Maligned Genres aka "I like everything except..."

From Athlete to The Zutons, t'were a green, unpleasant landfill.

I just finished reading this. I don't know 99% of the bands listed, so fire away.

https://www.nme.com/features/landfill-indie-snobbery-2741199

Imo Athlete aren't really what gets called landfill. Landfill refers more to Strokes/Libertines/Franz-reared groups like the Fratellis, View, Enemy, Pigeon Detectives, Automatic, as well as unremarkable but more tuneful bands like the Zutons.

Athlete belong more in the category of post-Radiohead/Travis/Coldplay pop. Arguably just as bad. But I'm probably likely to be more charitable to it (Athlete, for instance, quite a nice first album!)

lmao at electro-swing, I am very glad I managed to miss this nonsense when it happened (I do like Mr. Scruff though)

I saw a world premiere opera last week where one of my friends played an Asian-American single woman kicked out of her home by her parents after becoming pregnant who died in childbirth during the first act, gets stuck in purgatory, then meets the spirit of her daughter, who attempted to kill herself to escape the overbearing environment the grandparents/parents were raising the daughter in, it was pretty rad and the cast of four sounded incredible

Looking through the vice landfill indie list, I will rep for The Mystery Jets and The Rakes, don't feel they are that typical of the sound though.

Doop is fucking shite, people.

Operatic singing - particularly soprano singing with a ton of vibrato and melisma - is definitely a taste that one either has or doesn't.

Bluegrass also - the classic high lonesome nasal male Bluegrass vocal is just not something I want in my buds most of the time, but the same song done by e.g. Allison Krauss is great.

De gustibus and all that

Imo Athlete aren't really what gets called landfill. Landfill refers more to Strokes/Libertines/Franz-reared groups like the Fratellis, View, Enemy, Pigeon Detectives, Automatic, as well as unremarkable but more tuneful bands like the Zutons.

Athlete belong more in the category of post-Radiohead/Travis/Coldplay pop.

it's all basically britpop tbh

although it just occurred to me that the post-radiohead stuff is the british equivalent of corporate rock like creed and matchbox 20 in america

God knows I'm no fan of Britpop but landfill was much worse, there was far far more of it for a start.

In Liverpool the cartoon psychedelia of The Coral and The Zutons turned the Mersey neon and in London The Libertines, Bloc Party, The Rakes, Razorlight, The Mystery Jets, The Others and their various ramshackle micro-scene coteries were injecting the veins of the city – its squats, tube carriages and Whitechapel whiskey pits – with untested, effervescent serums. From Cardiff to Dundee, Sunderland to Skegness, Wakefield to Hackney Wick, Britain thrummed.

KInd f always want to get some origianlity i a band I'm listening to . Even if its finding an idiosyncratic way of working through some familiar or semi familiar elements. As long as teh message delivered is original and not gratuitously something it doesn't feel authentic to itself in . Or whatever.
& hearing the early development of things that later become cliches still has some value. AS long as its coherent or has teh energy to hang together in an interesting way.

So landfill indie bleurgh and if it finds itself it probably avoids being landfill doesn't it. Turns into pop or something with a degree of originality. Not so hot on the former unless its especially good.

Country is great up until a certain point and still has some elements taht work when again its not turning into a nominally country flavoured pop pap.

forgetting what teh choices were. Do like the swing bit of Electro Swing but it does get a bit cliched rapidly. Opera depends on teh composer and probably performer.
Free jazz like rocks and i need to read teh book on the loft scene i meant to buy last month.

Not sure what entire genre I'd absolutely count out. THink there is some stuff. I'm not big on metal, do like hard rock from the turn of the 70s and some of the later stuff once hardcore reinjected it with energy etc . Not big on nu-metal but I think there were some interesting influences it grew out of.

Do have pretty broad tastes and can find some good in a lot of areas I'm not overly familiar with. But may run into things i seriously don't like if i do look into them. & don't have all the time in the world so probably ok with what I have though I'm still discovering things even now etc etc

we of course had a classic moment of landfill revival just a few days ago

Lead Singer From The View Attacks His Bassist During Concert Performance pic.twitter.com/gF9J6RwGFw

— Everyone Is Going To Hell (@Every1Goin2Hell) May 13, 2023

"Opera" and "Country Western" as these monolithic blocks is weird cuz they're both pretty big umbreallas. whereas each of the others is pretty specific.

― ian, Wednesday, May 17, 2023 7:47 AM (one hour ago)

otm ...

half of these things are "genres" I'm only vaguely familiar with, and a few others I honestly have no idea what they are? Let alone any idea they were specifically "maligned"

There are no genres or artists only songs

many people are saying there are mixes but this is trickery

What about music that isn't a "song" ... it would be awkward in some cases to refer to them as "tracks" because their existence predates the recording concept of a "track"

kinda think psy-trance isn't so bad maybe but maybe i've not heard enough.

I'd definitely be interested in a primer in 20th-21st century opera. I recall Kyle Gann, I think, saying that the reason there were so many Robert Ashley-soundalike pieces in the late '70s and '80s (of which I probably know only a couple) is that people thought he'd invented a whole new way of doing opera that they then wanted to explore as a genre - I assume other people were inventing whole new ways of doing opera too, though I know only snippets of that history.

I mean, "opera" is less a genre and more a medium? Like, opera is basically theater where everything is "sung" ... and there are a lot of different types of theater.

a song and a track is the same thing flutes and drums can sing just as well as doris day

psy trance is totally fine

Also, Pavarotti rules

“a drum stick and a light fixture” xp

I mean, electro swing of course, but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGH_16SICL0

...is this the founding document?

Polka skeptics, I direct you here

https://www.mixcloud.com/iannagoski/stanky-and-his-pennsylvania-coalminers-a-mixtape/

Handel's Messiah is a good song

God knows I'm no fan of Britpop but landfill was much worse, there was far far more of it for a start.

― Maggot Bairn (Tom D.),

lol "it's all britpop" was a joke re: 'it's all EDM'.

ALTHOUGH >:)
many britpop bands had more personality, but not all of them and landfill bands like the Feeling show a clear lineage from britpop...

The "opera" question is the difference between "this isn't my thing" and "this is on some level pop and, by all reason, should be everyone's thing, and I absolutely hate it."

just occurred to me... y no nu-rave? These days rym use that on anything dancey+indie from that period, not just the 'core' groups.

(To tie several disparate threads together, Peek-a-Boo certainly led to one thing - Bloc Party's Mercury).

In my view it's wrong to say that opera is a monolith, but it's equally wrong to say that there aren't broadly dominant styles of composition and instrumentation and vocal technique in what most Westen people think of as "opera."

In my view, it is perfectly okay to say that "Carmen" is an opera qua opera and "Hamilton" isn't.

Also perfectly okay to say that the style of singing you hear in most opera houses in America and in Western Europe is probably going to be closer to Maria Callas or Luciano Pavarotti than, say, Jay-Z or Weird Al.

The existence of outliers doesn't negate the existence of useful broad categories.

There’s also opera vs operetta to consider, and how to distinguish operetta from musicals

Also, depending on who you talk to, one could argue Hamilton isn’t a opera specifically because tapping isn’t singing, but all of the Andrew Lloyd Webber shows ARE operas because all of the dialogue is sung

DJP otm

lmao I meant “rapping”, don’t know if that was autocorrect or fat finger

At least it wasn't "fapping."

Interesting that a lot of what later became folk and blues seems to actually be traceable back to music written for the music hall. But popularised in the public milieu, like. So is taht far from operetta. Interesting how music develops but not really into it in its original form for prolonged listyening.
Is that true of pop music now, or is teh fact that it has more closely recorded roots going to mean it never gets thought to be a folk music. Just thinking that what makes a folk music is its continued circulation among folk rather than its actual source creation. Though do hope people aren't still singing Oasis in 50 years time .

more proto-electro-swing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PyqELFQslE

Love that track.

early Yello also pioneered electro-polka, but the world hasn't caught up with that one yet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDRnf4_dMB8

A bit funny that the poll option is 'Indie Landfill' not just Indie. Like there are fans of a specific strain due to its Landfillability.

this did actually happen. when i was in high school in the late 00s i knew people who loved the wombats & the kooks etc. but nothing hipper

There’s also opera vs operetta to consider, and how to distinguish operetta from musicals

Also, depending on who you talk to, one could argue Hamilton isn’t a opera specifically because tapping isn’t singing, but all of the Andrew Lloyd Webber shows ARE operas because all of the dialogue is sung

'landfill indie' is an extremely UK term that only people who spend lots of time on ILM understand, IMO

I mentally put a lot of post-Strokes Kings of Leon/Arcade Fire/Vampire Weekend/Killers type of bands in the landfill indie category ('bands who might have gotten a placement on a FIFA soundtrack'). The American version (in my head) is bad enough, scrolling through the band/song names and video thumbnails the UK version looks like it should be a runaway winner here.

It's not an extremely UK term it's an exclusively UK term.

I’ve definitely heard the term Landfill R&B

name names

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_rock#Landfill_indie

It's currently the most recent historical period of indie-rock to have its own sub-section on the Wikipedia page

only people who spend lots of time on ILM understand, IMO

i think it's fairly well know in the UK way beyond ILM people.

Someonè I used to know used to call the bands she was going to see Indie schmindie which I assume covers the same type. Continual 2nd on the bill NEVER destined to rise above the morass because non descript. Lacking the vital spark of originality that would lift them to the next level. Playing out of habit. Possibly a good thing to drink to.

But then I'm reminded that Galway used to only let cover bands play in a lot of pubs or that is a lot of pubs in Galway would only let cover bands play.because originality distracted from drinking.

Would hope that one played in a band trying to find something like how to write a good song and express oneself not just to create audio wallpaper and continually rewrite to formula etc.