lauralh | hipster bullshit

hoolifan asked why he should listen to "indie" rock.

molanphy replied:

The reason I have not only the patience but a genuine love for the likes of Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, the Shins, the Arcade Fire and Ben Gibbard is something like what obifu said: I'm always optimistic that something new will excite me as much as my 1,000th play of Nevermind or Rumours or London Calling or Purple Rain does.

Do Bloc Party owe the Buzzcocks a major debt? Sure, but they also own a few Liquid Liquid records, maybe some Blondie, also some Gang of Four. And the lead singer's preening style on tracks like "Positive Tension" is like a male, new-millenium sequel to Poly Styrene's fuck-you vocal attack. It's that melange of interesting stuff, piled high with hooks, that gets me.

Or let's go bigger: the Killers. Why are these guys the biggest new rock band of the last year? (Seriously, they've outsold the Strokes and Franz combined.) Are they a ripoff of the Cure? Sometimes. But also Duran Duran, Gary Numan, Depeche Mode, even early U2 on occasion. I watch Brandon Flowers and think, "Man, he's so ripping off somebody's shtick," but then I can't figure out who that is: Robert Smith? Numan? Phil Oakey? I wouldn't call the Killers a breathtakingly original/for-the-ages band, but they recorded some great songs, and that's what matters, not whether or not they're In Favor with hipoisie this year.

Will the Shins, as Garden State proposes, "change my life"? No, but they will make me tap my feet. Seriously, "So Say I" is a good song, "Caring Is Creepy" a near-great one. During their opening set at the White Stripes show last month, I was surprised at how well I remembered the songs and how good they sounded.

Are the Arcade Fire the second coming of Bowie? Well, Bowie himself seems to think so, but he's been wrong before. All I know is, no record over the last year sounds quite like Funeral, and even if you could point me to 10 records (some by Bowie, some by the Decemberists) that do sound like it, that doesn't take anything away from it.

Like (I think)

archaica said, rock has been, is, will always be pastiche by nature (which makes the arguments of rock-lovers who hate hip-hop/sampling such bullshit). Bob Dylan wanted to sound like Woody Guthrie, Joey Ramone like Ronnie Spector, Kurt Cobain like the Melvins. I'm the first to point out when someone is bandwagon-jumping, but just being able to spot the influences on something doesn't devalue it much for me. It's the way the quirks and influences add up, how a Pixies song structure plus a Black Sabbath guitar tone plus a Boston guitar riff become "Smells Like Teen Spirit," that keeps me from despairing over the State of Rock.