join the party,
rock tha bloc.
this is a post from a net community i just joined called fasterlouder.com.au, all about music stuff!!! this particular post i found interesting because i devour rolling stone and NME like a ravenous rock beast and i often wonder where music will be in ten years' time. it also mentions some of my fave bands, including bright eyes, coldplay, franze, dandies, zeppelin and u2, as well as a new fave from england called bloc party. i illegally obtained some of their music about six weeks ago and loved it, and now they're getting heaps of airplay over here.
Where is music going? What directions will the new sounds be drawn from?
Recent trends have seen a revival of the heroin trash imagery of the 1980's. In the '90's people were loathe to even ackowledge the '80's existed. Bad hair, garishly coloured clothes, shoulder pads, hair spray, out-of-control synths.
But now we revel in the beats and rhythms which defined an era. We are now seeing the seeds born to life in bands like The Killers who I would contend are more influenced by Duran Duran than by The Cure or New Order. 'Indie Rock'n'Roll For Me' - methinks Brandon Flowers doth protest a little too much.
Modern bands are now openly stating influence by the afore mentioned Simon Le Bon quintet - Roger Taylor recently procuded The Dandy Warhols latest album, 'Welcome to the Monkey House' (2003) as they sought to give the album a distinctly synth-y retro feel.
Franz Ferdiand, The Departure, Dogs Die in Hot Cars...this list is an endless one whereby bands are diving back into catchy guitar hooks, bouncy bass lines and not being afraid to tie an image in with their music.
The '90's saw any band that tried to conceptualise their music given a sadly mocked tag. The only bands last decade dressing up similarly to each toher were nicely packaged boy bands.
But new comers like Alex Kapranos, who boldly state that their music is as much about the image that backs it up, are creating, again, a more Warholian sense of music being an all-encompassing art form. Hense the new moniker 'Art-Rock'.
So, okay, we're happy delving into the past to be content in the furture. But where next? It is an unfortunate (but maybe ineveitable) side-effect of the pop-culture we live in that everything is referencial to something else. Nothing exists for it's own sake or in a vacuum. The Music, for example - a blending of the best bits from Led Zepplin and The Stone Roses. Just to name one band.
So all music we listen to now is derivitive of something that came before. Rock'nRoll has existed for 50 years or so and the only new forms of music in the past 10-15years are arguebly Rap/Hip-Hop and techno-electronic. And these forms have been fully absorbed into the current musical culture. Modern artists with the talent and ability are able to use an inteligent blend of traditional instrumentation with sampling, in Sarah Blasko's case, or even a rap, which is reportedly due on the new Beck album.
Will some new techology be developed in the near future that will see music head off on an excitingly fractured tangent or are we set for a re-hash of all that has gone before?
And if music is set, not to stagnate, but to not create any new forms, is that such a band thing.
There are still great bands today, some who have survived a number of decades, fashions trends, shifts in musical popularity and still remain today to be referenced by by new shining lights of modern music: U2 with Coldplay and REM with Brights Eyes, as an example.
here's what i wrote in reply:
franz started out like bloc party are now - not being together for long, then heralded by the NME as the sound of now and suddenly they're everywhere. if u read NME alex kapranos is being worshipped as the new indie rock god (especially following the demise of pete doherty...oops...) with the same level of devotion they gave to someone like richey edwards ten years ago, only richey actually had something to say. BP are a fucking fantastic band and they deserve better than the Next Big Thing tag because it's seriously good music, and brilliant as franz sound they don't seem to have the soul behind their music that Kele and the boys do.
the thing about bloc party is that they're a return to the rawer, more emotion-driven post-punk sound of the cure or the pixies or new order that's influenced all this "new rock" like franz, but in a more concentrated way, and without all this degenerate, self-absorbed rock'n'roll angst and self-destruction that fucked up brilliant people like richey and ian curtis. they've got actual brains, real intellect behind their music, not just wit; they are genuinely nice boys who love other people's music as much as their own; and they know that you can be well-adjusted AND have a successful music career.
food for thought, my fellow rock-obsessed darlings.
supergrass - mary
this is a post from a net community i just joined called fasterlouder.com.au, all about music stuff!!! this particular post i found interesting because i devour rolling stone and NME like a ravenous rock beast and i often wonder where music will be in ten years' time. it also mentions some of my fave bands, including bright eyes, coldplay, franze, dandies, zeppelin and u2, as well as a new fave from england called bloc party. i illegally obtained some of their music about six weeks ago and loved it, and now they're getting heaps of airplay over here.
Where is music going? What directions will the new sounds be drawn from?
Recent trends have seen a revival of the heroin trash imagery of the 1980's. In the '90's people were loathe to even ackowledge the '80's existed. Bad hair, garishly coloured clothes, shoulder pads, hair spray, out-of-control synths.
But now we revel in the beats and rhythms which defined an era. We are now seeing the seeds born to life in bands like The Killers who I would contend are more influenced by Duran Duran than by The Cure or New Order. 'Indie Rock'n'Roll For Me' - methinks Brandon Flowers doth protest a little too much.
Modern bands are now openly stating influence by the afore mentioned Simon Le Bon quintet - Roger Taylor recently procuded The Dandy Warhols latest album, 'Welcome to the Monkey House' (2003) as they sought to give the album a distinctly synth-y retro feel.
Franz Ferdiand, The Departure, Dogs Die in Hot Cars...this list is an endless one whereby bands are diving back into catchy guitar hooks, bouncy bass lines and not being afraid to tie an image in with their music.
The '90's saw any band that tried to conceptualise their music given a sadly mocked tag. The only bands last decade dressing up similarly to each toher were nicely packaged boy bands.
But new comers like Alex Kapranos, who boldly state that their music is as much about the image that backs it up, are creating, again, a more Warholian sense of music being an all-encompassing art form. Hense the new moniker 'Art-Rock'.
So, okay, we're happy delving into the past to be content in the furture. But where next? It is an unfortunate (but maybe ineveitable) side-effect of the pop-culture we live in that everything is referencial to something else. Nothing exists for it's own sake or in a vacuum. The Music, for example - a blending of the best bits from Led Zepplin and The Stone Roses. Just to name one band.
So all music we listen to now is derivitive of something that came before. Rock'nRoll has existed for 50 years or so and the only new forms of music in the past 10-15years are arguebly Rap/Hip-Hop and techno-electronic. And these forms have been fully absorbed into the current musical culture. Modern artists with the talent and ability are able to use an inteligent blend of traditional instrumentation with sampling, in Sarah Blasko's case, or even a rap, which is reportedly due on the new Beck album.
Will some new techology be developed in the near future that will see music head off on an excitingly fractured tangent or are we set for a re-hash of all that has gone before?
And if music is set, not to stagnate, but to not create any new forms, is that such a band thing.
There are still great bands today, some who have survived a number of decades, fashions trends, shifts in musical popularity and still remain today to be referenced by by new shining lights of modern music: U2 with Coldplay and REM with Brights Eyes, as an example.
here's what i wrote in reply:
franz started out like bloc party are now - not being together for long, then heralded by the NME as the sound of now and suddenly they're everywhere. if u read NME alex kapranos is being worshipped as the new indie rock god (especially following the demise of pete doherty...oops...) with the same level of devotion they gave to someone like richey edwards ten years ago, only richey actually had something to say. BP are a fucking fantastic band and they deserve better than the Next Big Thing tag because it's seriously good music, and brilliant as franz sound they don't seem to have the soul behind their music that Kele and the boys do.
the thing about bloc party is that they're a return to the rawer, more emotion-driven post-punk sound of the cure or the pixies or new order that's influenced all this "new rock" like franz, but in a more concentrated way, and without all this degenerate, self-absorbed rock'n'roll angst and self-destruction that fucked up brilliant people like richey and ian curtis. they've got actual brains, real intellect behind their music, not just wit; they are genuinely nice boys who love other people's music as much as their own; and they know that you can be well-adjusted AND have a successful music career.
food for thought, my fellow rock-obsessed darlings.
supergrass - mary
decreed by cait (still queen) | 4:19 pm
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