What is this - Modest Mouse, Deathcab for Cutie, Postal Service, Iron

[mondo joe]

and Wine, Mojave 3...

Some of them I can't even tell apart.

Did I suddenly become old?

Is there a name for this music - Whisper Rock?

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Sleepy Hollow music

There's one album with a title I like: Quiet Is The New Loud (The Kings of Convenience).

WXPN plays a lot of "quiet" stuff. Although 'XPN is in Philly, it runs a net feed at http://wma.str3am.com/xpndotorg

The show Sleepy Hollow is all quiet music, from the 1920s until now. Listen in on Saturday 6-10 AM Eastern time, Sunday 6-11 AM Eastern time. It is a consistently excellent show, and has been on the air for nearly 30 years. (Yes, this little-known genre is as old as music itself.)

In fact, Sleepy Hollow is on at this very moment -- check it out.

--p!

[mondo joe]

2. Is there hope for me?

With much study will I learn to tell the difference between Modest Mouse and Deathcabfor Cutie?

And will I ever know what they are mumbling about??

[Dogmudgeon]

4. Do you care?

Listen to what you like.

It's always worked for me. I listen to what I like, and if the hip world doesn't like it, the Moon makes a great target for them to use for flying-fuck practice.

When I was in college, my friends were amused by the fact that I had mix tapes of The Association, the Dead Kennedys, Leslie Gore, and the B-52s. To me, that's normal.

We're all ideosyncratic. Enjoy it.

--p!

[LiberalVoice]

5. The B-52s fucking rock.

Most people don't know them beyond "Love Shack" and some of their more popular hits but all in all they are an extremely weird, extremely awesome band!

[mondo joe]

8. If I stuck with what I liked I'd still eat nothing but mac and cheese

I do think it's important to push your boundaries and give things a good chance.

I'm just a little shocked at my own inability to tell some of it from...some of the rest of it.

[BigMcLargehuge]

3. I abandoned all of it a few years ago, now I am an old fart

who listens to Malvina Reynolds

[drumwolf]

6. I share your plight, my friend

Ten years ago, I was completely knowledgable about the indie rock at the time, bands like Velocity Girl, Stereolab, Unrest, Superchunk, Ride, Lush, and so on. Now I'm 35 years old and I'm horribly out of touch with current indie, along with current punk and metal.

I guess you just can't fight the onset of old age. :evilfrown: :cry:

[CanuckAmok]

13. Even reading the name "Stereolab" sends me into a violent tantrum!

I FUCKING HATE STEREOLAB!!!!!

Here's my version of every stereolab song:

(hammond organ)

eeeaaaaa oooooooo uuuuuuuuh eeeeeeeee aaaaaaaaa oooooooo iiiiiiiieeee uuuuuuuhh ooooooooooo eeeeeeaaaaaaa




AAAAUUUGGHHH!!!!!!!!!

[RandomKoolzip]

18. Agree. Stereolab is french for "overrated."

[Ellen Forradalom]

25. Take a 'Lude dude.

No one's holding a gun to your head, forcing you to listen to Stereolab. Let those of us who derive mild pleasure from them enjoy it.

[barackmyworld]

7. Indie rock

but those bands are waay too popular to satisfy any REAL indie rock fan

[Wat_Tyler]

11. And by REAL indie rock fan, I assume you mean anal nerd?

Who cares how many records they've sold? Nick Drake is great, and he never sold more than 20000 records in his lifetime. The Beatles are great, and they sold 500 million.

[barackmyworld]

14. exactly

but you forgot "pretentious"

I'm an indie pop fan. I like the stuff that's good enough for radio.

[mark414]

21. *sniff*

so now i'm pretentious AND a nerd???

:evilfrown:

[Wat_Tyler]

9. Those bands have been around for years.

Give me something new, rock and roll.

[barackmyworld]

10. oh yeah and there's a reason why they sound similar

same singer in Death Cab and Postal Service

[northzax]

31. ahh, but when you get bored

you can always throw in some Rilo Kiley.

[catzies]

12. Soft is the new loud

n/t

[loro mi dicevano]

15. I'm 15 - and even I don't know all of those. Then again, my friends don't

know who John Mellencamp is, either... *shudder* Honestly, most popular bands now don't really sound particularly different from each other.

[IcyPeas]

16. I've seen it referred to as "Poptronica"

I quite like Postal Service and I think Poptronica is an apt name for this genre...

[RandomKoolzip]

17. Modest Mouse definitely doesn't fit in that category.

Thay don't whisper (anymore).

I do share your distate for the rest of that wretched wimpy lot.

[mark414]

22. and a second on that modest mouse

they don't belong anywhere NEAR those other bands

[RandomKoolzip]

23. At one time, they might have wussed out....

But at the moment, Isaac Brock is rocking legitimately, and projecting when he sings (singers who project are important to me)

[RandomKoolzip]

19. Me and ChavezSpeaks theTruth have almost come to blows

re: Iron and Wine. I cannot stand their music. That guy's voice is insanely annoying, like a mosquito in your ear that won't go away. Chavez likes it, though, but that's because he completely ignored all the cool alternative/underground rock of the last 20 years in favor of reggae and hiphop, so that now he hears something like that and it seems revolutionary, and I hear it and go "yawn." It's like, old hat by now, y'know? If I had a nickel for every lame band I heard in 1991 that sounded EXACTLY like those guys mentioned above, I'd be a rich motherfucker.

I don't by that shit about "Quiet is the New Loud." Bullshit. People will always want ass-kicking music, AND occasional respites from the frenzy. But there's nothing rebellious ANYMORE about solely making quiet, whispery music (fuck, Young Marble Giants and Sebadoh and Souled American and dozens of others already had that market cornered.) Plus, the worst of it reminds me of the shit rock was invented to exterminate: Mitch Miller, soft bossanova, etc. I'm sorry, but Astrid Gilberto sucked the first time around, too.

That said, "The New Year" by Death Cab for Cutie is an undeniably great song. The rest of their catalog is wimpitude taken to absurd extremes.

[mark414]

20. hahaha

"The rest of their catalog is wimpitude taken to absurd extremes"

well said

[Dogmudgeon]

24. American Music Poisoning

Everything in modern music is recycled. Even -- especially -- "rock" is recycled.

I don't buy that shit about "Quiet is the New Loud." Bullshit. People will always want ass-kicking music, AND occasional respites from the frenzy.

Dude, it's an ironic album title. There is nothing to buy. No salesman will call.

But there's nothing rebellious ANYMORE about solely making quiet, whispery music ...

There has never really been any "rebellious" music. The whole "anti-rock crackdown" thing is a piece of mythology stitched together from a thousand individual idiots who tried to make a big-assed ideological case out of long hair and guitar music. These idiots lined up on both sides of the cultural divide and held a decade-long contest to see who could say the most asinine things about the other. Meanwhile, music based on small bands featuring electronically amplified guitars became universal because it allowed almost anyone to be a musician.

Plus, the worst of it reminds me of the shit rock was invented to exterminate: Mitch Miller, soft bossanova, etc. I'm sorry, but Astrid Gilberto sucked the first time around, too. (emphasis mine)

Do you really believe that nonsense? Rock was invented for no particular reason other than people enjoyed it. A couple of quirks of marketing brought it to the attention of the public. Mitch Miller's music was doomed because Miller was a demented psychotic who had the music industry by the short hairs and owned a tweezer factory. People hated his skeevy, resentful, gimmicky ass and he didn't last long at Columbia after people got tired of his TV show. And your despised Bossanova had permeated every part of contemporary music a decade before Astrud Gilberto became the Garota do Ipanema. There were even supposedly uneducated bluesmen who played songs based on exotic beats like the baiona and guitars tuned to Indonesian gamelan scales.

Only in America do we have these kinds of arguments over music; even the Brits gave up that nonsense after the Mod-v-Rockers riots, in which hundreds of drugged yobbos both with and without fashion sense bashed each other to hell over the kind of music they liked! (Yes, some of us saw Quadrophenia a masterwork of inadvertant humo(u)r ... and a method for seducing our girlfriends.)

Plus, there's a whole world of music that the Anglo-American popular music scene -- a narcisstic, self-absorbed universe of ego-trippers -- doesn't touch. By "whole world" I don't mean the marketing niche called World Music -- I mean music from all over the world, something other than Reggae or Township Vocal Harmony, even if it doesn't have Didjeridu or Kalimba in it.

So, that's my rant, and yes, I've enjoyed it. Play, and listen, to the music you will. My only crusade is that people in music stop griping about what they don't like and create what they do. Oh, and listen to some new stuff from time to time. And if you took this personally -- well, you shouldn't.

I'm an old fart of 47. I've been involved on-and-off in music since I was about 20. And I've been following that line of reasoning since I was a kid. It's always worked for me, and I discover something new and compelling at a rate of about four times a year -- and still have only scratched the surface. Life is too short to waste any time concerned with music I hate.

--p!

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

35. I can listen to Iron & Wine for days on end - And RandomKoolzip is a dolt

A real Convalotu. A total bismechay conguato!

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

37. You can't even spell Astrud right! God I hate you

Time to go listen to some DJ Krush and forget I ever met you!

[WindRavenX]

26. I love that shit

Especially Postal Service and Iron and Wine.
They're my new favorites along with The Shins.

[mondo joe]

27. Oh I forgot the Shins. Can't understand a god damn mumbling word.

But I'll keep trying!

[WindRavenX]

28. What album have you listened to?

I found "Chutes Too Narrow" to be more lyrical. :hi:
Seriously, it took me about 2 tries to "get" The Shins, but now I'm addicted.

[mondo joe]

29. I don't know which - whatever people gave me to listen to

And the songs from the Garden State soundtrack.

[WindRavenX]

30. hmmm

Well, did you find the ones from Garden State ("New Slang" and "Caring Is Creepy")? If so, I'd focus much more on "Chutes" than "Oh, Inverted World", IMO.

[mondo joe]

32. Okay - THANKS! I'm going to listen to a lot of these groups and

I'll either find out what I like or I'll hate them for once and for all.

[bobthedrummer]

33. I'm always on a random walk with music of all types-it's timeless

and there are some really great bands out there playing their asses off. So besides listening I also read the entertainment and music trade publications for new stuff to add to my library of tunes.

I like Franz Ferdinand and The Black Keys:hi:

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

34. Iron & Wine rule

Nuff said

[ghostsofgiants]

36. Death Cab and The Postal Service are great

I was gonna rant about how you're all close-minded jerkoffs, but it's not worth the energy.

I will say this though: Fuck off with your "it's not heavy enough" shit. You want heavy? Go listen to something that isn't Death Cab. Simple enough, yeah?