well, this is what cherub rock is about, corgan's still on the same point he was on 20 years ago.
it's odd that the arcade fire crossed over by emulating u2, who seem to want to be the rolling stones nowadays. and he just watched mcr cross over by emulating him. they won't be the last that does. i sort of realize i'm missing the point - u2 wasn't emulating anybody, and neither was he. but it's not quite as base as he's suggesting.
srv was emulating hendrix in a period where aor had to follow a precise formula, but while talking heads and the cure were doing their thing removed from it. and, likewise, there's some more indie paths being pushed in electronic music. if lolapalooza was punk rock blowing up after fifteen years, rave culture is maybe even a little late.
culturally, the arcade fire is to 2010 as something like tom petty was to 1989. runnin' down a dream is a great tune, but it was dinosaur rock that a lot of kids couldn't connect with and was on the cusp of being wiped out. the reality is that the arcade fire has a fanbase mostly in their thirties. like it or not - and i'm not happy about it - but the example corgan should have used was skrillex.
underneath that, you'll find more interesting stuff on warp or ninja tune, otoh.
sammy sinclair
arcade fire is not going anywhere, but his point is very apt. their last album didn't build any more mainstream success on top of their grammy winning one. and if they had tried too hard at all to push themselves in that direction they would have been labeled as the kings of leon or whatever. i get what he's trying to say. he's wonderful.
deathtokoalas
well, why would you expect a record that is 25-30 years out of date to push beyond an older audience? the tom petty comparison is very good. full moon fever certainly sold a lot of records, and got a lot of critical acclaim, but it could have been released in 1971 as easily as in 1989 and both it's audience and it's legacy reflect that reality.
it's not that the industry has changed that much, i mean the technology has but the dynamics really haven't, it's more that arcade fire aren't doing anything innovative, and are consequently trapped in the adult contemporary market they belong in. corgan's just a little out of touch with his perceptions....
i feel that the most ground-breaking electronic music is behind us, but when looking for the classic records of the last decade that's where one needs to look. and, there's plenty to find for discerning tastes and fans of pop music, alike.
sammy sinclair
what do you mean?... "why would you expect a record that is 25-30 years out of date to push beyond an older audience?"… i don't know what i said that lead to that? and i think whether you think it's technologically based or not… the industry has changed. first and foremost, it's too cheap and easy to make bad sounding records and too expensive and difficult to make ambitious ones that sound great. we could get into it more, but i can't really think of another billion dollar industry that has undergone more transformation than the music industry. maybe the video store industry? i dunno...
deathtokoalas
well, he's putting forward the arcade fire as an act that he thinks should have a bridge to cross, but he doesn't seem to be connecting the dots that the reason he thinks they should have that bridge is that what they're doing belongs to his own era. it's not that the industry is holding them back, or that they'd be more successful if they existed in another era, it's that what they're doing belongs to a past time. it's not that the industry has stopped breaking through to young people, it's that the arcade fire do not appeal to young people because they make the kind of music that their parents like. they're not pushing into the future, they're marketing retro, which is basically selling memories. and, to be blunt, i don't feel they're particularly good at it, either. i'd rather listen to the ideas in their original form than in a fourth-timed repackaged parody of it.
if you want to find forward thinking music, it's out there, but first you have to drop your preconceptions that the present ought to sound like you thought it would in 1979.
sammy sinclair
so what should a rock and roll band sound like in this day? can you give an example of a band that is doing this today but isn't "retro"? guitar driven, rock and roll… not electronic music. i mean, the genre is 50+ years old at this point, what isn't retro? should we just stop making "rock" music?
deathtokoalas
conventional types of rock music will continue to generate an audience, but, moving forwards, this audience is going to be increasingly composed of older people. it's sort of a weird question, because i'd consider st. vincent or 65daysofstatic or the mars volta or bjork or the knife or animal collective or even skrillex to make what is still basically rock music, it's just current rock music rather than the retro rock music that arcade fire are selling.
melt banana released a really phenomenal and, i think, very forward looking record a few months ago. it's heavily electronic, but i'd have to call it rock music.
for some people, it might be a question of changing styles, but i'd be more inclined to look at it as moving the goal posts. new wave and post-punk, and it's derivative genres, have passed out of their creative phases and into their generic phases. it will no doubt be possible to continue generating this type of sound with high profit margins for several decades, but it's no longer capable of tapping into any kind of mass consciousness or affecting culture in any kind of significant way. so, it's up to the aim. do you want to make lots of money? are you solely interested in making artsy, creative music? well, rock still has something left. but, do you want to change the way america and the world thinks? then, put your guitar down and pick up a laptop and exchange your beatnik poems for hip-hop rhymes.
but i do think it was time to put the basic rock form to sleep as far back as around the time the strokes came out. i think that's the last rock revival we're going to see, in forms less trite and purposefully old-timey than the squirrel nut zippers. we're any year away now from beatles or rolling stones novelty acts, if the recent wave of indie folk revivalism isn't already basically a novelty act version of the 60s...
sammy sinclair
"we're any year away now from beatles or rolling stones novelty acts…" hah, i wonder what you'd think of my band. i can't really argue with anything you said, although i don't think rock went to sleep with the strokes. they're just retro to me anyway. it's just the velvets all over again. which is fine, i like the strokes. much more than arcade fire. i don't even think arcade fire is that retro. compared to tame impala or something? i don't know, you talk about music much mo beta den me. i like your opinions.
deathtokoalas
i think tame impala (who i'd point out as the more innovative of the three acts, but i like psychedelic rock more than i like new wave) manage to be unique enough to avoid accusations of being a novelty act, but i do definitely hear a huge amount of pink floyd in there. but, it's back to the same point. it's a lot of fun to see in an open air festival (and their alter-ego, pond, was fun as a bar band), but it's just generating profit. and beer sales...
sammy sinclair
i love pond! ;)
rasputozen
you hit it on the head man
VVV73
Billy explained in other interviews, that he never learnt the skills to mature. Which sometimes comes out in his music regardless how hard he tries be explorative. I have rarely seen or heard a musician that speaks as honestly as Billy. He genuinely gets hurts when his art is criticised. (more so when he was younger, cause he needed to feel loved). He is not the only one that is quite intelligent, intuitive and fully aware of themselves (faults, weakness, vices , demons) , but never learnt or was taught the life skills at an early age , so to fully develop as and adult. I believe am starting to understand Billy more as we get older together. :) It's hard when you know what you should be doing , but no idea how to get there.. I think it comes down to role models (if you were lucky to have any around) when impressionable. You know what they say "practice makes perfect". I feel I can relate to his childhood. Except when I was lucky enough have musical instruments and a good father figure (banjo player in award winning band), he was taken away from me/us (Road accident in tour bus). He introduced me to Scruggs and Flatt and made me mad for bluegrass and the banjo). I never picked up another instrument (drummer in school band/had a junior electric guitar @age 9) again for many years. I am know back into the drums(for fitness and tension outlet mainly) and learning the Banjo. Lookout Seasick Steve 71yo , here I come. :)
Anyway not having ago at you all. (can see exactly where you coming from) tho, SRV is my all time fav musician and IMO had surpassed Jimi as a guitar player. Jimi's equal as a performer and passion, tho Jimi was a superior lyricist and writer / thinker. As Eric said " Stevie was an Open Channel" . Yeah, plugged str8 into God's Marshall stack in my opinion..lol. Sorry about the life post, mind is in overload today.. Keep Groovin' ...........Ah bah bah bah bah bah...GET UP :)
