Has Indie Rock Lost its Soul ?


Interesting article from the New Yorker. The thesis supports the claim that popular music has undergone a schism since the popularity of rap and has not recovered. There is a stronger racial divide in music, most notable in the indie crowd, traditionally made up of a white audience. Of course, modern pop artist like Britney Spears draw heavily on black music forms (primarily disco in her case), however, the author believes that what gave rock from the 60's and 70's its unique power was the heavy influence of soul and blues on popular artists like the Stones and the Beatles.


I am not saying that old is better than new, but has something been lost ? Has rock and roll been diluted by this (alleged) re segregation ?


Noyes

What a ridiculous article. It sounds like what the author is saying (albeit, unwittingly) is that he couldn't find his own (i.e., authentic) voice for his own singing when he was in a band, and now he's projecting his problem on all of today's rock bands.

Well, he got himself published in the New Yorker. He should feel good about that at least.

In terms of rock and roll being diluted, I will say that it goes through good periods and bad periods. To me, it seemed to have really lost its way in the late 70s early 80s-- although below the surface, punk and post-punk (the Minutemen, mentioned in the article, were a great and authentic band) were making some great music and laying the groundwork/inspiration for great music to come.

quote:

what gave rock from the 60's and 70's its unique power was the heavy influence of soul and blues on popular artists

To some extent, but some of my favourite bands moved away from rhythm and blues and were more influenced by folk and classical music themes - to me the most important album of the 60s were Folk Roots New Roots, 5000 Spirits, Piper At The Gates of Dawn, Village Green, SF Sorrow and Anthems In Eden - none were influenced by R&B excessively. My favourite bands of the 70s were Emerson Lake and Palmer, Fairport Convention and Planxty, who were not what you'd call an R&B bands. So I'm not really in tune with the author.

That is not to dismiss R&B which produced many fine and influential records.

ATB Rotf

Interesting article and certainly there is some veracity as regards mainstream music.

Obviously never heard of HMHB though, poor sod.



SJB

quote:

Obviously never heard of HMHB though, poor sod.

Come on guys. Mainstream music has always been ordinary. There is always good stuff around if you ferret around. (I want to start a search engine called Ferret - Google needs some competition)

How about Liam Fimm sampling himself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGZ-1d2rH_w&feature=related

or yeah yeah yeahs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYJjHCZN46U

or a bunch of "kids" from the Gold Coast(Australia)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhDS4NgbpYs&feature=related

Music will continue to evolve. Mind you my choices are tainted by my taste - I could just as easily listed some Aussie rap outfits that are equally interesting.

--


Just for fun, I did a search on this forum under 'Arcade Fire' and found no less than six pages of references (!!) ... Then I did a search under 'Marvin Gaye' and found...six pages. So maybe this forum is more balanced than we realize...


By the way, to avoid misunderstanding, neither the author nor I are saying there is no longer any worthwhile 'good' rock and roll, only that the nature of music has changed over time..


Noyes