Here is your rock rebellion

[Kublakhan61]

The problem that the show has with today's rock music is that 'there is no rebellion' 'there is no heat' 'there is nothing new' 'it's all just a rehashing of old rock music".
Well, the problem I have with the show is that they do not know where to begin with rock anymore. They are the old guys hanging on to a old notion and berating us for not living up to their expectations. The expectation that rock should be a rebellion against the older crowd is no longer the case. That battle was lost.
If you know a bands name, then there is a good chance that band was marketed to you. Marketed bands cannot, by definition, provide us with a rebellion. Therefore the new rebellion is not against our parents but against taste-makers and marketing. How do you do this? By producing strong rock and roll that isn't marketable. Music that will win audiences due to its daring nature, its fuck you attitude toward success, it desire to produce something honest regardless of it chances of major success. The rebellion is against the hit machine industry. Arcade Fire is a marketed band. Surfer Blood will be the next one. That's not the rebellion, that's the big guys selling you the rebellion. Pay attention. Here are some examples of new rock music that exists for its own sake.

I don't personally like all of these acts or songs but I have to say something, as the show is continually on about how dead rock is.


Ganglians - Valiant Brave
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Blank Dogs - Leaving the Light On
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Wavves - So Bored
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The Intelligence - Duteronomy
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I'd keep going but it's time to start working.

[Charlie_Don't_Surf]

Or how about the fact that there are many so many niches of what we call rock, that their view of only their particular niche is very limited in scope? Seriously, I could start rattling some shit about metal, but they've deemed metal as shit and only really know metal up to the 80s. So maybe their little niche is not rebelling in any way but many other niches might well be.

[paulisded]

Great post, Abe.

[IMSlacker]

Merge Records are the big guys?

[Kublakhan61]

Merge Records are the big guys?

If they aren't, they'd like to be. That's why they continually sling the same shit year after year. They aren't interested in breaking a new sound. They are chasing money making music. Nothing wrong with making money - I'm not of the position that money making is wrong. My point is - there's no rebellion in the Merge Records business model. There is marketing units and trending tastes. That's why we have CMJ! (Where the biz bought up Arcade Fire).

[TheMojoPin]

When was rock never marketable?

[disneyspy]

When was rock never marketable?

when he was part of the nation of dommination

[Kublakhan61]

When was rock never marketable?

Now - that's the case I'm making. Read the OP, the rebellion is against the aesthetics of radio friendly unit shifting marketable music.

We are rebelling by buying music that isn't being marketed to us. We are still consuming at the same rate but we are producing and releasing our own records. We are making our own money.

[TheMojoPin]

Then I don't really understand the point.

I mean, music like this has its place, but I simply have no interest in it because it typically sounds horrible. "Rock" was basically marketable, and seen as such, from day one because of how obviously it was enjoyed by the people that heard it. Yes, we can go into all the talk about the "repressed primal urges" and "racial politics" and so on and so on that it represented, but the bottom line is that people liked it because it was something they enjoyed listening to. I guess there are people who enjoy listening to the type of stuff you posted, but that totally flies in the face of why people did and still do love rock music. I don't think you're really suggesting anything related to the rebellious nature of rock because that rebellion has typically not been so willfully dissonant. This stuff seems calculated to be as abrasive as possible. True rock "rebellion" has never really been that. Even with something like punk the bands that stuck around and stood out were the ones that created music that was enjoyable to listen to and harkened to simplistic, catchy natures of early rock groups.

Personally, I think what you seem to be pushing here is just as fake, forced and manufactured as what you say you're railing against. This is just placing attitude and "message" uber alles and almost totally ignoring the challenge of making good music.

[Kublakhan61]

This stuff seems calculated to be as abrasive as possible.

Yes.

Rebellious, no?

[TheMojoPin]

Yes.

Rebellious, no?

In a totally different way. It's not "reclaiming rock rebellion:" it's simply the "rebellion" of ugly music.

Though I really like the topic of this thread.

[Kublakhan61]

In a totally different way. It's not "reclaiming rock rebellion:" it's simply the "rebellion" of ugly music.

Though I really like the topic of this thread.

I wish I had the time to go into this with you. Damn work and damn school. Someday, Mojo, someday...

[realmenhatelife]

I think generally when it comes up on the show the notion of rock means radio friendly rock. I will froth at the mouth too if someone wants to pretend that music will no longer be interesting or original, but I do think the large, culturally imperative beast that was rock is dead. I wrote the email that brought this up on the show yesterday and I was specifically thinking about the RnR HOF concert crowd and lineup, which at one point was revolutionary but felt really irrelevant to me.

Rebellion doesnt sound like anything, and it wont always apply to everyone. Right now there is a ton of electronic music going on, and this really decadent, shamelessly oppulant attitude which by so blatantly rejecting 'artistic' ideals makes a statement and is rebellious in its own way. The only thing any of these bands needs to be is artistically driven, and I cant say that any band trying to participate in the big rock radio machine (and a lot of the small scenester bands too) can say they are.

It is possible for a band to try and be musically abrasive and artistically geniune at the same time.

[TheMojoPin]

It is possible for a band to try and be musically abrasive and artistically geniune at the same time.

Very true, but I still think it's misguided to merge that with the idea seemingly proposed by this thread that such "rebellion" has anything to do with the type of "rebellion" offered by rock during its formative years. They're two very different ideologies.

[Chigworthy]

I can't stand the Beatles.

[realmenhatelife]

Very true, but I still think it's misguided to merge that with the idea seemingly proposed by this thread that such "rebellion" has anything to do with the type of "rebellion" offered by rock during its formative years. They're two very different ideologies.

I would agree that good music allowed itself to be commercial initially, and now we have a healthy distaste for that. But I dont think the rebellion that KublaKhan talks about is all that different between the two time periods. They claimed different goals, but boiled down you have a group of marginalized people aspiring to an aesthetic that they define, rather than an unreachable one defined by someone they cant relate to. The aesthetic was originally designed by society, and now its designed by the music industry, but philosophically I think they are rebelling in the same way.

I agree that the Rolling Stones and Wavves would give you two very different answers about what they're trying to do, but there is part of art that doesn't belong to the artist, and cant be controlled by them or what they say. It's up to the audience to interpret that meaning.

[TheMojoPin]

I would agree that good music allowed itself to be commercial initially, and now we have a healthy distaste for that.

Which is something I don't agree with across the board since it seems "commercial" is used to often as a codeword for "popular." I think something that is inherrently catchy and appealing is also going to be inherrently "commercial." That's not necessarily a bad thing.

But I dont think the rebellion that KublaKhan talks about is all that different between the two time periods. They claimed different goals, but boiled down you have a group of marginalized people aspiring to an aesthetic that they define, rather than an unreachable one defined by someone they cant relate to. The aesthetic was originally designed by society, and now its designed by the music industry, but philosophically I think they are rebelling in the same way.

I think that's still too broad and overgeneralized. The "rebellion" of early rock was hinged on very social activities. It was all about emotion and dancing and, probably above all, sex. You can't seperate that from that sense of rebellion. The music this thread had in the first post is basically the antithesis of that. I agree that it can be about some kind of rebellion, but I just don't think it has much in similar with the social rebellion that rock initially carried.

I agree that the Rolling Stones and Wavves would give you two very different answers about what they're trying to do, but there is part of art that doesn't belong to the artist, and cant be controlled by them or what they say. It's up to the audience to interpret that meaning.

Agreed.

[GregoryJoseph]

Rock and Roll as a cultural force is dead.

I'm not saying the art form is dead, it just doesn't matter to the youth anymore.

[spankyfrank]

Rock and Roll as a cultural force is dead.

I'm not saying the art form is dead, it just doesn't matter to the youth anymore.

Yep it's pop that is here to stay. pop and rap.

[Stankfoot]

Rock and Roll as a cultural force is dead.

I'm not saying the art form is dead, it just doesn't matter to the youth anymore.

Rock and Roll is doing just fine, Greg.

It was never intended that people close to our ages (or Ron's) be up to date on the latest it has to offer.

That's happening at basement shows and in small bar gigs booked by seventeen year old kids.

If I knew all the bands my twenty year old son was listening to I would feel something was wrong.


This seems as good a place as any to post a BJM vid -

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[GregoryJoseph]

Rock and Roll is doing just fine, Greg.

It was never intended that people close to our ages (or Ron's) be up to date on the latest it has to offer.

That's happening at basement shows and in small bar gigs booked by seventeen year old kids.

If I knew all the bands my twenty year old son was listening to I would feel something was wrong.



Read my quote again.

I said the art form was alive and well, but it wasn't a cultural force anymore.

It will never be like it was in the 50's and 60's, or even the 70's.

It's just not that life changing anymore to a mass audience.

[spankyfrank]

Read my quote again.

I said the art form was alive and well, but it wasn't a cultural force anymore.

It will never be like it was in the 50's and 60's, or even the 70's.

It's just not that life changing anymore to a mass audience.

With any luck it'll never be like the 70's again, there wasn't enough dope to keep those shows going.

[underdog]

Rock and Roll as a cultural force is dead.

I'm not saying the art form is dead, it just doesn't matter to the youth anymore.

Read my quote again.

I said the art form was alive and well, but it wasn't a cultural force anymore.

It will never be like it was in the 50's and 60's, or even the 70's.

It's just not that life changing anymore to a mass audience.

You just don't know young people. You have no idea how life changing a lot of the rock acts that have come out in the last 10 - 20 years or the music currently coming out is.

There may not be as many life changing acts around as there has been in the past, but it's still there.

[TheMojoPin]

Wait, wait, wait...since it's not as big as it was, it's no longer a cultural force? At all?

Holy hyperbole.

[grlNIN]

You just don't know young people. You have no idea how life changing a lot of the rock acts that have come out in the last 10 - 20 years or the music currently coming out is.

There may not be as many life changing acts around as there has been in the past, but it's still there.

Yeah, go put on some Depends and listen to Bing Crosby you old goat!

[hedges]

This new rebellion of bands being non-marketable, becomes their marketability.

[TheMojoPin]

This new rebellion of bands being non-marketable, becomes their marketability.

Good point.

[Chigworthy]

Good point.

It seems marketable.

[hanso]

http://axisofjustice.net/

[realmenhatelife]

This new rebellion of bands being non-marketable, becomes their marketability.

I wouldn't say that being non marketable is the only way bands are trying to rebell right now, but naturally if something seems successful people will try and emulate it to also be successful. I think most people who enjoy that kind of music can tell the difference, and if you dont enjoy that kind of music it doesn't matter.

Read my quote again.

I said the art form was alive and well, but it wasn't a cultural force anymore.

It will never be like it was in the 50's and 60's, or even the 70's.

It's just not that life changing anymore to a mass audience.

I think its as life changing, we're just dealing with different issues through different decades. And the level of popularity has changed/been completely percieved differently in hindsight. If you say 80s rock people think about hair bands, which were a social force in their own right but people would be sheepish to call them life changing. When I think of the 80s I think of hardcore, straight edge, what was originally thought of as pop punk (and still is if you're not Dave) and the beginnings of indie rock. They were socially huge to me and more people than I can count. And everything that was happening in music then was a reaction to what reverance the rock music of the previous decades was heald in.

[King Imp]

I got your rock rebellion right here.

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[TheMojoPin]

I think its as life changing, we're just dealing with different issues through different decades. And the level of popularity has changed/been completely percieved differently in hindsight. If you say 80s rock people think about hair bands, which were a social force in their own right but people would be sheepish to call them life changing. When I think of the 80s I think of hardcore, straight edge, what was originally thought of as pop punk (and still is if you're not Dave) and the beginnings of indie rock. They were socially huge to me and more people than I can count. And everything that was happening in music then was a reaction to what reverance the rock music of the previous decades was heald in.

Totally agree, though you were replying to a guy who thinks there was no good music in the 80's.

[realmenhatelife]

Totally agree, though you were replying to a guy who thinks there was no good music in the 80's.

The irony wasn't lost on me.