occult and noise type scenes rather than the hippie festival circuit shit.

Also, I teach at a university and my students surprise me all the time re: their listening habits.

Speaking of which, I had a student last semester who wrote about going to see Death Grips open up for Ministry. He mentioned that the whole venue emptied out after Death Grips played, and I was super fucking bummed. (He also left quickly after Ministry started their set).

The Strokes, more like The Jokes amirite

Lol

I occasionally hear the Strokes at the gym, which is...weird.

Pitchfork championed a lot of those “weird” bands like No-Neck and Wolf Eyes and Sunburned Hand Of The Man in 2003 and then it was 2004 and apparently The Rapture is good

I remember there was a dog at the SHOTM show and I saw Wolf Eyes play Coachella to an audience of 20 people

Deerhoof are still popular and their albums still are great. Discussing the merits of their recent output is fun and nice

Also any invective I’ve had for Flaming Lips that I've expressed in conversation is usually met with a rebuttal that Wayne Coyne is a wonderful person irl

Interesting! Because to me, Deerhoof peaked in about 2005 and I can't imagine anyone being into their schtick today.

I put on a show for No-Neck in the fall of 2005 and it was pretty well-attended, they got very fucked up and played for an hour and about 75% of it was pretty mind-bending. Also P4t Mur4no told a fucking legendary joke that I still tell to this day.

I occasionally hear the Strokes at the gym, which is...weird.

It's kind of like that, yep.

I was about to say that I miss Jackie-O Motherfucker but I only have myself to blame. Their latest album came out last year – I just haven't been paying attention.

Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, and of Montreal have all released great work and played great shows this decade to dwindling attention. Seeing Deerhoof play to 50 people fucking sucks! They still rule...

xp had no idea JOM was still together

With a bit of luck Weyes Blood's success will improve their standing, no matter how microscopically.

I can't imagine anyone being into their schtick today.

― blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Sunday, July 14, 2019 4:42 PM

I'm not getting what is supposed to be so undesirable about the bands recently mentioned, in the context of recent years. Is it just a matter of getting tired of an approach, because there's always plenty of people who aren't familiar with this stuff that is still quite within their reach.
I missed out on so much of this music when it was big and I was reading about it a lot. Still have no idea what Wolf Eyes sound like beyond descriptions at the time, one of hundreds of bands I've been meaning to listen to for over a decade.

Through the 2000s there was a preference toward optimism and audience participation and joyousness that seems silly and indulgent in retrospect. Deerhoof don’t make songs like “Come See The Duck” any more

I don’t know if it feels silly/indulgent, exactly — I was no Lips fan, but those big inflatable ball / confetti shows at festivals were fun, and I don’t look back in shame for participating or anything.

Yeah re: Robert Adam Gilmour, as part of the generation that’s presumably going to be picking up the torch on the rep of the Lips etc. the vibe I’ve been getting is that their current incarnations are pretty corny but the “classic stuff”, if not necessarily The Pet Sounds Of Our Era or whatever the pitch was at the time, certainly isn’t deserving of ire

Kinda feel like that sort of antipathy requires a context for what being into music was like at the time which future generations just won’t have access to, eg the present bizarreness of that old Steely Dan pfork review which shot them down on the basis of “the punk rock ethos” etc

thanks to this thread for reminding me that Deerhoof still exist - I haven't listened to anything they've done since 2011! will rectify that asap

The drummer from Deerhoof just made an album with Anthony Braxton. I don't know anything about Deerhoof, but it's pretty good.

https://firehouse12records.com/album/quartet-new-haven-2014

Deerhoof still an incredible live band

Through the 2000s there was a preference toward optimism and audience participation and joyousness that seems silly and indulgent in retrospect. Deerhoof don’t make songs like “Come See The Duck” any more

― flamboyant goon tie included, Sunday, July 14, 2019 1:03 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I didn't want to say it but Dan Deacon has disappeared from most peoples' radar (although he hasn't put out a record since 2015).
The blind joy of Wham City days was optimistic, silly, and indulgent to an extent perhaps but a natural cathartic reaction to the grim dread of post-9/11 America imo

for anyone lost in the weeds wrt Deerhoof, check out their 2016 record The Magic. that's the best one they've put out in the '10s imo. Mountain Moves is great, too.

Deerhoof peaked in about 2005 and I can't imagine anyone being into their schtick today

their schtick is just being a really good band and staying good imo

xp had no idea JOM was still together

― flappy bird, Sunday, July 14, 2019 10:59 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i'm pretty sure it's just a revolving cast of musicians around tom greenwood for as long as he wants to make new material

I've never taken much stock in these explanations about the times.

"Flaming Lips were relevant because times were grim and we needed some optimism"
"Flaming Lips aren't relevant because times are grim and we don't need that optimism"

Maybe they are 3.17% too optimistic for our times?

I think it's more likely their own audience just dropped off for other various reasons. Embryonic was a bigger departure than a lot of their newer fans would go. I'm sure some at Warners would have thought it was commercial suicide.

Really annoyed me when a piece on King Crimson favored them over Yes because they thought KC were moving with the times in their attitude, while Yes were supposedly stuck in the past. Jon Anderson's hippieness is not a trend, it's essential to him!

I remember I went to see Tilly And The Wall by accident because I mixed them up with Windy & Carl (who I was meaning to get into). That kind of stuff might have become grating to a lot of us, but I don't think the effects will be terribly long term. That was music, film, comics and even standup comedy and I still ponder over why some of it seemed excessively affected and other things seemed okay.

another one who i can't imagine has the same near-Radiohead level respect and in-every-college-dorm-room market share as in the 00s: Beck.

Did u vote in the recent Beck poll

naw, felt like i didn't know enough of the indie albums or the post-Sea Change records. were a lot of the respondents college dorm residents?

btw, a good precedent/reference point for this thread: shifts in popular opinion you have noticed

The results were ... interesting. If i had to hazard a guess i would say dorm room recollections colored a lot of ballots. Tracks from the first few records predominate

also for an early 2000s reference point: what is the most unfashionable music to make right now?

Wow, “intelligent dance music” and “conscious hip hop” wow boy byeee

There’s lots of wildly famous rappers that make “conscious hip-hop” just no one uses that term anymore

i'm going to run that 00's poll i think

old thread otm about ska, not so otm about metal and grunge

i saw Deerhoof live several times and...was not very plussed. I do understand that they're all very talented musicians— i have a minor in music comp from the same place some of them went to school— but if you were to ask me which band that was big in '05 i'd really like to see again or check in on, they wouldn't even make the top 20. i clicked around some singles and videos, and it was pleasant enough but not too exciting. similar results with Oneida and Liars. oh well.

oh yeah, Liars completely tumbled this decade