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MORE THAN WORDS: MUSINGS ON MUSIC JOURNALISM
You Can't Always Get What You Want... Or Can You?
[17 November 2004]
column archive
by Devon Powers
It's hard to believe that 2004 is already coasting toward its close, indicating that it's once again time to assess the musical terrain. And if there's one resounding theme to sum up the state of indie rock music this year, it is this: music critics have finally earned the ear of the general public.
I know, I know: since the coming of the Strokes in 2001, critical darlings have been enjoying an unprecedented level of mainstream success. The massive followings of acts such as the White Stripes, the Shins, the Rapture, Interpol, and others bypassed even Radiohead in garnerating what truly seemed to be a general consensus of acceptability among radio, MTV, music publications, and fans writ large. In some ways, this year has seemingly only continued this trend -- Franz Ferdinand being the most obvious and also the most successful example.
But simultaneously, and less well noted, there has been a seismic shift in the musical terrain more generally. The bubblegum pop against which 2001 indie acts were cast as a refreshing counterpart has collapsed. In its place has arisen a hybrid where a plethora of artists, despite their sound, are borrowing from the same retro-punk terrain -- turning a wide range of sounds and styles into something which is equally important as a fashion statement. Moreover, what were once specialized music communities, existing either in regional spaces not easily joined (such as Austin, Athens, Champaign, Seattle) have become physically scattered but united online, and rapidly have come to serve as Petri dishes for listeners of all stripes and, especially, for journalists seeking to eliminate a few steps in their pursuit of the next innovative sound. No longer is it necessary for a pioneering type to scour the country, the club circuit, or even the record shop on the other side of town: she need only log on, download, and decide.
All together, this has resulted in what seemingly is music journalists who favor indie rock (which most closely has adopted the rhetoric of rock as it was inaugurated) finally getting what they want. They easily tap into segmented sound communities and broadcast their finds to readers who have finally come around to their way of thinking. Which seems, on the surface, a sure victory: after all, music criticism at its root purports a certain degree of Machiavellianism, driven by righteous security in the solvency of its own taste. And if the 14-year-old girls wearing Killers T-shirts are any indication, this worldview has taken hold. So much so that pop artists don the garb and mimic the sounds of indie rock in order to pull a fast one, at least momentarily.
But the irony is that a conflicting driving tenet of music criticism, and indie rock in general, has been to disparage that very 14-year-old girl fan. Coupling ageism and sexism into perjorative categories such as teenybopper and groupies, the notion that a band had a widespread young female following was almost enough to discount them carte blanche. So the question remains: should music critics applaud these supposedly undiscriminating fans for finally seeing the light, or is their excitement an indication that its time to move on to other pastures?
This leads to yet another conundrum. The world of independent music is in part fueled by an inversion of a (modified) old cliché: if a band plays in the forest and no one is there to hear them, that probably means that the sound they made is better than anything being played on mainstream radio. Does indie music -- by definition an alternative to the major and the mainstream -- enter a crisis when it becomes both major and mainstream? What happens when there is, as a vintage '90s compilation seemed to suggest, "no alternative?"
Of course, all this has happened before -- 1991 was a watershed year during which the cover was blown off a decade's worth of undercover music, suddenly sprouting college radio copycats and alternative music sections in record stores around the country. But the important difference is that mining the underground was still a relatively difficult task. The major labels have gotten only incrementally better at spotting trends and giving them exposure, but the mechanisms for exposure have changed drastically. Examples such as this year's The Arcade Fire and last year's Dizzeee Rascal showcase the increasing power of a chorus of blogs, websites, and e-mail lists catapulting acts from obscurity to stardom in moments.
While music journalism as an institution and the indie rock genre is in many ways better off losing its contrarianism and opening its arms to more listeners, 2004 marks a sea change during which the term "indie rock" should perhaps finally be put to rest. It's not just the blurring of the lines between independent and major labels, not just the appearance of certain acts on Clear Channel radio, not just the increasing popularity of artists and sounds which only a few years ago would have been widely deemed alien and crass. It is that, for a good band, it is increasingly difficult to remain obscure. Recording songs, in some ways, has become just another means of sending a press release, for once that music ends up on the Internet, it belongs to the world.
Don't get me wrong: an act like the Decemberists will never be Destiny's Child; my mother won't be buying Modest Mouse any time soon; and The Delays will never sell out Madison Square Garden. Degrees of magnitude, nations of taste cultures, and lopsided marketing budgets will continue to divide music along aesthetic and economic lines. But, aesthetically and ideologically, indie rock has surely adopted an economy of scale. What is dropping is not cost, but rather cred. To win the battle, in some ways, is for music journalism to shoot itself in the foot.
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