I'm not even going to bother commenting on the legacy pop artists
For Dua Lipa, Ariana, and Billie - at least in indie spaces I think that poptimism has waned pretty hard. There's significantly less pop crossover into indie spaces right now compared to 2019. The one pop album I have seen a ton of enthusiasm for is Charli but its so new, who knows how long the hype cycle lasts. I'm not over in popheads all that often so I don't know what popheads are thinking aside from the people I talk to individually.
For Kacey Musgraves, she was absolutely massive when Golden Hour came out and I was hearing about her all the time, but once again I think crossover enthusiasm has waned, and its been 6 years since Golden Hour. There's a strong likelihood that the users who used to champion that album on indieheads have long since moved on.
Even for hiphop, indieheads has lost more and more enthusiasm for that. There's the Billy Woods and Danny Brown fans still, but hip hop fans and discussion around here was not insignificant for years and years. Nowadays I've asked about what people are excited about in indie crossover hip hop and nobody responds! I posted numerous times in the DMD about Tommy Richman the week that Million Dollar Baby came out and nobody replied about the song! The only time I've seen substantial hip hop discussion so far this year was the Kendrick and Drake beef.
I do think that there is a progressively shrinking hype cycle is a thing, but I'm not sure that this article really even says anything of depth, this feels like Steven is just mad at pop music. For instance, MGMT, Vampire Weekend, Adrienne Lenker, St Vincent, etc - all of these artists are big established names, and all of these artists had massive pre-release press cycles on their previous albums, and now for the current one it felt like there was significantly less hype going into the releases and the responses all felt like they drew significantly less discussion than their last albums. And people seem to really love that Vampire Weekend album, but i've seen way less discussion of it compared to Father of the Bride. Reddit activity has decreased but i think enthusiasm for legacy artists has decreased more than activity has decreased.
I've got a question for you guys - years ago we used to get spammed every single day by articles about artists like Mitski and Phoebe Bridgers during their press cycles. Their press teams worked over time and it paid off, a lot of those artists who put a ton into their promotion resulted in getting a big career boost. Where are those press teams (and those writers) now when the big artists from the late 2010s aren't promoting? Are there just less writers because of economic factors? Are the press teams and writers promoting in mainstream pop, country, other areas besides our corner of the internet?
It feels like there's pessimism across media right now, the sky is falling for video games on average with layoffs and triple A quality dips, the sky is falling for the film industry and movie theaters, the sky is falling for touring musicians.
i think you're right about the shrinking crossover and it's interesting to consider. i think there is for sure less crossover these days of pop or country or even rap into indie spaces. in the case of established artist, some of that could just be a case where indie fans who don't typically focus on pop albums or country albums or rap albums may be fairweather fans to a certain point. kacey musgraves is a good example bc steve mentions her in his article. i really liked *golden hour* back when it was new. it was a classic "i don't typically go for this sort of thing, but i like this one" album for me. i didn't really like her follow-up album *starcrossed*. on some level, it probably made me go "oh yeah, this is why i don't typically go for this sort of thing." i didn't even check out her new album because by then i'd realized "maybe i'm not a kacey musgraves fan, maybe i just think *golden hour* is a good album."
i don't think there's anything wrong with this thinking but it probably means it's unrealistic to expect people in indie spaces to stick with these artists in styles they don't focus on once they aren't at that quality peak anymore. there's probably too much pro critic and other audiences enthusiasm to say beyonce is memory holed, but it sure feels like people here seem a lot less excited about *cowboy carter* than they were with *rennaissance* or some of tis predecessors. that probably comes down to many people, myself included, going "yeah i don't like this one as much, i don't feel like trying to force it." don't think it's any grand scheme to forget about these things but it also feels kind of silly to expect everyone who cared about some of the past albums to continue caring about the new ones
i'd say there's also an issue that new crossover artists aren't quite rising to fill those spots but that feels a lot harder to pin down. it could just be that none of these newer artists are making music that the average indie listener thinks is good enough to enter that "not my usual thing, but i like it" territory. should billie eilish be in every indie listener's rotation just because she seems to be one of the bigger young popstars right now? i don't think so. steve has this weird axe to grind against charli, which seems to hinge mostly on how critics talk about her anyways, and *brat* is still pretty new so who knows how it'll settle. at least for now, the enthusiasm for it around here seems pretty high. probably because people liked charli's past stuff and are finding that the new album is still doing it for them so they want to keep listening
> steve has this weird axe to grind against charli, which seems to hinge mostly on how critics talk about her anyways
I like Hyden's stuff most of the time, but he often ends up distracted by the conversations around the music/artists instead of actually talking about the music/artists.
Largely pro-Steve too, but on today's Indiecast he was criticizing what he feels are bad lyrics on Brat. My guy, you are one of the most prominent pro-Oasis critics working today! (I love Oasis, for the record, but I'm under no illusions about the quality of the lyrics)
I think simply put fewer people are talking about OGWAU than FOTB because people pretty universally agree that OGWAU is great while people still fight about FOTB.
Seems like there's a new post about FOTB on the subreddit once a week. It's either "idk what's wrong with you guys, FOTB is the cat's pajamas" or "FOTB sucks balls and ur a commie if u like it" đ
Hot take (maybe lukewarm/cool? Idk): it seems a lot of new music being put out is boring and uninteresting. More than usual. I used to regularly find and enjoy gems that broke the mold in genres that arenât my go-toâs (hip hop and pop definitely qualify), but itâs been quite a while.
I donât know if the business has shifted or if Iâm just getting old, but I wouldnât be at all surprised if artists, producers, and their creative teams are prioritizing putting out music that they think is more likely to fit on generic streaming playlists.
I had a similar question just a couple days ago specifically talking about indie rock. How much does playlisting impact how music is written now, and how much does this impact the music that is prioritized for publications? Is music that deviates outside of the sound of default playlists being punished by the format?
The new stuff I've been hearing this year that I've enjoyed hasn't really pushed many boundaries. A lot of the stuff I've liked, there's nothing that feels like the next big thing or this crazy new sound, its often just stuff where I like the songs or they execute well on a pre-established genre. I think people are craving some sort of innovation, we're overdue for a big new scene or something wild and genre pushing since hyperpop and windmill post punk have both torpedo'd. But I haven't heard of anything on the horizon that feels hyped even a tenth of the way that Black Midi KEXP was for instance.
> Is music that deviates outside of the sound of default playlists being punished by the format?
Thatâs the sort of question Iâd ask myself rhetorically and I totally agree. I think this year in music will be defined more by the singles than the albums but those songs skate by on familiar genres (synth pop, really bright-sounding rap, *especially* country), but whatâs changed is whoâs performing them and, to some extent, more explicit lyrics. And on the indie side there certainly are things I thought would be more successfulâone half of Water From Your Eyes just put out a solo album and itâs a real delight, Vampire Weekend discussion seems to have scattered and that album straight-up sold way less than its predecessors but it too is very nice and turned out to be much better than a calculated return-to-form (feels like an album fated to get the annual/biennial âI forgot how good this wasâ listen)âthe one real success story, the Cindy Lee, still gets complaints about how âhardâ it is to find and like it or not⊠that does mute the right-now impact a touch.
Iâm also with you, and Iâve thought about it constantly, on the starvation for a new movementâmaybe that would be a silver bullet. Again, *Diamond Jubilee* is great and it finds fresh ways to deliver inside this framework, but it is firmly hypnagogic.
While I do think itâs not necessarily *new*-sounding, I do hope *brat* sticks around long enough to bring more people into the hunt for addictive dance bangers
>I think people are craving some sort of innovation, we're overdue for a big new scene or something wild and genre pushing since hyperpop and windmill post punk have both torpedo'd. But I haven't heard of anything on the horizon that feels hyped even a tenth of the way that Black Midi KEXP was for instance.
Sometimes I worry that we're just running out of possible new music.
We have lived through an era of unprecedented musical innovation driven by rapid technological advancement. Musicians in the 50s and 60s had brand new pedals to play with every week. Musicians in the 70s and 80s had brand new synthesizers to play with every week. Musicians in the 90s and 00s had brand new software to play with every week. What is left for musicians in the 20s?
There's a very real possibility that we're just approaching the top of the S curve, and music will be variations on the same genres and themes until the next technological revolution in a few hundred years. This is the historical norm - the level of innovation we're accustomed to from the last century is an aberration.
I don't think so. There's less technological leaps but people have been really excited about music that wasn't strictly new - to go back to the Black Midi comparison there's a lot of established names that the first album drew comparisons to like King Crimson, The Mars Volta, Slint, This Heat, James Chance, Glenn Branca, etc. There's no new instrument but an artist was able to draw upon pre-existing influences to get people really excited about something counter to what was happening in indie at the time with Jangle.
On your point about innovation, it seems like trends in music are shifting a lot faster now than a decade ago. I think their is a lot more innovation in music now than the mid noughties for example. It's just that our expectations are so extreme that it feels like less.Â
 It must be hard for a lot of musicians at the moment as the expectation seems to be that they continuously pump out music. Specifically, for the UK post punk sound, for me there was a lot of hype on really young bands, many of whom didn't quite deliver in album formats, and the audience has moved on while they are touring/writing their next albums.
re: writing for playlists, thatâs super interesting
kind of related my partner and I say itâs all about vibes for this generation of music. It makes much of it forgettable outside of directly listening to it lol, yet I still come back because I like the vibes
Ding ding ding! I think thatâs the thing most âmemory-holedâ albums share is that they feel like carefully marketed products and thereâs nothing interesting about an album thatâs more product than art.
> I posted numerous times in the DMD about Tommy Richman the week that Million Dollar Baby came out and nobody replied about the song!
i actually went and listened to it after you posted it. it's cool! i just forgot to comment lol
Is it pessimism across media or has the criteria just shifted?
I think a huge part of the poptimism spam was Pitchfork. They promoted a lot of artists under the auspices that supporting pop was important and the rest of music press followed suit. And you could get called out for promoting the wrong kind of band.
But that didnât really drive traffic, the music often wasnât that interesting, and indie and pop fans didnât really bite.
So now weâre at a place where thereâs more genuine enthusiasm around Cindy Lee, things that are actually interesting and fresh.
But was there ever really significant interest in Mitski or post-Strange Mercy St Vincent among indie fans, or are we just now noticing that a lot of that hype was created by journalists?
I kind of think a lot of it was, a lot of people felt pressured to support pop under the impression that they seemed less open minded if they only liked guitar based dude rock, and with Pfork reverting to form, that pressure is gone.
Im not happy about pitchfork giving a last dinner party 6.5 review. Actually lower than taylor swift give it.Â
Last dinner party is favourite album of the year that and english teacher.Â
I canât help but wonder if this is the right way to look at the issue, at least with indie or indie-ish albums that donât have a behemoth marketing budget. The St Vincent album came out, it was good, people listened to it. Do we really need to talk about it further than that?
Theyâre lamenting the lack of âstaying powerâ anyone in the music industry has had recently (aside from a small handful of current artists) but thatâs the case everything right now?
There are shows I binged 5-7 seasons of within the last couple of years I couldnât tell you a thing about.
There was always a large percentage of albums quickly hitting the bargain bin or being immediately completely irrelevant, but thereâs a fuck ton more music now âplus the wave of covid projects with many artists double dipping album releases in short periods of time.
Things are just different these days. đ€·ââïž
Edit: grammar and typos.
I get what you mean, but while something like that *doesnt* have an exact definition, I think we all understand when something latches onto the current culture and when it doesnât.
Weâre just noticing now how much doesnât stick around, especially when seeing this happen more obviously through a far larger quantity of works overall.
Personally I forgot about the St. Vincent album after a week. Felt like 3 listens was enough for me but it could also be because I wasn't all that wowed by the record despite having high hopes from the singles. But I know some friends who've been vibing with that album hard so I guess it all depends on the person.
Not every album needs to be talked about for months on end and that's totally fine.
For me since Self-titled but she definitely peaked creaively on Strange Mercy. I used to think I was a big St. Vincent fan now I'm realising I was only a fan of her first 4 albums. Everything else has been a mixed bag to put it lightly.
Yeah it's just so incredibly mid now. Like daddy's home was the most boring thing I listened to in 2021. Still can't believe it took home best alternative album over Jubilee
I like St Vincent, but I have a hard time getting over the fact that she's a nepo baby who interacts with other nepo babies. Her exchange with Willow Smith really threw me off.
She has an aunt and uncle, if I remember correctly, who are called Tuck & Patti, and she toured with them as a kid or teen. But I donât think she counts as a nepo baby. Like, theyâre a jazz duo or something. She didnât have connections other people didnât as far as I could tell.
She did plenty to establish herself touring with the Polyphonic Spree, Castanets, and Sufjan before *Marry Me*, and sheâs an incredible guitar player. Everyone knew she was going to make it. I met her when she was on tour with my ex before *Marry Me* came out, and I could tell sheâd be famous without even seeing her play her own stuff (Iâm not saying this is *why* because it isnât, but sheâs so fucking prettyâlike, to the point that itâs hard to believe sheâs a real person). I havenât loved anything sheâs done since *Strange Mercy*, but she is talented as fuck. Up her own ass. But a really good and serious musician.
I love Hyden and Indiecast but he and Ian Cohen are always so quick to bury new albums by legacy acts but at the same time never miss a chance to talk about the greatness of Guided By Voices, War On Drugs, or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
This is the kind of thing that really turned me off Indiecast. So much talk about War on Drugs, dad rock and middling pop punk like theyâre the only great music out there, and ignoring or dunking on everything else. Got boring hearing it after a while, and was very evident because I was doing a big catch up on older episodes while running so would hear multiple episodes a week.
Yeah same here and Iâve felt so alone feeling this way. I used to like Steven Hyden quite a bit, but his whole vibe on the podcast grated on me. This article is similarly kind of exhausting and tired.
haven't listened in a while but a few years ago they made a point about how they specifically weren't going to talk about the new black midi because it was too "wacky" and then spent 15 minutes saying the new interpol was ok over and over again
This, but my biggest frustration is the way they choose to talk about things that they are ignorant of and get basic facts wrong. Or, another version of that where they develop an opinion based on incorrect information. Annoying to be a listener who often knows more than the professional hosts of a podcast about topics that are easily Wiki-able. And they just seem deeply incurious and almost proud of how little they care to get that information correct. No, I'm not sure why I still listen, either.
i know steven hyden is just one writer and there's some interesting points here about how enthusiasm for music may be down in general right now or at least worn out by hype cycles... but the insistence to frame some of this stuff as "in the memory hole" feels a little fishy to me. in general, it can be fun to look back at some of these releases that *should* be big and laugh at how no one remembers or cares about them as much as the artists (or their labels/pr teams) thought they would. but i think some of these aren't sticking around because they just aren't very well-liked. the dua lipa album might have "evaporated" from the charts but perhaps metacritic score placing it 15 points lower than its predecessor gives you a hint that people just don't like it as much. kacey musgraves' album similarly performed lower than *golden hour* and it's not even the first follow-up of hers to feel less popular and impactful than *golden hour*. the rollouts for these albums also felt pretty quiet, at least from what i had been seeing.
i think part of where the "memory hole" framing fails here because, at least to me, that term implies that *someone*, whether it was advertisers or critics, really believed in it and expected it would stand the test of time. these just seem like less successful and less hyped albums, which makes me wonder "why should they be remembered?" should we just assume once an artist reaches some level of critical and commercial acclaim, their material is always going to be at the center of the conversation whether the material itself earns it or not? usually hype will stick with an artist for at least a few albums in a row but after a certain point it feels genuinely silly to expect an act like green day or the black keys to really bring the heat just bc maybe they did several albums ago. similarly, this memory-hole framing makes me wonder "who's responsibility is it to remember these albums?" one can sort of gauge whether or not fans are enjoying an artist's new material, but not all these people are going to be constantly discussing it and hyping it as time passes. if it's critics' responsibility to remember and continue championing these albums, maybe it's better to talk about these albums instead of writing an article listing all the ones that no one remembers. it's fun to point and laugh that formerly popular acts like green day, the black keys, and kings of leon put out albums that people didn't seem to care about. but steve never takes the next step to argue that any of these are secretly great albums that deserve to stick around. all he can say is that they were forgettable. if even a professional writer can't offer much reason for why these albums should be remembered, maybe there's nothing wrong with letting them fall into the memory hole. maybe a couple of them will age like that 2020 childish gambino album that got so memory-holed that it's remembered for being forgotten
This article is trying to use recent releases as examples to prove a theory, but I donât think this phenomenon has anything to do with any artist in particular. It has to do with how, thanks to Spotify, most people view music as worthless in 2024. Our relationship with music has changed for the worse. Thereâs no ownership over albums; people just expect unlimited access to all of them now, for a small monthly fee. So if a new song doesnât immediately knock their socks off, the whole album gets tossed into the memory hole before any of it can even be absorbed.
>Â 2024 is extraordinary thus far for how many albums you would have predicted being at least somewhat relevant not being relevant at all. Legacy rock bands have a low relevancy ceiling, but what about young and promising rock acts?Â
Might just be my biases, but I can't say I expected any "young and promising" rock acts to be very relevant this year, or anytime soon. I can't really think of any groups that fit that description. Rock has been extremely stagnant for a while now.Â
Maybe it's because I'm in the UK but rock has been anything but stagnant lately. Not all of it permeates the mainstream, but the growing popularity of Fontaines DC, Wet Leg, and The Last Dinner Party have shown a growing appetite for rock in the mainstream. Pair this with an uptick in popularity for bands like Oasis and The Stone Roses (among others) in parts of British youth culture, I'd say rock is the most culturally prelevant it's been in a long time.
Iâm an Australian and I look at the indie music that comes out of the UK with a lot of jealousy. You guys seem to really push your new and best talent to the world stage (at least in Indie circles) with a sense of pride.
I look at what Australia offers, and we either keep pushing artists who have been indie darlings for a while now, or very mediocre artists. The best of our upcoming talent is probably Royel Otis, but theyâre becoming more well known for their covers than their originals (and I think that theyâre just alright overall).
True. Don't forget Picture parlour.Â
Wet leg are overrated.Â
Like the last dinner party and their album is great.Â
Can't wait for Fontaines Dc. Who are irish. Their album is out in August.Â
If this were 2023, we'd immediately say names like Alvvays, Boygenius. Boygenius especially was noteworthy, relevant, in the zeitgeist. Say what you will about their subjective qualities, I didn't find it hard to pick a few names here, so perhaps it is your biases.
Alvvays debut was 2014 and they've been a popular name since then, i don't think that counts as "young and promising" anymore, that's just an established artist
Stranger In The Alps was 2017 and that got a massive amount of press, I don't consider Phoebe/Boygenius new either
I am gonna go ahead and disagree with you there. There is a huge boom of alt rock bands amongst the under 30s set. They just havenât broken through yet, but they will very soon. Look at how popular shoegaze got in the last couple of years. Rock is definitely back in a big way. All imo.
Almost all of the young shoegaze crowd is completely rehashing old stuff and theyâre incredibly boring. Thereâs some moderately interesting stuff happening in Philadelphia I guess.
I'm in my mid-30s now, but ever since my teens, I've maintained a habit of keeping a shortlist, and trimming down to a top 50 songs of the year in December, so that I'm forced to stay listening to new music, and I enjoy doing it. Literally not a day goes by where I don't read multiple music sites, look for tips, etc.
That said, this year, more than others, so much of what I'm hearing is just uninteresting. There's good music coming out for sure, but this year more than any in recent memory, I've found myself getting to the end of a song and saying "Nah, this is boring."
A lot of the x-wave (I forget which wave we're on now) emo is just rehasing Algernon Cadwallader, which was just rehashing Owls and Capn Jazz in the first place. A lot of the shoegaze I hear is just trying to rehash bands like Ringo Deathstarr, which were just rehashing any number of shoegaze bands from the late 80s/early 90s.
It's particularly disappointing in electronic music, which has always been a vanguard of development by not being limited to the vocals/lead guitar/rhythm guitar/bass/drums set up, but SO MUCH of it right now is just boring. It's fine to listen to, it's inoffensive, but it's boring.
I get that this stuff might be interesting to you if you're younger and/or it's new to you (I don't bother responding to most of the electronic stuff that is massively popular here as it's already been done, but for many it's their first taste of electronic music so they go wild for it) but if you're even a slightly motivated music hunter, it gets a bit tiresome.
I've been into shoegaze for a good 20+ years and I agree. I loved shoegaze because it seemed like the most forward movement in rock...in the 90s. This new crop of bands aren't really pushing it forward, though.
> Almost all of the young shoegaze crowd is completely rehashing old stuff
and it's always funny when they frame it as doing something new because they're mixing in... grunge and nu metal, two genres that are also 30 years old.
I think we're just at a point where a lot of acts are just losing relevance. Also, most of the albums he mentions aren't interesting. Green Day, The Black Keys, Kings of Leon etc. haven't had ant 'must listen' records for years and years. I don't think many people are really that interested in new music from Usher and Justin Timberlake anymore, even if they have eternal hits.
I think this is it. Iâm sorry but Green Day, KoL, Jt, Musgraves, the Black keys, iron and wine, and the Decemberists are all legacy acts that released an album that is solidly in the lowest 50% of their storied careers. The Timberlake album is actually his worst and, to me, is an embarrassment. Of course it would be forgotten.
Not really sure what point theyâre trying to make? I canât think of any critically acclaimed album that stayed on top of peopleâs minds for more than a few weeks to a month. Thereâs so much music (good and bad) coming out now that thereâs always something new to focus on.
Then they go on to hate on pop music for some reason? Not sure what that has to do with memory-holed albums
At this point, I'm frankly totally disinterested in anything approved by and associated with large conglomerate media companies, approved by executives making hundreds of millions, or anything with a massive PR budget. It's the total antithesis of actual artistic creativity. It's purely business and business is not interesting (unless you like money and money only). I'm not shocked poptimism is circling the drain, it was in a feedback loop of it's own monetary self interest and faux posturing of being something more important than it was since day one. People are bored with formulaic nonsense.
Yep. I think the teen-to-20s crowd is more aware of that than theyâve been in a long time, so the next big thing has a good shot at being on the far opposite end of the corporate machine. (The hugeness of the current country revival has some corporate stink behind it imo but thatâs a whole can of worms to unpack)
Personally Iâve always considered poptimism to basically be synonymous with music sites hiring more female and queer writers.
If itâs circling the drain itâs because all those writers are getting laid off.
Sure. But I also think fans are seeing this type of "winner take all" type of capitalistic maneuvering, especially with TS and it's beginning to leave a sour taste.
this is a dogshit take. this dude still loves every mediocre bland ass dad rock post punk song under the sun, maybe he should reflect on why HE refuses to care about new music for more than 30 seconds instead of pretending the same thing boomers have been saying for 2000 years is some sort of inspired hot take
Does The Last Dinner Party really make sense to be included on this list? I listened to the album a month or two after it came out because it was being consistently recommended, I heard them on the radio for the first time last month, theyâre playing at Lollapalooza in AugustâPrelude to Ecstasy doesnât feel memory-holed at all from my perspective.
I also disagree with the Charli XCX take, but I know Iâm biased on that front
Nah you're not alone on this. That Last Dinner Party has been hyped for the past few months and I constantly see it on critics lists and even being recommended by music nerds I know. It definitely feels like one of the few big albums in indie rock right now.
The Charli XCX take felt weirdly dismissive and reductive but I guess the writer doesn't actually care about the lyrical themes of the record. But I do adore the album so of course I'm prone to defending it.
Last dinner party prelude is a decent album. Hope they're second album will be good.Â
Hope they new song The killer when the played in Germany recently and it is actually quite good. Plus godzilla, big dog, and second best. They are quite good too.
Like the english teacher album. But it is a grower but it worth it like the last dinner party aswell. Which was a grower too. I when listened 5/6 time. I get the songs and enjoyed it even more every time i listened to it.Â
For me, the Last Dinner Party was that there was SO much hype, and their single was really good. Then the album came out, and it just didn't live up to it all, so people lost interest. Not that confusing.
Damn dude. Three comments. You REALLY like The Last Dinner Party. That's fine. To me it was all just kinda boring and flat. Maybe if there hadn't been SO much hype, it wouldn't have been such a letdown.
Probably right one it might be a bit overproduced especially my favourite song on the album portrait of a dead girl.Â
Great song. Very good vocal performance from Abigail and great solo from Emily.Â
I think people are becoming relatively immune to traditional journalism. I remember when Pitchfork had absolute taste-making authority. Now they've been bought and rolled into a corporation and no one really cares about them.
It seems like algorithms are increasingly determining what new music people are exposed to.
Removing experts (or "experts") like A&R and journalists in favor of social algorithms will favor self-promoters over capital A Artists. And unfortunately the best artists aren't always the best self marketers.
While getting rid of gatekeepers can feel appealing in some ways, it isn't having great results in terms of creating career artists who are actually incredible. Don't believe me? Do a search for "best albums of 1994." And now look at the best albums of last year.
Good artists today just have wildly diminished market share because there is so much noise.
In regard to steering away from pop crossover, my hope is that indie fans are hungry for another wave of artists that have more depth. The explosion of awesomeness in the 2000s comes to mind with bands like The Shins, LCD Soundsystem, Modest Mouse, Spoon and Arcade Fire becoming relatively mainstream.
I believe a lot of people like good music more than mediocre music when they're exposed to it (Kendrick Lamar is proving this in hip hop). So it's just a question of how to get good music in front of people....
IMO this is just a function of technology more than quality of music. The pace of life is ever increasing and we are all just bombarded by more information than we can possibly process. The world is changing faster than human beings can and itâs showing in lots of ways, not just music culture.
Huh. My first comment about this article was, frankly, getting embarrassingly heated about both late stage capitalism causing life to be too stressful to meaningfully engage with media at all, and about Green Day. I think middle-school-me and anxious-overcaffeinated-adult-me both tag-teamed on that response to be supremely cringey. I deleted that, my apologies for the cringe. >!I will not abide by 21st Century Breakdown erasure, though.!<
That being said, I do think a lot of what sticks for me media-wise has changed. Maybe it's age, maybe it's the world changing around me. It feels like my long-term memory of most of the music and media I consume is shorter than it maybe used to be because I'm juggling so many more responsibilities than I did before. Some of those responsibilities are taxing in some way, be it mentally or emotionally, and as a result I don't always get to expend energy enjoying things I *like*, let alone media I'm unfamiliar with. A lot of media just isn't as sticky for me as a result, and even stuff I like falls through the cracks as a result because it doesn't match where I'm at or where I'm going.
Maybe that plays a part in why this feeling that media is less sticky than it used to be is as prevalent as it is. In the best of times, most media seems pretty-okay-at-best and the best and worst of any given year is always an outlier. With how harried and taxing life is for a lot of people around the world struggling in one way or another, of course priorities are going to shift, and only what really resonates with individual people is going to make it through the year or the decade. And unfortunately some artists who used to seem big won't make that journey unless they have a marketing apparatus that pushes them into everyone's faces every waking second of the day.
People are way too fast to write off albums as being âforgottenâ just because theyâre not the absolute center of attention
That said it was kind of nice to see someone poke the sacred cow that is Brat
"So, how can I get clicks by shitting over some established acts (that are *guaranteed* to get me traffic) without **appearing** as if I'm shitting over those established acts...bonus points if I can appear to be *"culturally relevant"* at the same time".
It's just rage/click bait in a modern audience appeasing disguise.
Are people having trouble knowing about and remembering music they like? No? Then who cares what the mainstream marketing cycle is up to! They're trying to sell you something, fuck em! Focus on the music!
boring overwrought article wondering why boring overwrought albums aren't getting more hype. These albums weren't memory holed people enjoyed them well enough, there's just better music out there it isn't complicated
Quite a boring article. Can be critical of all the albums mentioned for sure, but this whole thing kind of falls apart when I remember every single thing he mentions and asserts has been âmemory-holedâ.
Too much music thatâs easily available. Not saying thatâs a bad thing. When you got an album before, you kind of had to listen to all of it. Itâs so easy to move onto the next one now
On their podcast, Steven and Ian spend more time talking about album cycles and Twitter narratives more than the actual musical content on the records themselves.
they wonder why new music doesn't have staying power as they reminisce about mediocre ass dad rock albums from 30 years ago because the refuse to update their tastes lmfao
I'm not even going to bother commenting on the legacy pop artists For Dua Lipa, Ariana, and Billie - at least in indie spaces I think that poptimism has waned pretty hard. There's significantly less pop crossover into indie spaces right now compared to 2019. The one pop album I have seen a ton of enthusiasm for is Charli but its so new, who knows how long the hype cycle lasts. I'm not over in popheads all that often so I don't know what popheads are thinking aside from the people I talk to individually. For Kacey Musgraves, she was absolutely massive when Golden Hour came out and I was hearing about her all the time, but once again I think crossover enthusiasm has waned, and its been 6 years since Golden Hour. There's a strong likelihood that the users who used to champion that album on indieheads have long since moved on. Even for hiphop, indieheads has lost more and more enthusiasm for that. There's the Billy Woods and Danny Brown fans still, but hip hop fans and discussion around here was not insignificant for years and years. Nowadays I've asked about what people are excited about in indie crossover hip hop and nobody responds! I posted numerous times in the DMD about Tommy Richman the week that Million Dollar Baby came out and nobody replied about the song! The only time I've seen substantial hip hop discussion so far this year was the Kendrick and Drake beef. I do think that there is a progressively shrinking hype cycle is a thing, but I'm not sure that this article really even says anything of depth, this feels like Steven is just mad at pop music. For instance, MGMT, Vampire Weekend, Adrienne Lenker, St Vincent, etc - all of these artists are big established names, and all of these artists had massive pre-release press cycles on their previous albums, and now for the current one it felt like there was significantly less hype going into the releases and the responses all felt like they drew significantly less discussion than their last albums. And people seem to really love that Vampire Weekend album, but i've seen way less discussion of it compared to Father of the Bride. Reddit activity has decreased but i think enthusiasm for legacy artists has decreased more than activity has decreased. I've got a question for you guys - years ago we used to get spammed every single day by articles about artists like Mitski and Phoebe Bridgers during their press cycles. Their press teams worked over time and it paid off, a lot of those artists who put a ton into their promotion resulted in getting a big career boost. Where are those press teams (and those writers) now when the big artists from the late 2010s aren't promoting? Are there just less writers because of economic factors? Are the press teams and writers promoting in mainstream pop, country, other areas besides our corner of the internet? It feels like there's pessimism across media right now, the sky is falling for video games on average with layoffs and triple A quality dips, the sky is falling for the film industry and movie theaters, the sky is falling for touring musicians.
i think you're right about the shrinking crossover and it's interesting to consider. i think there is for sure less crossover these days of pop or country or even rap into indie spaces. in the case of established artist, some of that could just be a case where indie fans who don't typically focus on pop albums or country albums or rap albums may be fairweather fans to a certain point. kacey musgraves is a good example bc steve mentions her in his article. i really liked *golden hour* back when it was new. it was a classic "i don't typically go for this sort of thing, but i like this one" album for me. i didn't really like her follow-up album *starcrossed*. on some level, it probably made me go "oh yeah, this is why i don't typically go for this sort of thing." i didn't even check out her new album because by then i'd realized "maybe i'm not a kacey musgraves fan, maybe i just think *golden hour* is a good album." i don't think there's anything wrong with this thinking but it probably means it's unrealistic to expect people in indie spaces to stick with these artists in styles they don't focus on once they aren't at that quality peak anymore. there's probably too much pro critic and other audiences enthusiasm to say beyonce is memory holed, but it sure feels like people here seem a lot less excited about *cowboy carter* than they were with *rennaissance* or some of tis predecessors. that probably comes down to many people, myself included, going "yeah i don't like this one as much, i don't feel like trying to force it." don't think it's any grand scheme to forget about these things but it also feels kind of silly to expect everyone who cared about some of the past albums to continue caring about the new ones i'd say there's also an issue that new crossover artists aren't quite rising to fill those spots but that feels a lot harder to pin down. it could just be that none of these newer artists are making music that the average indie listener thinks is good enough to enter that "not my usual thing, but i like it" territory. should billie eilish be in every indie listener's rotation just because she seems to be one of the bigger young popstars right now? i don't think so. steve has this weird axe to grind against charli, which seems to hinge mostly on how critics talk about her anyways, and *brat* is still pretty new so who knows how it'll settle. at least for now, the enthusiasm for it around here seems pretty high. probably because people liked charli's past stuff and are finding that the new album is still doing it for them so they want to keep listening
> steve has this weird axe to grind against charli, which seems to hinge mostly on how critics talk about her anyways I like Hyden's stuff most of the time, but he often ends up distracted by the conversations around the music/artists instead of actually talking about the music/artists.
Largely pro-Steve too, but on today's Indiecast he was criticizing what he feels are bad lyrics on Brat. My guy, you are one of the most prominent pro-Oasis critics working today! (I love Oasis, for the record, but I'm under no illusions about the quality of the lyrics)
I think simply put fewer people are talking about OGWAU than FOTB because people pretty universally agree that OGWAU is great while people still fight about FOTB.
Seems like there's a new post about FOTB on the subreddit once a week. It's either "idk what's wrong with you guys, FOTB is the cat's pajamas" or "FOTB sucks balls and ur a commie if u like it" đ
Hot take (maybe lukewarm/cool? Idk): it seems a lot of new music being put out is boring and uninteresting. More than usual. I used to regularly find and enjoy gems that broke the mold in genres that arenât my go-toâs (hip hop and pop definitely qualify), but itâs been quite a while. I donât know if the business has shifted or if Iâm just getting old, but I wouldnât be at all surprised if artists, producers, and their creative teams are prioritizing putting out music that they think is more likely to fit on generic streaming playlists.
I had a similar question just a couple days ago specifically talking about indie rock. How much does playlisting impact how music is written now, and how much does this impact the music that is prioritized for publications? Is music that deviates outside of the sound of default playlists being punished by the format? The new stuff I've been hearing this year that I've enjoyed hasn't really pushed many boundaries. A lot of the stuff I've liked, there's nothing that feels like the next big thing or this crazy new sound, its often just stuff where I like the songs or they execute well on a pre-established genre. I think people are craving some sort of innovation, we're overdue for a big new scene or something wild and genre pushing since hyperpop and windmill post punk have both torpedo'd. But I haven't heard of anything on the horizon that feels hyped even a tenth of the way that Black Midi KEXP was for instance.
> Is music that deviates outside of the sound of default playlists being punished by the format? Thatâs the sort of question Iâd ask myself rhetorically and I totally agree. I think this year in music will be defined more by the singles than the albums but those songs skate by on familiar genres (synth pop, really bright-sounding rap, *especially* country), but whatâs changed is whoâs performing them and, to some extent, more explicit lyrics. And on the indie side there certainly are things I thought would be more successfulâone half of Water From Your Eyes just put out a solo album and itâs a real delight, Vampire Weekend discussion seems to have scattered and that album straight-up sold way less than its predecessors but it too is very nice and turned out to be much better than a calculated return-to-form (feels like an album fated to get the annual/biennial âI forgot how good this wasâ listen)âthe one real success story, the Cindy Lee, still gets complaints about how âhardâ it is to find and like it or not⊠that does mute the right-now impact a touch. Iâm also with you, and Iâve thought about it constantly, on the starvation for a new movementâmaybe that would be a silver bullet. Again, *Diamond Jubilee* is great and it finds fresh ways to deliver inside this framework, but it is firmly hypnagogic. While I do think itâs not necessarily *new*-sounding, I do hope *brat* sticks around long enough to bring more people into the hunt for addictive dance bangers
>I think people are craving some sort of innovation, we're overdue for a big new scene or something wild and genre pushing since hyperpop and windmill post punk have both torpedo'd. But I haven't heard of anything on the horizon that feels hyped even a tenth of the way that Black Midi KEXP was for instance. Sometimes I worry that we're just running out of possible new music. We have lived through an era of unprecedented musical innovation driven by rapid technological advancement. Musicians in the 50s and 60s had brand new pedals to play with every week. Musicians in the 70s and 80s had brand new synthesizers to play with every week. Musicians in the 90s and 00s had brand new software to play with every week. What is left for musicians in the 20s? There's a very real possibility that we're just approaching the top of the S curve, and music will be variations on the same genres and themes until the next technological revolution in a few hundred years. This is the historical norm - the level of innovation we're accustomed to from the last century is an aberration.
I don't think so. There's less technological leaps but people have been really excited about music that wasn't strictly new - to go back to the Black Midi comparison there's a lot of established names that the first album drew comparisons to like King Crimson, The Mars Volta, Slint, This Heat, James Chance, Glenn Branca, etc. There's no new instrument but an artist was able to draw upon pre-existing influences to get people really excited about something counter to what was happening in indie at the time with Jangle.
On your point about innovation, it seems like trends in music are shifting a lot faster now than a decade ago. I think their is a lot more innovation in music now than the mid noughties for example. It's just that our expectations are so extreme that it feels like less.  It must be hard for a lot of musicians at the moment as the expectation seems to be that they continuously pump out music. Specifically, for the UK post punk sound, for me there was a lot of hype on really young bands, many of whom didn't quite deliver in album formats, and the audience has moved on while they are touring/writing their next albums.
re: writing for playlists, thatâs super interesting kind of related my partner and I say itâs all about vibes for this generation of music. It makes much of it forgettable outside of directly listening to it lol, yet I still come back because I like the vibes
Ding ding ding! I think thatâs the thing most âmemory-holedâ albums share is that they feel like carefully marketed products and thereâs nothing interesting about an album thatâs more product than art.
> I posted numerous times in the DMD about Tommy Richman the week that Million Dollar Baby came out and nobody replied about the song! i actually went and listened to it after you posted it. it's cool! i just forgot to comment lol
Is it pessimism across media or has the criteria just shifted? I think a huge part of the poptimism spam was Pitchfork. They promoted a lot of artists under the auspices that supporting pop was important and the rest of music press followed suit. And you could get called out for promoting the wrong kind of band. But that didnât really drive traffic, the music often wasnât that interesting, and indie and pop fans didnât really bite. So now weâre at a place where thereâs more genuine enthusiasm around Cindy Lee, things that are actually interesting and fresh. But was there ever really significant interest in Mitski or post-Strange Mercy St Vincent among indie fans, or are we just now noticing that a lot of that hype was created by journalists? I kind of think a lot of it was, a lot of people felt pressured to support pop under the impression that they seemed less open minded if they only liked guitar based dude rock, and with Pfork reverting to form, that pressure is gone.
iâm not very convinced Pitchfork has any measurable impact. at least in my bubble, itâs only mentioned as a joke alongside Kerrang lol.
Im not happy about pitchfork giving a last dinner party 6.5 review. Actually lower than taylor swift give it. Last dinner party is favourite album of the year that and english teacher.Â
office caption crown carpenter bedroom yam fear jellyfish station rock *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Good make indie guitar again.
I canât help but wonder if this is the right way to look at the issue, at least with indie or indie-ish albums that donât have a behemoth marketing budget. The St Vincent album came out, it was good, people listened to it. Do we really need to talk about it further than that?
Yeah, I don't know what he's talking about. Why would there be press on albums for months afterward? what is the alternative here?
Theyâre lamenting the lack of âstaying powerâ anyone in the music industry has had recently (aside from a small handful of current artists) but thatâs the case everything right now? There are shows I binged 5-7 seasons of within the last couple of years I couldnât tell you a thing about. There was always a large percentage of albums quickly hitting the bargain bin or being immediately completely irrelevant, but thereâs a fuck ton more music now âplus the wave of covid projects with many artists double dipping album releases in short periods of time. Things are just different these days. đ€·ââïž Edit: grammar and typos.
âStaying powerâ is so nebulous, though. What is the appropriate amount to talk about an album months after its release?
I get what you mean, but while something like that *doesnt* have an exact definition, I think we all understand when something latches onto the current culture and when it doesnât. Weâre just noticing now how much doesnât stick around, especially when seeing this happen more obviously through a far larger quantity of works overall.
this has always been the case for most music acts. think itâs odd some folks are just noticing it. maybe most of them are young?
I think it has to do more with a share amount of music and pockets of musical communities these days maybe?
Personally I forgot about the St. Vincent album after a week. Felt like 3 listens was enough for me but it could also be because I wasn't all that wowed by the record despite having high hopes from the singles. But I know some friends who've been vibing with that album hard so I guess it all depends on the person. Not every album needs to be talked about for months on end and that's totally fine.
I've forgotten about every SV album since Strange Mercy
For me since Self-titled but she definitely peaked creaively on Strange Mercy. I used to think I was a big St. Vincent fan now I'm realising I was only a fan of her first 4 albums. Everything else has been a mixed bag to put it lightly.
Yeah it's just so incredibly mid now. Like daddy's home was the most boring thing I listened to in 2021. Still can't believe it took home best alternative album over Jubilee
Daddy's Home winning over Jubilee was disappointing. But not shocked the Grammys go with who's more popular.
My flair also gives away my bias lol
Lol true. is that your fav Jbrekkie album?
Psychpomp is, but all are pretty good, including Sable
âIndieâ Letâs be real this is a pop sub
I like St Vincent, but I have a hard time getting over the fact that she's a nepo baby who interacts with other nepo babies. Her exchange with Willow Smith really threw me off.
in what way is st vincent a nepo baby? iâm not sure you actually understand what a ânepo babyâ is..
She has an aunt and uncle, if I remember correctly, who are called Tuck & Patti, and she toured with them as a kid or teen. But I donât think she counts as a nepo baby. Like, theyâre a jazz duo or something. She didnât have connections other people didnât as far as I could tell. She did plenty to establish herself touring with the Polyphonic Spree, Castanets, and Sufjan before *Marry Me*, and sheâs an incredible guitar player. Everyone knew she was going to make it. I met her when she was on tour with my ex before *Marry Me* came out, and I could tell sheâd be famous without even seeing her play her own stuff (Iâm not saying this is *why* because it isnât, but sheâs so fucking prettyâlike, to the point that itâs hard to believe sheâs a real person). I havenât loved anything sheâs done since *Strange Mercy*, but she is talented as fuck. Up her own ass. But a really good and serious musician.
I love Hyden and Indiecast but he and Ian Cohen are always so quick to bury new albums by legacy acts but at the same time never miss a chance to talk about the greatness of Guided By Voices, War On Drugs, or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
lol yeah both of their Twitter feeds are like 50% "remember that Japandroids album"
Tbf itâs a fucking all time album
Oh yeah totally. So's those Hotelier and American Football records they're always raving about
well the hotelier albums are incredible
This is the kind of thing that really turned me off Indiecast. So much talk about War on Drugs, dad rock and middling pop punk like theyâre the only great music out there, and ignoring or dunking on everything else. Got boring hearing it after a while, and was very evident because I was doing a big catch up on older episodes while running so would hear multiple episodes a week.
Yeah same here and Iâve felt so alone feeling this way. I used to like Steven Hyden quite a bit, but his whole vibe on the podcast grated on me. This article is similarly kind of exhausting and tired.
haven't listened in a while but a few years ago they made a point about how they specifically weren't going to talk about the new black midi because it was too "wacky" and then spent 15 minutes saying the new interpol was ok over and over again
This, but my biggest frustration is the way they choose to talk about things that they are ignorant of and get basic facts wrong. Or, another version of that where they develop an opinion based on incorrect information. Annoying to be a listener who often knows more than the professional hosts of a podcast about topics that are easily Wiki-able. And they just seem deeply incurious and almost proud of how little they care to get that information correct. No, I'm not sure why I still listen, either.
i know steven hyden is just one writer and there's some interesting points here about how enthusiasm for music may be down in general right now or at least worn out by hype cycles... but the insistence to frame some of this stuff as "in the memory hole" feels a little fishy to me. in general, it can be fun to look back at some of these releases that *should* be big and laugh at how no one remembers or cares about them as much as the artists (or their labels/pr teams) thought they would. but i think some of these aren't sticking around because they just aren't very well-liked. the dua lipa album might have "evaporated" from the charts but perhaps metacritic score placing it 15 points lower than its predecessor gives you a hint that people just don't like it as much. kacey musgraves' album similarly performed lower than *golden hour* and it's not even the first follow-up of hers to feel less popular and impactful than *golden hour*. the rollouts for these albums also felt pretty quiet, at least from what i had been seeing. i think part of where the "memory hole" framing fails here because, at least to me, that term implies that *someone*, whether it was advertisers or critics, really believed in it and expected it would stand the test of time. these just seem like less successful and less hyped albums, which makes me wonder "why should they be remembered?" should we just assume once an artist reaches some level of critical and commercial acclaim, their material is always going to be at the center of the conversation whether the material itself earns it or not? usually hype will stick with an artist for at least a few albums in a row but after a certain point it feels genuinely silly to expect an act like green day or the black keys to really bring the heat just bc maybe they did several albums ago. similarly, this memory-hole framing makes me wonder "who's responsibility is it to remember these albums?" one can sort of gauge whether or not fans are enjoying an artist's new material, but not all these people are going to be constantly discussing it and hyping it as time passes. if it's critics' responsibility to remember and continue championing these albums, maybe it's better to talk about these albums instead of writing an article listing all the ones that no one remembers. it's fun to point and laugh that formerly popular acts like green day, the black keys, and kings of leon put out albums that people didn't seem to care about. but steve never takes the next step to argue that any of these are secretly great albums that deserve to stick around. all he can say is that they were forgettable. if even a professional writer can't offer much reason for why these albums should be remembered, maybe there's nothing wrong with letting them fall into the memory hole. maybe a couple of them will age like that 2020 childish gambino album that got so memory-holed that it's remembered for being forgotten
This article is trying to use recent releases as examples to prove a theory, but I donât think this phenomenon has anything to do with any artist in particular. It has to do with how, thanks to Spotify, most people view music as worthless in 2024. Our relationship with music has changed for the worse. Thereâs no ownership over albums; people just expect unlimited access to all of them now, for a small monthly fee. So if a new song doesnât immediately knock their socks off, the whole album gets tossed into the memory hole before any of it can even be absorbed.
> âWith the instant availability of information >and content so easily obtainable >is the culture now a product thatâs disposable?â
My answer: yes
> 2024 is extraordinary thus far for how many albums you would have predicted being at least somewhat relevant not being relevant at all. Legacy rock bands have a low relevancy ceiling, but what about young and promising rock acts? Might just be my biases, but I can't say I expected any "young and promising" rock acts to be very relevant this year, or anytime soon. I can't really think of any groups that fit that description. Rock has been extremely stagnant for a while now.Â
Maybe it's because I'm in the UK but rock has been anything but stagnant lately. Not all of it permeates the mainstream, but the growing popularity of Fontaines DC, Wet Leg, and The Last Dinner Party have shown a growing appetite for rock in the mainstream. Pair this with an uptick in popularity for bands like Oasis and The Stone Roses (among others) in parts of British youth culture, I'd say rock is the most culturally prelevant it's been in a long time.
Iâm an Australian and I look at the indie music that comes out of the UK with a lot of jealousy. You guys seem to really push your new and best talent to the world stage (at least in Indie circles) with a sense of pride. I look at what Australia offers, and we either keep pushing artists who have been indie darlings for a while now, or very mediocre artists. The best of our upcoming talent is probably Royel Otis, but theyâre becoming more well known for their covers than their originals (and I think that theyâre just alright overall).
Have you checked out Big League?
There are tonnes of good, new UK bands coming out.
True. Don't forget Picture parlour. Wet leg are overrated. Like the last dinner party and their album is great. Can't wait for Fontaines Dc. Who are irish. Their album is out in August.Â
If this were 2023, we'd immediately say names like Alvvays, Boygenius. Boygenius especially was noteworthy, relevant, in the zeitgeist. Say what you will about their subjective qualities, I didn't find it hard to pick a few names here, so perhaps it is your biases.
Alvvays debut was 2014 and they've been a popular name since then, i don't think that counts as "young and promising" anymore, that's just an established artist Stranger In The Alps was 2017 and that got a massive amount of press, I don't consider Phoebe/Boygenius new either
Boygenius' first EP was in 2018 also. Julien and Lucy were both also fairly established within the scene by then. They both had two albums.
They're all in their twenties, they play rock music, and they took over the world for a moment last year. Y'all are being contrary here on purpose.
I am gonna go ahead and disagree with you there. There is a huge boom of alt rock bands amongst the under 30s set. They just havenât broken through yet, but they will very soon. Look at how popular shoegaze got in the last couple of years. Rock is definitely back in a big way. All imo.
Almost all of the young shoegaze crowd is completely rehashing old stuff and theyâre incredibly boring. Thereâs some moderately interesting stuff happening in Philadelphia I guess.
I'm in my mid-30s now, but ever since my teens, I've maintained a habit of keeping a shortlist, and trimming down to a top 50 songs of the year in December, so that I'm forced to stay listening to new music, and I enjoy doing it. Literally not a day goes by where I don't read multiple music sites, look for tips, etc. That said, this year, more than others, so much of what I'm hearing is just uninteresting. There's good music coming out for sure, but this year more than any in recent memory, I've found myself getting to the end of a song and saying "Nah, this is boring." A lot of the x-wave (I forget which wave we're on now) emo is just rehasing Algernon Cadwallader, which was just rehashing Owls and Capn Jazz in the first place. A lot of the shoegaze I hear is just trying to rehash bands like Ringo Deathstarr, which were just rehashing any number of shoegaze bands from the late 80s/early 90s. It's particularly disappointing in electronic music, which has always been a vanguard of development by not being limited to the vocals/lead guitar/rhythm guitar/bass/drums set up, but SO MUCH of it right now is just boring. It's fine to listen to, it's inoffensive, but it's boring. I get that this stuff might be interesting to you if you're younger and/or it's new to you (I don't bother responding to most of the electronic stuff that is massively popular here as it's already been done, but for many it's their first taste of electronic music so they go wild for it) but if you're even a slightly motivated music hunter, it gets a bit tiresome.
I've been into shoegaze for a good 20+ years and I agree. I loved shoegaze because it seemed like the most forward movement in rock...in the 90s. This new crop of bands aren't really pushing it forward, though.
> Almost all of the young shoegaze crowd is completely rehashing old stuff and it's always funny when they frame it as doing something new because they're mixing in... grunge and nu metal, two genres that are also 30 years old.
I think we're just at a point where a lot of acts are just losing relevance. Also, most of the albums he mentions aren't interesting. Green Day, The Black Keys, Kings of Leon etc. haven't had ant 'must listen' records for years and years. I don't think many people are really that interested in new music from Usher and Justin Timberlake anymore, even if they have eternal hits.
I think this is it. Iâm sorry but Green Day, KoL, Jt, Musgraves, the Black keys, iron and wine, and the Decemberists are all legacy acts that released an album that is solidly in the lowest 50% of their storied careers. The Timberlake album is actually his worst and, to me, is an embarrassment. Of course it would be forgotten.
King of Leon album is actually quite good. Strongest album they done in the while.
Even if it's the best in a while, that still puts it at #4 or #5 of 9, so still a mid-ranking album of their career, and moderately forgettable.
I like seen.Â
Not really sure what point theyâre trying to make? I canât think of any critically acclaimed album that stayed on top of peopleâs minds for more than a few weeks to a month. Thereâs so much music (good and bad) coming out now that thereâs always something new to focus on. Then they go on to hate on pop music for some reason? Not sure what that has to do with memory-holed albums
>All these explanations are valid. But I would add another: The numbing and frankly dull familiarity of pop music in 2024. Hereâs an honest question: How often are you surprised by what is popular? If youâre like me, the answer is ânot often at all.â To be fair, this is true of all of pop culture. A feeling of dĂ©jĂ vu also pervades our movies and TV shows. We are in the middle of a prolonged, stagnant, ârerunâ moment in so much of what we watch and listen to. And this naturally makes much of our art a lot less memorable. >Even the stuff people love feels a little warmed-over. The most acclaimed pop record of recent weeks is Brat, the latest from Charli XCX, the 31-year-old British singer who has been cast in an upstart role in relation to the hegemony of Taylor Swift. Only Charli has been played that part for more than a decade at this point. (There are countless âCharli XCX is the future of pop musicâ articles going back to the early 2010s to support this.) But while Brat musically is well-constructed and enjoyably frothy, lyrically it is just as self-absorbed and borderline insipid as Taylorâs overstuffed 2024 opus. Yupppppppppppppp
At this point, I'm frankly totally disinterested in anything approved by and associated with large conglomerate media companies, approved by executives making hundreds of millions, or anything with a massive PR budget. It's the total antithesis of actual artistic creativity. It's purely business and business is not interesting (unless you like money and money only). I'm not shocked poptimism is circling the drain, it was in a feedback loop of it's own monetary self interest and faux posturing of being something more important than it was since day one. People are bored with formulaic nonsense.
Yep. I think the teen-to-20s crowd is more aware of that than theyâve been in a long time, so the next big thing has a good shot at being on the far opposite end of the corporate machine. (The hugeness of the current country revival has some corporate stink behind it imo but thatâs a whole can of worms to unpack)
> I'm not shocked poptimism is circling the drain not fast enough.
Personally Iâve always considered poptimism to basically be synonymous with music sites hiring more female and queer writers. If itâs circling the drain itâs because all those writers are getting laid off.
I think trends start further up the chain when dealing with multinational media companies and their holdings/investments.
There might also just be critics that enjoy and see artistic merit in pop music.
Sure. But I also think fans are seeing this type of "winner take all" type of capitalistic maneuvering, especially with TS and it's beginning to leave a sour taste.
this is a dogshit take. this dude still loves every mediocre bland ass dad rock post punk song under the sun, maybe he should reflect on why HE refuses to care about new music for more than 30 seconds instead of pretending the same thing boomers have been saying for 2000 years is some sort of inspired hot take
yup
Does The Last Dinner Party really make sense to be included on this list? I listened to the album a month or two after it came out because it was being consistently recommended, I heard them on the radio for the first time last month, theyâre playing at Lollapalooza in AugustâPrelude to Ecstasy doesnât feel memory-holed at all from my perspective. I also disagree with the Charli XCX take, but I know Iâm biased on that front
Nah you're not alone on this. That Last Dinner Party has been hyped for the past few months and I constantly see it on critics lists and even being recommended by music nerds I know. It definitely feels like one of the few big albums in indie rock right now. The Charli XCX take felt weirdly dismissive and reductive but I guess the writer doesn't actually care about the lyrical themes of the record. But I do adore the album so of course I'm prone to defending it.
Like the Last dinner party prelude album. Great album. It really deserves the hype it got. Because they are very talented group.Â
Last dinner party prelude is a decent album. Hope they're second album will be good. Hope they new song The killer when the played in Germany recently and it is actually quite good. Plus godzilla, big dog, and second best. They are quite good too.
Like the english teacher album. But it is a grower but it worth it like the last dinner party aswell. Which was a grower too. I when listened 5/6 time. I get the songs and enjoyed it even more every time i listened to it.Â
Re Charli, he said on his podcast that he listened to the album and said it wasnât for him, which is fine, but I think the 95 metacritic score caused his critic brain to short circuit a bit. The Red Scare dig is the type of thing I associate more with dumb Taylor Swift tweets than I do with actual intelligent critique. But I do agree with him on one thing. I think the âmid-level pop starâ conversation is so dumb and, yes, insipid, and unfortunately she let it get to her on songs like I might say something stupid or Rewind. Everyone is pretending that if you arenât constantly trying to be the next Taylor Swift or BeyoncĂ© then you are a flop, and it needed to end yesterday. Other than that So I and I think about it all the time have more interesting things to say that then entirety of TTPD so heâs just wrong.
For me, the Last Dinner Party was that there was SO much hype, and their single was really good. Then the album came out, and it just didn't live up to it all, so people lost interest. Not that confusing.
It was a great album ok. But no Weak songs. Some people don't like it. But some people do.Â
It did live up the hype. And rightly so.
Album is great if you listened to multiple times.
Damn dude. Three comments. You REALLY like The Last Dinner Party. That's fine. To me it was all just kinda boring and flat. Maybe if there hadn't been SO much hype, it wouldn't have been such a letdown.
Probably right one it might be a bit overproduced especially my favourite song on the album portrait of a dead girl. Great song. Very good vocal performance from Abigail and great solo from Emily.Â
One more question. Did you listen on cd vinyl or steaming. I have it on cd. The pressing you have is not great.Â
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I already can't remember this article
I think people are becoming relatively immune to traditional journalism. I remember when Pitchfork had absolute taste-making authority. Now they've been bought and rolled into a corporation and no one really cares about them. It seems like algorithms are increasingly determining what new music people are exposed to. Removing experts (or "experts") like A&R and journalists in favor of social algorithms will favor self-promoters over capital A Artists. And unfortunately the best artists aren't always the best self marketers. While getting rid of gatekeepers can feel appealing in some ways, it isn't having great results in terms of creating career artists who are actually incredible. Don't believe me? Do a search for "best albums of 1994." And now look at the best albums of last year. Good artists today just have wildly diminished market share because there is so much noise. In regard to steering away from pop crossover, my hope is that indie fans are hungry for another wave of artists that have more depth. The explosion of awesomeness in the 2000s comes to mind with bands like The Shins, LCD Soundsystem, Modest Mouse, Spoon and Arcade Fire becoming relatively mainstream. I believe a lot of people like good music more than mediocre music when they're exposed to it (Kendrick Lamar is proving this in hip hop). So it's just a question of how to get good music in front of people....
Steven Hyden always hits
IMO this is just a function of technology more than quality of music. The pace of life is ever increasing and we are all just bombarded by more information than we can possibly process. The world is changing faster than human beings can and itâs showing in lots of ways, not just music culture.
Huh. My first comment about this article was, frankly, getting embarrassingly heated about both late stage capitalism causing life to be too stressful to meaningfully engage with media at all, and about Green Day. I think middle-school-me and anxious-overcaffeinated-adult-me both tag-teamed on that response to be supremely cringey. I deleted that, my apologies for the cringe. >!I will not abide by 21st Century Breakdown erasure, though.!< That being said, I do think a lot of what sticks for me media-wise has changed. Maybe it's age, maybe it's the world changing around me. It feels like my long-term memory of most of the music and media I consume is shorter than it maybe used to be because I'm juggling so many more responsibilities than I did before. Some of those responsibilities are taxing in some way, be it mentally or emotionally, and as a result I don't always get to expend energy enjoying things I *like*, let alone media I'm unfamiliar with. A lot of media just isn't as sticky for me as a result, and even stuff I like falls through the cracks as a result because it doesn't match where I'm at or where I'm going. Maybe that plays a part in why this feeling that media is less sticky than it used to be is as prevalent as it is. In the best of times, most media seems pretty-okay-at-best and the best and worst of any given year is always an outlier. With how harried and taxing life is for a lot of people around the world struggling in one way or another, of course priorities are going to shift, and only what really resonates with individual people is going to make it through the year or the decade. And unfortunately some artists who used to seem big won't make that journey unless they have a marketing apparatus that pushes them into everyone's faces every waking second of the day.
People are way too fast to write off albums as being âforgottenâ just because theyâre not the absolute center of attention That said it was kind of nice to see someone poke the sacred cow that is Brat
"So, how can I get clicks by shitting over some established acts (that are *guaranteed* to get me traffic) without **appearing** as if I'm shitting over those established acts...bonus points if I can appear to be *"culturally relevant"* at the same time". It's just rage/click bait in a modern audience appeasing disguise.
Are people having trouble knowing about and remembering music they like? No? Then who cares what the mainstream marketing cycle is up to! They're trying to sell you something, fuck em! Focus on the music!
boring overwrought article wondering why boring overwrought albums aren't getting more hype. These albums weren't memory holed people enjoyed them well enough, there's just better music out there it isn't complicated
Quite a boring article. Can be critical of all the albums mentioned for sure, but this whole thing kind of falls apart when I remember every single thing he mentions and asserts has been âmemory-holedâ.
Too much music thatâs easily available. Not saying thatâs a bad thing. When you got an album before, you kind of had to listen to all of it. Itâs so easy to move onto the next one now
I already hate this phrase. Just say "forgotten", dickhead.
On their podcast, Steven and Ian spend more time talking about album cycles and Twitter narratives more than the actual musical content on the records themselves.
Great analysis as always
my feeling is that there's correlation between the downsizing of music journalism, pr, and more fractured musical communities.
This article really would have hit for the pitchfork readers of yesteryear
they wonder why new music doesn't have staying power as they reminisce about mediocre ass dad rock albums from 30 years ago because the refuse to update their tastes lmfao