Manifesto of Sorts

All right, so first off, let me say that I don't hate indie, I hate indie musicians and the idea of indie rock being an actual genre. I hate the idea of a genre where a band's quality is determined by how little success they can achieve and by the obscurity of their name. I also hate the idea of a band that calls itself a rock band, but is more focused on incorporating as many instruments no one cares about into their music. A great example of this is The Decemberists. Now, don't get me wrong, I love The Decemberists. In fact, I went to see them this summer in NYC and it was a fantastic show. However, the thought of "baroque pop," a tame kind of music your grandparents would love being associated with rock and roll makes me sick. So, I like indie music. The melodies are catchy and the songs are well put-together. But for the most part, indie is just folk, but with fucked up musical theory and 25 different instruments. As Martin Rushent in the movie Hype! put it: "When you've been through periods where you've had keyboard players with 50,000 lbs of kit on stage and 82 keyboards and 95 samplers, you know, after a while you just go, 'Hang on. This is like eating too much food at one sitting; there's too much sound, there's too many colors, it's all got poncey and posey. Let's go see some bands where they just bash it out."

Nextly, I don't care for bands who insist on calling themselves post-anything. This label only seems to exist because these bands don't want to be associated with the genre they actually belong to. I'm tired of noise punk bands being called post punk and I'm tired of people calling emo/screamo bands post hardcore because they don't want their friends to think they like My Chemical Romance and Fallout Boy. I like Glassjaw. We can call that screamo. I'm fine with that. There are good emo bands and bad emo bands. The Trashmen didn't call themselves post-surf because they thought The Beach Boys sucked (I don't know if they actually thought this. This is provided as an example. Bite me). If you really think a band adds something new to a genre, call it progressive whatever. Rush did this. They're fine and dandy.

And what happened to musicians having fun and being themselves? Every band has to come as a package now. You've got music, buzzwords, clothes and political opinions all in one package. This is why the Seattle grunge scene was the best music thing ever. Sure, they all wore the same clothes, but they were doing that anyway because it was cold and rainy. That'd be like a bunch of farmers starting bands in Kansas and people buying overalls and straw hats because it was "so farmrock to wear that".

Finally, when it comes to music, Kurt Cobain said it best "Music first, then lyrics." By this I mean bands should try to make music rather than make a statement. Sure, if you want to say something, go ahead, but don't make the message more important than the music, Anti-Flag and other terrible punk bands. Punk doesn't have to suck to have a good message. Again, the Dead Kennedys are a prime example of a band with a message that wasn't just a bunch of angry, shitty chords screamed incoherently and grouped into a genre that was really nothing more than a fashion movement. That's right, punks. What do the Sex Pistols and the Casualties have in common? Mohawks. That is all.