Pretentious music, musicians and fans

[Jimbo]

Just returned from a music festival and the headliner was Yo La Tengo, a band I never understood on their recordings but thought that their "meaning" would be clearer in a live setting. Instead we stood there baffled for about fifteen minutes of noise and then returned to our campsite for some actual enjoyment, talking and drinking. How the fuck do so many bands get away with this bullshit - and more curious, how the fuck can they have actual fans? I can only conclude that the fans are pretending to like the pretend music, like those who pretend to like opera or cheese that tastes like feet. How music based upon the blues, folk, gospel, country and western etc., could have devolved to two solid minutes of one blasted dissonant chord (Yo La Tengo's actual opening) is beyond me. More and more I am finding musical satisfaction from bands that if not authentically southern (Australian bands are doing US music remarkably well.) at least sound bluesy. How can these bands stand themselves? Might they might not once want to break into Louie Louie? Jesus wept. (Thanks Yomp.)

[WG Kaspar]

This will be fun.

[Fonz]

Calling Rayge...

[naughty boy]

For once, he makes some valid points.

And it's a damned sight more worthwhile than most of GM's latest bullshit threads.

[Darkness_Fish]

You make it sound like Yo La Tengo are some kind of radical arthouse outsiders, rather than a fairly popular alt-rock band. Why should everyone want to sound bluesy? Don't you look for different things in every medium? Do you whinge about the lack of a simple love story in Crime and Punishment? Do you complain that The Seventh Seal is missing a really good car chase?

Honestly there's absolutely billions of retro sounding dull bastards retreading the past, and you have to complain about someone who deviates slightly from the mainstream norm. Why not pick on Stockhausen, Terry Riley, Ornette Coleman, or someone who was doing something more difficult back when people were doing this all important twelve bar blues for the first time?

I mean, what this really boils down to, is that you went watching a band that doesn't fit your narrow ideal of music, which is to sound like it was recorded in the 60s, even though there's already a megazillion shit-ton fuckload of that, a lot of it actually recorded in the 60s, and even though it's heavily influenced by a band from the fucking 60s. And this is a valid point? Fuck's sake.

[GoogaMooga]

Doors - he's the lizard king, he can do anything... Go back to film school, Jim.

[Darkness_Fish]

Dull bastard twats.

[Darkness_Fish]

Really. C'mon, fuck off.

[fange]

Don't blow a gasket, Fishy. Not everyone is as open to new and fresher sounds as you or i - c'est la vie.

[Darkness_Fish]

Don't blow a gasket, Fishy. Not everyone is as open to new and fresher sounds as you or i - c'est la vie.

Shut it, sonny, this is my page of righteous anger and furious wrath. When I want your opinion....


Nope, never happened yet

[fange]

Fine, be like that. Maybe if you listened to some more Link Wray, Temptations or Gap Band instead of hour after hour posturing dorks playing music with electric shavers, fence posts and cereal boxes you'd be a little more calm and in control. Thank about that, sonny.

[Penk!]

Just returned from a music festival and the headliner was Yo La Tengo, a band I never understood on their recordings but thought that their "meaning" would be clearer in a live setting. Instead we stood there baffled for about fifteen minutes of noise and then returned to our campsite for some actual enjoyment, talking and drinking. How the fuck do so many bands get away with this bullshit - and more curious, how the fuck can they have actual fans? I can only conclude that the fans are pretending to like the pretend music, like those who pretend to like opera or cheese that tastes like feet. How music based upon the blues, folk, gospel, country and western etc., could have devolved to two solid minutes of one blasted dissonant chord (Yo La Tengo's actual opening) is beyond me. More and more I am finding musical satisfaction from bands that if not authentically southern (Australian bands are doing US music remarkably well.) at least sound bluesy. How can these bands stand themselves? Might they might not once want to break into Louie Louie? Jesus wept. (Thanks Yomp.)

[The Modernist]

He has a point though.

It's a difficult one to discuss because you get these things divided into very binary, oppositional points of view and people start taking it personally.

[Darkness_Fish]

I struggled to see one.

[The Modernist]

I struggled to see one.

He went to see Yo Lo Tango and wondered how music got to that point and what people were getting out of it. I had a similar feeling with some of the tracks picked in the 90s cup so I can understand the reaction in some ways.

[naughty boy]

The set-opener J mentions is quite probably the same as the one you get here:



you'd get something similar with Sonic Youth sometimes, MBV possibly.

[The Modernist]

I didn't mind that actually, although it doesn't seem particularly suited to a general festival audience.

[The Red Heifer]

See with Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth once you know a bit of their gear you know that sort of stuff is their stock and trade and it's to be expected. It's the more straight down the line rock bands who all of a sudden decide to have a message or take inspiration by some fuck off book on album 5 who are the real pretentious cunts.

[Goat Boy]

You make it sound like Yo La Tengo are some kind of radical arthouse outsiders, rather than a fairly popular alt-rock band. Why should everyone want to sound bluesy? Don't you look for different things in every medium? Do you whinge about the lack of a simple love story in Crime and Punishment? Do you complain that The Seventh Seal is missing a really good car chase?

The Seventh Seal is entertaining though, that’s the thing. It may be dealing with heavy existential questions but Bergman understood the importance of entertaining an audience, of giving them pleasure and, crucially, humour. Think of the scene where Death is cutting down the tree!

I think it is something worth discussing although Yo La Tengo probably aren’t the best example of the general point Jimbo is trying to make. If Yo La Tengo want to stand on stage and do that and some people want to listen to it then fine, good luck to them. At what point does this insularity prove to be a turnoff is subjective and dependent on lots of things: tolerance for noise/experimentation, audience expectation/familiarity, levels of drunkenness, types of drugs and so on. Do artists in the position of headlining to a festival crowd have a duty to, er, tone it down a bit? To please as many as possible? To do the “greatest hits” set? Or should they just do their thing? If the Rolling Stones got up on stage at Glastonbury and said, “we’re gonna play a bunch of new songs from out last album!” would you accept that? Should you? Why?

Is experimentation used as a con tool? Something that less talented artists do because they can’t write much of a song? Is it a poor substitute? Personally I have little interest unless experimentation is combined with songwriting. I like it when outre elements combine with a decent melody. This is partly why certain periods like the mid 60s and the early 80s were exciting. That clash between the two worlds: art and commerciality. What tips it over into (F)art? Can you tip it over?

Have artists become too insular? Too lost in their own worlds? Is that necessarily a bad thing? I mean there’s plenty to go round, right?!

I think we could have some interesting discussions here.

[NMB]

I'm definitely of an age where I'd rather be comforted than confronted. The days when I might have thought "ooh ooh I'm listening to something arty and edgy" are long gone.