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Itt: people realizing that they are entering the “this generation of music sucks” phase of their lives
2011-2015 Was pretty awful when it came to music ngl.
Nowadays there’s some decent stuff coming out, but maybe the difference lies in me being a kid who was forced to listen to top 40 Radio when riding the car with my parents vs being an album listener nowadays.
But I suppose the “hey let’s party and have fun!” era was particularly grating to my ears, considering I lived in Italy during the crisis era German plunder of southern Europe.
That’s crazy talk.
Peak pysch rock revival era.
Am well into middle age and 2011-2015 there was some amazing music. Every era has stuff you’ll find annoying and stuff you’ll find brilliant.
The thing about the “this generation of music sucks” phase is that we’re the first generation to enter it since ClearChannel media monopolized the airwaves and pushed out any music that isn’t guaranteed to be profitable.
“this generation of music sucks”
I hated hair metal in the 80s when I was supposed to be really into it
Let’s be real: it was pretty fucking terrible.
nah-uhI felt only vindication when I found out how many hair metal bands were full of kiddie creepers to match the lyrics of their songs.
bro i never left, i still listen to Lo Boob Oscillator and pester people with comments about how brilliant its krautrock-influenced motorik interlude is, i never even watched high fidelity
I unironically do not believe bad music exists. There are genres we subjectively find annoying or distasteful but there is absolutely no such thing as objectively bad music/low quality music.
I mean, music that is soulless and obviously low-effort in its production exists, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to it being bad.
The music people hate the most is what played when they worked retail.
Oh this post is giving me flashbacks. To restaurants instead of retail but
If the stomp clap hey genre didn’t exist, I’d be completely agree.
I was tempted to say something like this but I thought it’d take away from my point
i think you’re right, and its a great post. 
i just have to hate on this musicI think making a joke about it is a lot less weird than the tendency to say a specific genre is “bad” without any trace of irony. When it’s joked about, it draws attention to how absurd the idea of objectively judging music is- while also giving you the ability to express your distaste for a specific genre at the same time.
Like being “racist” towards white people, it subverts the norm in a way that seems to conform to it at first.
And, to be clear, I have never heard this genre of music and don’t plan to after this thread.
I listened to the examples discussed in this thread and I’m like… it’s fine? I guess they’re kinda hipstery but it’s fine what’s the big deal.
To each there own comrade
The only music I can’t stomach is the white nationalist sort of country music, the stuff all about beer, god, driving a truck. Bleh. It’s so cloying and clearly made by middle class suburban ghouls pretending to be rural country people. I include that Oliver Anthony idiot here, and Jason Aldean. The worst culprit is Luke Bryan. Just propagandists working for coordinated fascists, all of them.
I gotta ask what you think of musicians who make music that’s intentionally supposed to be bad. Like Lou Reed possibly made Metal Machine Music as an insult to his record company. Bob Dylan made the album “Self Portrait” bad on purpose as well. My personal favorite is Hanatarash, who made music so inaccessible their performances were actually dangerous. They’d include construction equipment like jackhammers in their music, and one time they had to be stopped from throwing a lit molotov cocktail on stage. They eventually got banned from every venue in Japan for insurance reasons.
Then there’s Hello Kitty Suicide Club which is on a different level
Sometimes, music that’s made to be “intentionally bad” ends up having people who like it anyways. Like the one dude on TikTok who tried to make an “objectively bad song” but accidentally made kickass breakcore
I’d bet that people who intentionally make bad music end up making music that sucks according to the people that like the genre they’re making, not music that’s universally bad
Everyone’s corny wedding pictures for over a decade now.
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:yea
I liked bon iver.
I just hated the fansbon iver is sick and i don’t think there’s really much of an overlap between his music and what is being attacked here (other than drawing on some generic folk tropes or whatever).
You’re right, Bon Iver is bad in different ways.
What wrong with his fans? I love a lot of his music, but I can’t say that I’ve ever read comments on a video of his or follow him on any sort of social media
I’ve just been to some liveshows of his that were ruined by the fans. You don’t have to clap after every chord!
Grouplove is another shitty rich kid band from this era that im glad is no longer relevant
Literally their genesis was WE MET ON A GREEK ISLAND AND DECIDED TO FORM A ROCK BAND AND IT SOMEHOW WORKED OUT
I’d rather rich kids make music than actively become ghouls
Id rather they die
I’ve been looking up the various bands people are hating on in this thread and so when I looked up yours I checked out this song called Ways to Go and it seems to be like weirdly Kim Jong Un coded. Like if Kim Jong Un were a child who one day woke up and was really chill and wore Hawaiian shirts. It’s very weird. I just had to remark because of that video being so bizarrely themed. Their songs were unremarkable.
styles are always overrated in their prime, despised immediately after their prime, and then longed for wistfully 2+ decades later. pattern-noticer gang is weary and opening their bibles to ecclesiastes.
[loud sigh ] I was into Ecclesiastes before it was cool.
vanity of vanities…
It was a pseudo-revival of mid-century folk music. It didn’t last because much of it didn’t have genuine proletarian roots like real folk music. It mimicked the aesthetic and sounds of folk music but none of the content. It never will when it’s just wealthy urbanites cosplaying as poor country bumpkins.
Folk music and related genres (like soul and country and blues) have all suffered for the same reason. Their class character is fake and purely aesthetic today. At least, for the super mainstream bands that make it on the Starbucks Spotify playlist.
There was a megathread a while back about Woody Guthrie. His music lasted because it captured a genuine aspect of working class America in a way that stomp clap hey never can. This Land Is Your Land was a political song. We don’t do that enough anymore, in the name of mass appeal and profit and merchandising. Even Bill Withers, who was merely center-left as far as I know, made music that mattered with lyrics opposing racism and war.
It mimicked the aesthetic and sounds of folk music but none of the content.
The whole hipster subculture was a grotesque imitation of working class americana, is it a coincidence that it emerged shortly after the subprime mortgage crisis? no it isn’t, shopping from goodwill became popular out of necessity and then the aesthetics of thrifting emerged as a response because rich people felt alienated from the moment (the moment being the 2008 financial crisis). the saddest thing are fascists today trying to co-opt hipster aesthetics, a coarse imitation of an imitation that only vaguely retains its working class signifiers. a trend so passé that even having hipsters as the butt of the joke feels completely out-of-touch.
Good post
the saddest thing are fascists today trying to co-opt hipster aesthetics,
Like Matt Walsh and that Vice guy
this is a good insight! Thanks
based and material analysis pilled
Death to America
This pattern occurs with leftist/populist expression all the time. It’s heard by many for what it is, but for others it’s merely a catchy tune or a nice painting. I’ve mentioned the Surrealist art movement a few times here, but that’s another example. Salvador Dalí is ostensibly the face of the movement in the average person’s mind, but the Surrealists and he didn’t get along; he ultimately rejected their political message, believing that he could drop the political baggage and just focus on the abstract aesthetics of the movement. While I wouldn’t say his work was necessarily bad (he still applied his paranoiac critical method inspired by Freud) it didn’t have the same significance as Surrealists imo.
Dalí only dropped the leftist politics. He was at least a fascist sympathiser and painted hitler a couple of times. The whole ‘apolitical’ thing was on a spectrum of politically unaware liberalism to cryptofascism to overt fascism in denial.
Yeah well that goes without saying. Apoliticism is fascism, everyone knows that.
Damn all of history really is the history of class struggle or something like that
What’s your opinion on folk metal?
A class analysis of the broader metal genre would be really interesting and I don’t think I know enough to answer. I have some hypotheses and hot takes but nothing concrete.
I think metal in general evokes power and importance. Some have interpreted this to mean metal serves to reinforce masculine ideology and hetero norms, which may be true for certain artists. In recent decades though, metal fans have a more even gender split. One could make a contrary argument that metal serves to empower a powerless individual, whether they feel that way due to their class or personal issues like bullying or abuse.
Metal commonly includes themes of fantasy. Is this a form of escapism for an audience that doesn’t want to cope with the material world? Some subgenres focus quite heavily on worldbuilding. I notice that frequently these worlds involve overt evils to fight or evade… is that a reaction to the obscure and abstract exploitation of capitalism? Sometimes these worlds are plainly reminiscent of past times, precapitalist societies with simple social relations. Perhaps these would be the reactionary artists, the ones who want to go back instead of progress forward on a material basis.
I think most novel genres are originally created by and for the working class, but heavy metal has the material constraint that it requires heavily distorted electric guitar, so its history tightly tracks the history of our ability to produce guitar amplifiers, and how affordable they are in various areas of the world at a given time. The bedroom studio revolution is directly responsible for djent among many other subgenres, and the big names in n the first generation of that group are mostly people of color, although their class character is more muddled.
I’d super love someone more knowledgeable about heavy guitar music in the periphery to share some analysis of that.
Fwiw, and I could be wrong about this, I’ve heard the origins of the heavily distorted sound comes from bands having to overvolt smaller amplifiers to try to match the sound of the PA systems some bigger bands were traveling with in the age before a venue could be counted on to have a decent PA system to plug into.
I’ve heard that before. I think there was a long period of experimentation that basically involved breaking amplifiers to see how they sounded as well. Slashing the cones, rubbing dirt on them, etc.
That’s so cool.
it’s kind of a good sign that booj have to pretend to be proles to seem cool, even if in the process they entirely hollow out genres and render them fake.
spoiler
it means they're scared
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I used to/still do listen to a lot of folk and folk punk, and people would always be “oh you would like this band!” and it was always this, to quote Futurama, “Vaguely folkish alterna-rock”. I never wanted to be mean and be like “look just because there’s a banjo doesn’t mean I would like it”. but it was always really frustrating.
You would like Bloodywood. They’re an Indian folk metal band that started out doing metal covers of pop and bollywood songs, but now they’re making original music and it’s lefty AF. Their most popular song is called Gaddar, which means Traitor, and it’s about politicians who use religion to stoke hate.
Bloodywood are based af.
My friend who suggested them to me is a bit of a brocore enjoyer so I was skeptical but they are cool and I’m glad Bloodywood are a thing.
This was the one I got shown: https://youtu.be/Gsy5sJy5_34?si=vL3LJ0CXRhTm3B2U
Also one of their tours was called Raj Against The Machine and that’s brilliant
🥹 magnificent
Become the generation that breaks the camel’s back!
Bloodywood Not a huge fan but I know some people who might like it so I’m going to pass it on.
It was good, I just wont find myself listening to it.
Yes, Mumford & Sons does not a This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb make, or whatever
AHHHHH A WILD THIS BIKE REFERENCE!
I totally forgot about them til scrolling yhrough this post. Mouseteeth is such a banger
I think this genre bugged me more than any other bad genre because I really liked the previous era of indie rock - early Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Wolf Parade, Neutral Milk Hotel, Animal Collective, The Unicorns, Stars, Final Fantasy/Owen Pallett, The Microphones, ahhh, I’m getting powerful nostalgia just listing them out. Not that all these bands sounded similar to each other, but there was this weirdo/folko/p4k-zone that they all occupied that I found really moving and relatable, I think cause most of the people making it were depressed and anxious or otherwise mentally ill like me.
When all this stomp/clap “indie” bullshit started it felt like they took music I love, stripped everything interesting from it, and gave it to the rich kids with no problems that were often CAUSING me mental illness. It felt like some cruel ironic punishment from Greek mythos.
I feel the exact same. I loved most of those names you listed, and my poor Sufjan banjo brain was not ready for the onslaught of assembly line indie that came barreling in after them.
Some of those original indie darlings are goddamn weird people, and they brought all their quirks into their music. There’s a very messy personal artistry you get with bands like The Microphones or Neutral Milk Hotel that is completely polished away in the generation of indie bands that exploded in the early 10’s.
I’m glad some of the earlier scene is alive still though. I saw Owen live this year and I can tell you he is still fucking killing it.
Same. I’ve always thought of frightened rabbit in particular as more of a touchstone than they get credit for. A lot of their earlier stuff sounds like the groundwork for this fake ass bullshit that came after. Shame, because they were actually really good.
Nana Grizol inherited the NMH brass section, and they really are the most precious band in existence and I will buy every shirt sticker and button they ever put out.
Wait, is it the same musicians?
Just the horns players but yeah.
Holy shit I love Stars they’re still one of my most listened bands, and if you don’t count listening to Hybrid Theory on repeat when I was 12, In Our Bedroom After the War is probably my most repeated album of all time.
why were people listening to bands that had law firm names
Or old carpentry shops/butchers/grocers lol
Mumford and Sons WILL be a shop somewhere I just don’t know where.
Funeral home, mens formal wear, or local moving company all work too
Small agricultural/car mechanic shops where i’m at
Correct!!
there is a fucking thing called “the dead south” and they are like my curse . Youtube does not stop recomending me theeir fucking Song to me …
they walk a Railwaytrack and are all dressed in this 20’s folksy clap step way … and its probably hunting me since this shit was In ,…they mus be the Most Nepo of Nepo … real bad vibes musi
Keep it dead
Things that should be dead:
The South
Evil
Presidents
Kennedys
Great addition!
A couple years ago I got hit with the same campaign. Idk what changed about my online presence but for a few months I heard that song several times a day and then one day it just stopped. I’m sorry to have passed the cursed AdSense profile on to you but I’m not sorry to be rid of it.
It has also stopped mostly sometimes it still pops up but its power has diminshed … I have since then acended to a new “Fuck anglo Music in general” status so i dont know if i killed it by this nuke option , but like a unforgiving master, i have teached my algorithm.
Thanks for the links, I love these!
i like that one mumford and sons song that is about dementia or something. but thats because i was a child when it came out and this entire era of music holds some nostalgia for me.
i just had a look through my nostalgia playlist and not a lot of these songs are actually good. bastille might suck ass but they were my favourite band when i only knew five bands
That obnoxious hair-beard combo survived for longer.
The solution is obviously to go bald, so you can’t have that hairstyle at all
I absolutely hate the buzzed on the sides and longer on top fad.
It looks ridiculous the way the fedora and trenchcoat and cargo shorts thing did yet this time around it’s more socially acceptable so it’s fucking everywhere and practically standard issue for Proud Boy fascists, too.
imagine dragons survived and it’s doing worse shit than that
They’re on the Starfield soundtrack lol
this made me audibly laugh and beg “no, no, no”. thats so fucking funny jesus christ
:(
And why is their lead singer always so angry?
He’s Mormon
ah, the religious wing of the
One of my friends still really likes this music
Mumford and sons, lumineers, x ambassadors, that type of garbage
So I guess there’s a market for it somewhere
does clap your hands say yeah fit under this category?
I only know the name of that band because I have Satan said dance likes on Spotify. So I do not know
I don’t think so. They can be kind of folksy but clap your hands say yeah are distinctly different, weird, and interesting in a way Lumineers and Mumford are not.
I like some of it in a “nostalgic shit music i used to like when i didn’t have much of an identity”, so yeah.
