Why New Music Always Sucks
It occurred to me while listening to Veckatimist by Grizzly Bear for the third or fourth time. As the songs played, I was finding myself perversely satisfied when I could pin down for myself a reason not to like it (and not to try listening to it again), whereas I had a vague feeling of dread if I found myself reserving judgment, extending the benefit of the doubt. I realized I can’t really hear it for what it is; I want it to suck too much.
Rather than hoping new music I hear about—particular from hype vectors online—will be good, I almost always want this music to suck, preferably in spectacular, self-evident fashion. But why? Why do I have this entirely counterproductive attitude? Is it because I am “curmudgeonly”? Is it because I have too much amour propre to endorse what’s trendy, even to myself in my private listening moments? (Maybe it’s no longer possible to believe in private moments in the era of real-time networking.) Am I just old and bitter about how everything was better when I was younger? All that may be.
Mostly, though, I have this pressing sense that to like something new will increase my already unmanageable cultural consumption burden. And that burden seems partly the result of technological developments that puts all this consumable culture a few clicks away on my computer, and partly the result of behavioral changes—e.g., a burgeoning tendency to hoard—that have come along with all that accessibility. If I end up appreciating Veckatimist, then I’ll inevitably have to seek out all the band’s other albums, and not only that, I’ll feel obliged to investigate all the bands who are ever compared to or lumped in with Grizzly Bear. And I’ll need to be predisposed to like those bands to a certain degree, and then the responsibility of fandom would just continue to ripple out from there. Soon everything becomes diluted, the passion for listening gets spread too thin as it strains to embrace everything.
It seems easier to be skeptical and wait to see if people still seem to care about the music six or seven years later. Or if they don’t, I can “rediscover” it and champion it to myself against the heedless indifference of the masses and the cognoscenti. (Currently on my personal hit parade is one such “rediscovery”: Fleetwood Mac’s Mirage.) I’m content to live in a time lag rather than chase the zeitgeist.
I suppose an alternative is to be more radically married to the cultural moment, collect nothing in the way of music, and pay attention only to what’s new. I could float on the sea of ubiquitous musical novelty, let it carry me wherever it’s going. Then I can simply try to like everything without feeling as though that means something or makes me responsible for learning more. I don’t know. Grizzly Bear is not the music that will inspire me to do this.
Comments
to me it seems like you are really overthinking it, the the point it must be a burden to be you. Either enjoy it or not. End of story.
ps. Veckatimest will be loved in 20 years. Amazing album
Comment by tree — January 6, 2010 @ 8:03 pm
Synopsis: “I don’t like new things that people are excited about because I am too afraid/lazy to like other things related to it”
This is the worst and laziest ‘argument’ I have ever had the misfortune of hearing.
Comment by Matthew — January 6, 2010 @ 10:35 pm
“Mirage,” really? That one’s right out of the “single-plus-dross” formula of the early 1960s rock albums.
Grizzly Bear is one of those “no there there” critical darlings. Anybody listening to Mouse on Mars or The Streets lately?
Comment by Robert KrissKrossgau — January 7, 2010 @ 6:31 am
Veckatimest really is a fantastic album. my favorite of the year in fact. through my love of it, i finally came to appreciate their previous album Yellow House. the only other album they have is really a solo effort by only one member going under the GB name, so you can skip that one.
i’m a rabid music fan myself, but the fact is, you should be listening to both old and new music. you can seek out old albums (i’ve been obsessed with the first three by The Band all year) and new stuff as well. imo, there really is a LOT going on in music these days. a decade or more from now, people are going to look back and be jealous of people like you and i who had the chance to experience it in the moment. point in case, i saw Grizzly Bear (awesome live act) back in October.
if you have to give up another hobby to devote the time and money to exploring both old and new music, well, so be it.
-justin
Comment by Justin Brooks from Richmond, VA — January 7, 2010 @ 8:53 am
tree and Matthew seem to have laid this argument bare in two moves.
“Responsibility of fandom” is solely in your mind. Like Veckatimest, or don’t. And if you do, there’s no obligation to get every piece of music even tangentially related to Grizzly Bear; the US Department of Enforced Music Enjoyment will not come kick your door down if you don’t.
Comment by Steve — January 7, 2010 @ 8:58 am
I don’t think he’s talking about the responsibility of fandom so much as the responsibility of the consumer. That responsibility is both in your mind and not at all in your mind. I don’t think it’s that simple.
Also, the point of this blog seems to be thinking about things people usually just experience passively, not validating someone’s boring indie fandom (a mistake most commenters so far have clearly made). Speaking of, Veckatimest is a total snoozefest. I’m sure it’s playing at a CVS in Williamsburg right now or in the waiting room of Addison Blake, Hipster Dentist.
“too afraid/lazy to like other things related to it”
Do you have any idea how many things people are getting excited about now? For someone with a job, it’s not a matter of laziness so much as a matter of time available, unless one does nothing at all but listen to music when not at work.
Comment by Nickelas — January 7, 2010 @ 11:03 am
Also playing in the waiting room of Blake Addison, Indie DDS: Brian Eno—“Music for Airports” and Feist—all Feist albums. On the elevator back down to the street? Sigur Ros—”()” and the Cocteau Twins. In the CVS next door? “While You Wait for the Others (feat. Michael McDonald),” whatever song Weezer did with Kenny G, and Vampire Weekend.
Comment by Nickelas — January 7, 2010 @ 11:48 am
Nickelas, i think we can all agree that hipsters are terrible people, but pigeonholing tastes isn’t going to do any good whatsover. Brian Eno was producing Talking Heads albums (now that we are thirty years on, we can admit that these are some of the best albums of all time, without worrying about the hipper-than-thou attitude) before you were born probably.
hobbies are a necessity in life and anybody can make time for them. spend less time veg-ing on the couch and download more music, read more reviews, listen to Veckatimest in lossless format through decent headphones…whatever it takes. if you aren’t going to totally dedicate yourself to at least one of your hobbies, then you should just give it up and take up cooking or something, but with your mindset something like say, fatty tuna belly can never be good, because it’s too trendy right now.
-justin
Comment by Justin Brook from Richmond, VA — January 7, 2010 @ 1:12 pm
Thanks for the comments. No one forces anyone to care about indie rock, I know. It’s just that I wonder how prevalent the defensive crouch in the face of the endlessly crashing tidal wave of new music is becoming. I find it harder and harder to find a balance between the pursuit of novelty and the preservation of the emotional value of what already matters to me. I know that this are not automatically connected, but I find myself encouraged to pursue the new, and I never catch up, and what I already appreciate gets filed away and remains sort of theoretical. For example, I love the album “From Home to Home” by the Fairfield Parlor. Since I got my new computer and loaded it into iTunes three years ago, its songs have a play count of either zero or one.
Comment by Rob Horning — January 7, 2010 @ 1:30 pm
I don’t think hipsters are terrible people, actually. We all are, if you think about it. That’s why I included bands that weren’t part of the current zeitgeist, to implicate myself in a atonment for taking a cheap shot at the easy hipster scapegoat.
Anyway, I think by making the discussion personal, you’ve missed the point. If consumerism is in part about establishing an identity through displays of purchased goods, then an overabundance of goods clamoring for attention makes that pursuit more difficult. I go to mp3 blogs every day and pay for music by the truckload. There are *dozens* of new it bands being hawked at these places *every week.* There really isn’t time for all of them, even though there’s hardly any time at all I spend without listening to music. I still have many albums that I haven’t listened to once.
Furthermore, if you try to catch all the new music that comes out, no matter how “dedicated” you are, neglecting family and friends and sequestering yourself in a music cave feeding only on dry oatmeal and lossless audio files, you will still end up missing and ignoring music that might be amazing. You will ignore things because they are too “hipster-ish” or, yes, trendy, or whatever reason doesn’t fit the person you’re trying to resemble through your purchase. That’s what consumerism is, in part, and that’s a part of the damage it can do to music and art in general (to the extent that music and art aren’t always already debased as exports of the culture industry).
Comment by Nickelas — January 7, 2010 @ 2:07 pm
Frustration with the tidal wave of new bands, particularly the ‘buzz-band,’ is understandable. I devote most of my free time to listening to recordings I own or the radio and I am by no means an expert on music(yet: I am not too old).
That frustration very is different from ‘hoping a new record will suck’ which just seems like an easy way out rather than acquiescing to apathy or whatever.
In my very professional* opinion, all this new music being made available will probably mean that artists will have much more freedom rather than suffering from the negative effects of consumerism because record labels lose control, and they are no longer the only way to reach an audience. Artists are in, more or less, complete control of their music.
But whatever’s going on in the music industry, you shouldn’t try to disguise general disinterest by claiming to be too busy or make it seem like you think new music is bad when you simply can’t find the time.
Comment by Matthew — January 7, 2010 @ 9:01 pm
All I had to hear was…Mirage….and I understood. Mirage is Fleetwood Mac’s lounge album- and it’s full of surprises. I just re-read Robertson Davies’ WORLD OF WONDERS and Mirage fits right in there with the Soiree of Illusions. The progression of songs and the variety of the music is astonishing here - from the wondrously breezy opening to the darkening skies of Gypsy to the aggression against L.A. that’s Empire State to the magical cry of Hold Me - it was actually a very strong concept. And it did very well - 5 weeks at #1 - 3 top 40 hits (Hold Me, Gypsy, Love in Store) - and a sold out tour that was cut short because of Lindsey Buckingham. And these people want to talk about show business…and what it really takes to succeed….
Comment by Johb Blake from Portland/LA/Boston (I wish) — January 8, 2010 @ 2:06 am
Matthew: Yes, time management is basically the problem. What I wonder is what drives that problem. It could be merely that I lack the skills necessary to get along in the brave new media landscape. But it’s possible that the changes in the media industries are driving to a degree changes in personality, promising new pleasures for new contortions among consumers and threatening new obscure social punishments (that are illusory, of course, but still can be frightening, especially when one finds oneself isolated in computerland.) I just wanted to suggest the hint of panic in the contemporary mode of cultural consumption.
Johb: Glad someone understands. My route to Mirage was through Lindsay Buckingham’s solo album Law and Order.
Comment by Rob Horning — January 8, 2010 @ 11:23 am
Interesting post and I understand what your saying. Though at this time in my life, I don’t have the same experience with new music, I know that my attitude towards new and old pop music has changed immeasurably, countless times since I was 15 and will change again throughout my life. It’s partly new realisations on one’s own part, partly the fundamental fickleness of pop culture and identity, and what we can take from it at different times.
I’m currently doing a survey for a dissertation, which encompasses new music, the internet, commodity etc. It’s on a website and is not too boring and it would be great if anyone who sees this could take a look at it:
www.somequestions.co.uk
cheers
Comment by Thom from Cambridge — January 9, 2010 @ 7:08 pm
Excellent piece. I found myself nodding along with every sentence—probably because, in all honesty, I approach new music discoveries with the exact same subconscious dread.
Comment by Zach Schonfeld from New York — January 15, 2010 @ 9:55 pm
“The passion for listening gets spread too thin as it strains to embrace everything.” I concur Rob. That’s a challenge I find myself encountering time and again. I do enjoy discovering new music but sometimes the hype noise is deafening, to the point where I resist listening because the experience is void of discovery. Sometimes, not always.
I like the twang of “That’s Alright” on MIRAGE. That was the surprise on that album for me, when I came around to it.
Comment by Christian John Wikane — January 28, 2010 @ 10:14 am