Uncommon music criticized by the common man. (Or, exercises in futility masquerading as critical thought.)

Thursday, November 18, 2004

The Top 40 Bands in America Today (via Kottke.

Oh really?

Well, reading through the comments, it seems that taking shots at the list would be useless at this point. As one guy said, they "just asked questions and tallied the votes." It's just disappointing that the music bloggers that responded have such...dull tastes. Not that all of those bands on the list suck; a good number of them don't. But it was so predictable. Didn't indie kids get into the music (some of them, anyway) because they thought mainstream pop was too predictable?

I think this just encapsulates my frustration with indie rock in general, because none of the music takes any risks. More than any other style of music (nowadays, anyway), indie rock seems to be the most static. Even "disposable" music like glossy dance-pop or crunk tends to go somewhere. What does indie nation counter with? LCD Soundsystem? The Rapture? Pop (in the verse-chorus-verse sense) definitely has a most welcome place in the music landscape, but do you mean to tell me that Interpol and Sufjan Stevens is as good as indie nation can do? At the risk of sounding like a crotchety old indie nerd, but this shit would be an afterthought in the indie world just ten, fifteen years ago.

Beyond that: don't these people listen to anything else? Where's the metal? Where's the jazz? Where's the hip-hop? Are people who fancy themselves open-minded music listeners (and that is usually reason number one whenever more mainstream folk question them on their tastes in music) really that uninterested in things outside of indie rock? It's puzzling, for sure.

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Dang. I missed The Blues Explosion, but worse, I missed Lamb of God with Children of Bodom. The reason for missing them (friends in town) was totally worth it, but I still would have liked to make both.

I'm stuck in the middle of electronic week of my music library re-exploration. It's going slowly for a couple of reasons. First, I've been working late a lot and when I get home, I just veg out on the PS2. Now, if I'm playing ESPN NFL 2K5, the music is not a problem. However, if I'm playing GTA: San Andreas, as I have been the last couple of weeks, then it's a major problem, as I can't bring myself to listen to anything but the music in the game, which is pretty kickass.

Classical music week, which predated my immersion into GTA: SA, was grand. I really love all of the classical music I own, and want some more. I think Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique is my favorite, though Pathetique is right up there. Yeah, I have pretty obvious classical tastes. I never claimed to be anything but a novice when it comes to the genre.

I can say that electronic week has brought to the fore a few albums I really haven't paid much attention to: Towa Tei's Future Listening!, The Third Eye Foundation's Ghost, and Animals on Wheels Nuvol I Cadira. Quality, all, and I need more in my collection like it.

Also: the new album from The Electric Wizard destroys. "Saturn's Children" is one of my favorite songs this year.