An unforgivingly autistic theory on where indie went wrong and why it's dying now

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>Lex Luger used triplets on the hi hat for first time
Stopped reading there

no one cares

Music doesn't have to be trendy or groundbreaking to be good, this is such a stupid standard. I'd rather have something tasteful and well-composed like Carrie and Lowell, which is the definition of bare-bones, than something weird for the sake of weird.
Conversely, where were you when Swans released one of the most universally-acclaimed trilogies in history, featuring a truly unique sound and unprecedented synthesis of multiple genres?
Third, who gives a shit about hip-hop and indie pop? Of course it's going to be derivative.

"Indie", "hip hop", etc. are not a group project that everyone who produces music you see as fitting under those terms is working on to push the genre forward or make it more popular. The only people who think about genres in this way are massive corporate label A&R and marketing people. You have been infected with their way of thinking because you listen to too much mainstream bullshit that's tied up in this stupid, marketing driven, delusion that there's some kind of competition between genres where all the bands in one genre are on a team working together for some nebulous goal. Some time in the future a band will release a fantastic album, that album will be labled "indie" by the music press for whatever reason, and you will then rejoice that "indie has been saved", when all that happened was someone made a good album, without ever thinking a single thought about "the state or (insert genre)" and how they need to push (insert genre) forward, and then a music journalist decided to call it indie.

what's "innovative" about good kid maad city? it's a great album but pretending it's any more innovative than lonerism or the suburbs is crazy. conscious hip hop with a narrative had been around forever.

Sounds like you haven't heard Clarence Clarity or the Brave Little Abacus

this dude's just an anco dick rider. sonic originality is great and all but you need more than that to make something good. there is a point to be made about all this guitar-based shit taking up the spotlight this decade though.

He clearly doesn't know his music terms, but he is right about most of that, Aphex did it wayyy earlier though. A lot of early hip hop had those hi hats only slightly slower. Baby got back for example
News flash; most young people want fresh sounds, not nu males strumming guitars while whispering

Simplest answer in the book: too many basslines stolen from better Post-Punk bands who came decades earlier.

And drum sounds stolen from the 60s-80s, as well as guitar sounds from the 60s-90s. Indie rock is just castrated rock with no original thought .

>aphex did it way earlier
I mean yeah... but so did the first person to ever play a high hat. The fact that using a simple, common rhythmic subdivision is somehow a "revolution" in hip hop shows you how truly retarded the culture surrounding that music is.

this

not even just media/record labels, almost everyone kind of subconsciously classifies music on their own. for example, whenever I tell people I make music, the very first question they ask is "what kind of music?" This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but like a lot of these "indie" artists, I don't have a super genre-focused style and outlook, I just kinda make music that I find good, so it's hard to give them a rough estimate. It's almost impossible to completely define a sound with one term, especially if it's used for many not similar musical styles. If I just say something is "rock", there's so many possibilities as to what it sounds like. It's not good to pigeon hole music into terms that broad

Not triplets bruh, super fast hi hats, like 64th notes, which is what the guy who said it meant

>shows how truly retarded the culture
Your ignorance is very obvious by the way. You're implying this guy speaks for hip hop culture in general. Triplets have been around in hip hop forever, as you said, it's a basic rhythmic subdivision.

No i'm not. Loads of people shit their pants over fancy hats in hip hop like it's a revolution, hence the "rattling, trap influenced, hi hats" meme. Of course there are hip hop producers and fans who are not absolute drooling retards, but a large portion of the culture is.

>Radiohead drops In Rainbows [...] incorporates tons of electronic elements to flesh-out rock foundation
You mean like they did on Hail to the Thief? And Amnesiac? And Kid A? They've been making electronic-influenced rock since 2000, don't act like they only started at In Rainbows.

It was a rehash of stuff like baby got back and other old hip hop records/bounce music that has those fast hi hats. It was the first time they were THAT fast in a pop song setting repeating, instead of IDM glitched out shit. So it was both a call back and building onto the old sound in a fresh way after years of more organic sounds in hip hop such as timbaland beats. You just want to call something retarded to feel superior. It must have been something special since every fucking producer in the world uses them now.

But trap hi-hats sound like shit, regardless of how "fresh" they were/are. Though I agree indie is going the wrong direction, music doesn't have to innovate to be good, and innovative music can just as easily be absolutely terrible.
And Centipede Hz was great, fuck you

the guy ignored MGMT, very anco influenced band that sliced through pop

i mean they blew it but still

You're a fucking retard and music is little more than an accessory to you. Basic-ass surface shit on pitchfork is not the only music being made, shut off your computer, stop being an edgelord faggot and go to a show.

we're talking about cultural relevance here

So am I.

Unironically agree with almost everything in the OP. Good thread, make this once a week.

Good read, got me thinking. I disagree with the whole "guitar music" being the setback of indie though. The rawness of acoustic instruments is if anything, adding to the sound

excuse me what the fuck did you just say about sufjan i will fuck your ass

Music is bad at the moment because pussy fantano wispy wafer-thin-souled soyboys keep pretending it's good because they parrot stock lines about "u just need to find the good stuff" because saying that music today is shit is like racism but against music

0/10

Indie is white music and now being white isn't cool so the kikes push nigger shit on everybody. Also Kendrick is awful and is the most overrated artist of the decade next to Kanye West.

>most young people want fresh sounds
KEK
Are you implying that people have good taste?

Every minute spent listening to Mac Demarco after listening to each album a couple of times and maybe Ode to Viceroy a few more is a minute horribly squandered

Fuck you, Congratulations is GOAT and Oracular Spectacular is top 40 shit.

He didn't say they blew, he said they blew it
I'm assuming in reference to the self-titled album

They blew it by hitting mainstream success and then releasing a 9/10? Sure their last album flopped but their track record is pretty good so far.

calling sufjan stevens a nu-male completely destroys any point you were trying to make