Hip Genres & Musical Styles: Which Is The Worst??

60's latin music with soul/r&b influences. a lot of the fania types were doing it before salsa hit big.

Ah ok I am going to check a comp.

"Classic Indie Rock (1980-2000???? argue w me here please)"

I think indie of the Siltbreeze probably has a place here. I would probably re-write it as the good stuff that would follow on the only tradition (classic Pere Ubu and The Fall, with drone stuff).

The UK equivalent would be Skullflower and 20 names I used to have at my fingertips. This is the stuff I listened to that was basically the road not taken. Instead we thought The Verve's Princess Diana anthems were psychedelic.

So: "Indie Rock from 1992-2000 (the road not taken)"

I guess shoegaze and post rock merit inclusion.

+ math rock!

Psychedelic/Acid Folk is hardly ever as good as you hope it's going to be but it's not the worst here. I don't know any Boogaloo.

I kinda wish Musique Concrete actually was beloved by critics & hipsters everywhere... or do I?

My wife and I have a running gag where we invent an indie band and an indie label and talk about them as if they exist, but I harbor a secret fear that we will accidentally name something that really does exist.

Oh, 8fux? Yeah they are great, I heard they were recently signed to the Algae label, after a brief flirtation with SpaceDrawer Records out of Seattle.

I recall that they had some members who were originally with SpleenGodz, but then SpleenGodz left Algae and signed with Faucet instead.

Most of their early stuff was Neo-Plywood but then they kinda moved on to be a little more TaintCore.

(I literally just made up almost all of those words, but I am preemptively apologizing just in case there are real Spleen / Algae fans out there.)

Add New Age and IDM /Ambient to the list and PC music I suppose. Though not being a hipster I guess they may look down at this stuff.

I laughed out loud at “japanese”

Not sure what Hard Bop is but sounds promising

Nathan, here you go. You're welcome.

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

Sorry nashwan

I love all of this music btw.

Industrial/Noise has the highest number of tedious provocateurs associated with it, although English Folk might be running it second for right-wing affiliations (maybe not the hipster end of it though). Ditto Classic Indie Rock (1980-2000) if that includes you-know-who.

Voted Psychedelic/Acid Folk in the end due to the existence of Devendra Banhart.

English Folk certainly does not have right wing affiliations in, er, England!

Yeah, English Folk revival basically started with a bunch of communist party members jamming in Soho beatnick cafes aiui.

i love all of these inc English Folk which i don't associate with the right wing (Shirley Collins, surely not), except for the dreaded Classic Indie Rock (1980-2000???? argue w me here please) which is my eternal musical room 101, so an easy vote here.

Not sure what Hard Bop is but sounds promising

― nashwan, Thursday, May 18, 2023 8:46 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Hard Bop is a subgenre of "Japanese"

https://i.discogs.com/SjrozDnbzxU2csabOXsAZy3D4UOEpSTimAaQhGC54NM/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:586/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTQxNTc4/NDUtMTU4NzgxNTIw/MS02ODk1LmpwZWc.jpeg

Throw in dub techno and deep house and you've just got a list of the best genres

Almost put deep house tbh.

Almost put deep house tbh.

Some 'true European music' types tried to latch onto trad folk as 'pure' music a while ago, is what I meant. Guess there's not that many of them though. Although given the age of most folk fans you can bet that a lot of them are entering the Daily Mail phase of their existences, old socialists ending up railing against wokery/immigrants etc! Admittedly this isn't really the Alasdair Roberts end of things you might find at Supersonic festival etc.

Pvt press has a high swing and miss ratio, a lot of it loses its luster once some of the mystery about a rare grail being discovered is removed. But obv there is some gold in there. Some of the reissue labels are pretty reliable when it comes to finding the good stuff.

That's the one I would probably vote for just on overall merit, everything else is classic and pretty unassailable imo.

it would really suck to be the kind of person who can't even enjoy sleepy john estes or barbecue bob without having a brain aneurysm thinking about eric clapton's presentation of masculinity

the band that opened for stereolab in brooklyn in october was like the end of 'unobtrusive music'. they were idk a smooth jazz/disco-funk wedding band, overly self-conscious with that mac tonight look. def one of the most nauseating things i've ever seen.

It looks like this was ILM favorite Fievel is Glaque? Attn: imago. :)

what are some examples of hip salsa music?

Maybe Willie Colon and '70s Fania reissues?

yeah country blues rules, it's just a beautiful genre xxxp

I don't really understand what this list represents. About half of these seem well represented through modern reissues more than current artists, or maybe that's my take since I'm more inclined to check out older exhumed recordings than a 20 something attempting to replicate those sonics.

is the garage referred to garage rock, UK garage or US disco garage?

Yea this is confusing. If it's referring to Burger Records bullshit or anything that resembles The Black Keys, then yea garage is definitely the worst thing here.

Gonna take a wild guess that "Classic Indie Rock (1980-2000????" will get the most reactions because it has probably confronted ilx people more often than the others, even though garage rock revival is an actual landfill of shit. Whereas "Classic indie" has a pretty broad range of textures compared to most of these -- a lot of it sucks and a lot of it is good.

what are some examples of hip salsa music?

I was also thinking this. Not on my radar at all.

I assumed Garage means Nuggets/Pebbles stuff. Unfortunately hipsters have heard this music over the decades and decided to make more of it themselves.

This list seems good as far as hipster record store categories, like Boomkat or Forced Exposure or whatever, but yeah it makes the most sense in terms of reissues for most of these genres.

(I voted noise btw)

smashing FP on enochroot's RRK diss

what are some examples of hip salsa music?

not entirely sure it's hip but there's lots of really raw Colombian Salsa that I love, with Fruko perhaps being the deity of it. This one totally rules.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K18qzUeVxh8

I don't really know a lot about Private Press Singer-Songwriters, but that sounds pretty bad to me

Ian is not selling it too well

the best garage rock revival was probably a lot of the Oblivians stuff and adjacent affiliate bands/solo projects, plus a lot of the music on SFTRI. maybe some of the stuff like A-Bones too.

the closer the garage bands got to sounding like Jet, the worse they were obv.

the band that opened for stereolab in brooklyn in october was like the end of 'unobtrusive music'. they were idk a smooth jazz/disco-funk wedding band, overly self-conscious with that mac tonight look. def one of the most nauseating things i've ever seen.

It looks like this was ILM favorite Fievel is Glaque? Attn: imago. :)

― Random Restaurateur (Jordan), Thursday, May 18, 2023 10:48 AM (fifteen minutes ago)

Yes, they're great! But seeing them opening for Stereolab was indeed an odd experience, a lot of moments where I wondered if it was meant to sound the way it did. Lots of aggressive turns away from tonality and incongruous skronky guitar solos amidst all the smoothness and scat singing.

Almost put deep house tbh.

― ian, Thursday, May 18, 2023 4:18 PM (forty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

techno is hipper now and clearly worse imo

kinda fake 'soulfulness' is so much better than kinda fake 'future visions'

That's a good example of hipster salsa, love it. Maybe similar to funk, soul, reggae, lots of other genres where the living contemporary version doesn't have the gritty '70s recording aesthetic and the hipsters are continually digging for more unheard versions from the past.

what are some examples of hip salsa music?

When Fania's catalog was reissued on CD in the mid-2000s it got a big press push and a lot of critics hopped on board (me included). Since then a bunch of labels have been unearthing great stuff from all over, including multiple compilations on the Soundway and Vampisoul labels, including the Fruko album posted above, which rules. It's as close as salsa ever got to punk rock. There's a whole lot of hipster-embraced Latin music, including Peruvian chicha and Colombian "Afrosound"; I wrote about some of this stuff last year.

I kinda don’t give a fuck about much new music so yes this list is mostly about old music smsnd my experiences with record collectors. Also half a joke re: the maligned genres thread and half trolling for challenging opinions.

Although given the age of most folk fans you can bet that a lot of them are entering the Daily Mail phase of their existences, old socialists ending up railing against wokery/immigrants etc!

Well, fans maybe, but in terms of actual musicians I think the Brit Folk ppl have mostly held the line admirably. Helps that unlike the boomer rockers few of them got rich off the stuff.

The hippest music is always old, imo. Anything that's happening in the present can always be dismissed as a flash in the pan, old stuff has the instant cred of having "survived".

lol not in dance music land

but it does have to mine some mostly forgotten micro trend from 1997 or something to be hip

as much as I love dance music from the 90s, I feel like the fetishization of the "classics" has been crowding out the future-forward mindset that helps keep things fresh

Sue Stewards book Salsa! Is a decent history I think. May have been outdone since it was released .
Apparently David Took did a mixtape of the genre for her which knocked her out and she took a deep dive into researching the music.
I'm not sure if the discography still sstands as the best starting points.seems compilations she recommended at the time have been overtaken by far more comprehensive sets and artists have much better loved sets listed on RYM but it is several decades since the book appeareed.

xxp you sound pretty defensive! are you sure you’re actually a psychedelic person, or are you really just an uptight square?!?

my most psychedelic track ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK3APtfqp5Q

I’m shocking news weed and LSD can enhance enjoyment of all music, not just hippie shit.

― ian, Tuesday, 30 May 2023 14:21 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Not all music. Pick the wrong tunes for your trip and you can end up jittery, spinning out or rolling on the floor hyperventilating with laughter.

xxp you sound pretty defensive! are you sure you’re actually a psychedelic person, or are you really just an uptight square?!?

― the late great, Tuesday, 30 May 2023 14:26 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Not defensive. Rambling on semi-incoherently = propah acidhead*

* who am I kidding? I haven't done acid for years /middle aged dad/

Not all music. Pick the wrong tunes for your trip and you can end up jittery, spinning out or rolling on the floor hyperventilating with laughter.

― Spandex, Tuesday, May 30, 2023 12:16 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sad but true. And it's rarely the albums you expect will give you a bad time. Music can be scarily unpredictable in these contexts

Spandyourmindex

xps I think i know what you mean about LP & Mary Ford, their recordings are full of ghosts. It's more paranormal activity music to me than psych and it's on the square side to modern ears. But i could see it as 'mom and dad unwittingly drank the acid-spiked tea'

Not a lot of instantly recognizable tracks but a bunch of amazing ones, especially the first, which has some incredible production from the fake "live audience" at the beginning on down.

this track is so good that it almost makes up for your awful takes on samba, tropicalia and AMM itt.

my most psychedelic track ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK3APtfqp5Q

― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR)

lmao WTF is this? this is about as psychedelic as the mf'ing BEACH BOYS!!!!

Imo something about it feels “hyperreal” (more real than reality) that gives it a psychedelic edge. Like it comes from somewhere else that is reality, but where we have been living just ain’t it. Also, there is some weird sound effect (maybe another guitar track) burbling underneath that reminds me of the electric jug in the 13th Floor Elevators.

Also, nothing is lamer than gatekeeping psychedelia.

fwiw all of my posts on psychedelia here are dry humor (maybe lame humor) but in general i agree, which is why i’m not posting seriously!

i do think “genre x does not appeal to me and here are my boring ass reasons why” is at least as lame and probably worse. at least if you’re gatekeeping it means you care about something. usually when ppl complain about entire genres being bad it just means they haven’t engaged with it (or in the right mindset, which is the kernel of truth behind my lame jokes)

also for whatever reason that “smoke rings” track reminds me a lot of beach boys’ “wind chimes”, which i consider to be their peak psychedelic moment, possibly because it reminds me of “at the watering hole” by louis and bebe barron, for the forbidden planet soundtrack (one of the all time great psychedelic films)

Not at all directed at PBKR but a lot of “gatekeepers” are just fans who don’t like noobs barging in “teaching” them things they already know and calling Oasis “Shoegaze” or whatever.

Surprised (or not I guess) that I'm not seeing Deconstructed Club, or any rap/hip hop like Cloud Rap, Mumble Rap, Backpack/Conscious Hip Hop, etc on the list

Guess they're not hip enough

lmao WTF is this? this is about as psychedelic as the mf'ing BEACH BOYS!!!!

― the late great

hahaha that's pretty funny because hendrix put down both "how high the moon" as being old hat and "heroes and villains" as being "psychedelic barbershop".

personally i think both are fucking great! but hendrix is good too. he was into roland kirk, who may or may not be psychedelic but who is fucking good!

the mary ford song reminds me of kay weaver's song-poem "junkies and monkeys" which is a fucking great song about getting high

a lot of those song-poems you know they're just phoning it in but the impression i get is that everybody involved in the recording of that song really did enjoy getting high

Song sounds hyppereal in the kind of way where you'd have to invent some kind of wacky new space-age technology like multitrack recording to achieve

Surprised (or not I guess) that I'm not seeing Deconstructed Club, or any rap/hip hop like Cloud Rap, Mumble Rap, Backpack/Conscious Hip Hop, etc on the list

I think this is the vinyl record collector/Discogs hipster poll, someone should do a digital era version. Should City Pop have been on this one though?

yeah i like a decent amount of rap but i barely listen to anything after the 70s much less 2010.

^^ only listens to disco rap

hahaha that's pretty funny because hendrix put down both "how high the moon" as being old hat

see, he just wasn't engaging with it in the right mindset. the operative word there is "high"

the mary ford song reminds me of kay weaver's song-poem "junkies and monkeys" which is a fucking great song about getting high

a lot of those song-poems you know they're just phoning it in but the impression i get is that everybody involved in the recording of that song really did enjoy getting high

always a little sad someone to see someone who's really talented but never really made it because they were also really fucked up, mind you. i relate to that kind of thing probably more than i should.

ian - are there private press singer/songwriter records of people singing to their cats?

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