in a weird way, and why it's far far inferior for me, is because It's actually the inverse of deeper house and techno. that tends to take you out of your body and submerge you in the liquid depths through adult, sophisticated dubby repetition. This stuff is like high school musical III on loop. no peaks no troughs just an endless modulation of early adolescent euphoria.
It's not like prog rock with its jerks and shudders, it's entirely slavishly dedicated to a very 60s-derived basic pop song form of music with no variation whatsoever. The difference between this stuff and kaleidoscope or procol Harem is 60s baroque pop was trying to expand the vocab of pop songs, for better or worse.
I mean even bringing up liz fraser and cocteau twins has become its own cliche nowit gets a bit more interesting with this Wolf Alice one. But it's Liz Fraser without the glosalalia/speaking in tongues. Why don't these coral voices take you right out?
im sick now anyway. gonna listen to some philli soul or something. stupid playlist made me sick. bland music.
she hits the same emotional territory as dawson's creek i think. depressed in an american town. wholesome. no drugs. kind of fatalistic. its too saccharine for me but as ever its interesting to see what resonates with people mood and lyrics-wise at the moment. she's more or less in the singer-songwriter acousticy tradition but with a thick gloss on, and people are really going for it. i think the intimacy of it makes sense to people at the moment; it reminds me of instagram in that respect, in that its intimate but not vulnerable. the appeal of singer-songwriter stuff isn't that different from that of a well-curated insta feed all things considered.Funny that's what I like about it. It's the musical equivalent of the sunglasses emoji, but there are tears staining the mascara behind the smile
pitchfork and the music it covers only made sense to me after moving to the US and seeing what rich(ish) americans are like, the way they live, the worldview, what they like, all of that. it's squarely aimed at that demographic, the people who write for it are from that demographic. i think this category of americans are totally different from their european counterparts.Pitchfork and the surrounding milieu is basically a denialist platform for people who grew up in the 90s and came of age around 00 unable to face the fact it was over. Forcing a scene that never really existed. It's all been one long fever dream
of course, I intimately understand ennui. Which is precisely why I love hardcore techno and speedcore. So long as it goes crash bang wallop and explodes into 500 different pieces and keeps me occupied.
why don't amrikkkans outside of hip hop like full metal jacket, hellraiser and texas chainsaw massacre samples in their music and resort to day off in kyoto? After all they invented and mastered the art of the horror film. explain it shaka.
i suppose the obvious answer is that its all part of the mix isn't it. people like all these things. either different people are into different things, or the same people are into different things for different affects. the horror thing is still around, culturally-mediated aggression in general is still around, the gore thing is still around i guess. no-one listens to gabba obviously as has been true at every point in human history. horror as you refer to it here does feel a bit retro though now.
singer-songwriter stuff like day off in kyoto is mostly about people hearing their emotions validated i think, the recognition that someone else feels the same things as you and that these emotions are not only legitimate but are actually a cool arty thing to have. i don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. particularly in a place like america - essentially white america i mean, with caveats - where everyone is stuggling to deal with how atomised everything is. a big claim i know but i think that's one of the things that's going on and being expressed in american indie in general.
Because the metal bands have had a firm grip on that stuff for yearswhy don't amrikkkans outside of hip hop like full metal jacket, hellraiser and texas chainsaw massacre samples in their music and resort to day off in kyoto? After all they invented and mastered the art of the horror film. explain it shaka.