According to Facebook, this status update is "performing better than 95% of other posts" on the CoolDad Music Facebook page:
Now, the bar isn't insanely high; but it would appear that there are some other people out there thinking about the same stuff I've been thinking about for a while.
For me, some of that sentiment is due, in part, to a simple change in my personal taste. I used to be perfectly happy to sit back, relax and listen to some non-threatening Vampire Weekend, Real Estate, or Beach House. Those are some excellent bands with some excellent (and much-loved by me) songs and albums to their credit. Something in me has changed recently, though. I've just found that, lately, I need something with a little less polish, a little less college campus, a little less "we used to ride our bikes around the Jersey 'burbs."
There's something else, though. Indie rock is changing.
It's a bit of a relief to find out that it isn't all just marketing and hype that's rubbing me the wrong way. After all, I've really been enjoying Perfect Pussy lately even with all of the Brooklyn Vegan / Pitchfork love being showered upon them. I'll stand by that no matter how many basses the band decide to throw off of bridges. That means I'm not a totally contrarian idiot, right? I still like what I like. It's just that -- and this is what I think some of the people who saw that status were feeling -- I can't listen to "indie" radio or (usually) read reviews in big time "indie" music publications to find it anymore. All those big outlets are pushing this mashed up, unified theory of pop in which Haim are considered indie rock.
And I think "big indie" is playing right along, making music that could show up on the Indie station just as easily as the Alt Rock station, the Top 40 station, the Adult Contemporary station, or a car commercial on national TV. More power to 'em, I guess. But it results in kind of this lowest common denominator quality that I'm finding less and less appealing.
I happen to be on a bit of a noise kick lately. That's just me. That's where I happen to be finding that thing, that edge that speaks to me. Noise, anger, and aggression aren't everybody's thing, though. That's fine, and I don't think that "indie rock" even has to be "rock" necessarily. It should, though, take some risks and challenge people in some way. Otherwise it's just the background music you hear in the supermarket.
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