It all started so innocently. Really. We were all listening to the radio, weren’t we? Everyone was listening, and everyone was enjoying it. Then, the innocent little spark of curiosity hit. One of those bands you loved on the radio got less and less air play. That’s where the beginnings of everyone’s musical fandom begins. The radio always gives you the first one for free. Then it’s up to you. After a while, the radio will stop playing that artist you love. So you go search him out yourself. You find that they’ll be in town soon. They’re playing a smaller show. If your friends won’t go with you, then you’ll go alone. You’ll hear the opening band, and you’ll like them. Maybe you’ll buy their CD. Maybe you’ll join their mailing list. Then your favorite band comes on stage. You love them. That bass player is so hot. Their sound has you dancing. With your eyes closed. It’s all over. You’re no longer just a casual listener of music. You’re a fan, baby, and there’s no going back.
Then comes the web sites. The mass emails. The message boards. The conversations at three in the morning about how great the show was, and how you’ll love them forever. This is all good. You’ve got yourself a hobby. It’s enough for you. Nobody thinks your crazy.
Until after a while, you need more.
That’s when you really start paying attention to the other artists that surround your favorite band. You know, the bands they usually tour with. Their buddies. The bands on the same label. The bands that sort of sound the same. The band from Australia that uses them as their main inspiration. If you’re really deep, you’ll find tribute bands. Rip-off bands. Bands that your favorite band ripped off. Teenagers from California that play their shows in their local Church basement. You start downloading every mp3 off of Myspace that you can. Off Epitonic. Off MP3.com. You start legal, but you quickly find that the stuff you really want costs money. Usually it’s a buck a song. If you’re honest, you break out the credit card and you pay. If you’re like most people, you find the connection elsewhere.
The next time you’re listening to the radio with those same friends, you don’t feel the same anymore. Maybe you don’t say anything, but you probably do. Likely, you’ll mention this song you have on this CD you burned that is totally better than anything the Foo Fighters put out last year. Maybe your friends notice right away, but most likely they won’t know what to do. You’re different now, but they can’t quite put why.
You’re different because you’ve found websites like pitchforkmedia, stillepost, stereogum, and woxy. You’ve found Insidepulse. Yeah, you. You’ve found other people like you. Not your friends. Not anyone in real life, unless you’ve gotten so far that you know a couple local musicians by name and apartment number. But you’re probably not quite there yet. Instead, you just know all those faceless names out there that sound a lot like they know what they’re talking about. I’m not going to name any. You already know who I’m talking about.
What’s worse, you’re listening to these guys. You’re downloading, sampling, and buying the music they’re telling you to buy. And you’re loving it. Not because you belong. Not because your ipod has more and better tunes than anyone else. Not because you bought a guitar so you could play a little bit of classic Dylan. It’s Because you’ve become a music snob, and the first couple years is such a high you don’t realize the damage it’s doing to the rest of your life.
A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting with a friend of mine between classes. We were comparing what we had on our ipods. The term they have for it is ‘jacking’ because you’re sticking your headphones into the jack of someone else’s soundtrack. On mine was the new Jenny Lewis album. On hers was a couple of Briteny Spears songs and some Disney tracks. Because I am a music snob, I had to discuss this with her. The first thing she said was “I know, isn’t it sad?” This confused me then, but it makes so much sense after a few minutes of thinking about it. It’s not that she thought her music was bad. Nobody would listen to music they actively hated (unless you DJ at a corporate radio station for 30 years, I’d imagine) so it wasn’t that she thought it was bad. It was that she knew I was a music snob, so she knew that I would think it was bad, and she reacted the way she knew I would react as a defense mechanism. It’s the same reason Eminem raps about how poor and white trash he is in the climax of 8-Mile. If you beat your opponent to his own insult, you take his weapons away.
Indie music isn’t a secret anymore by any means, and it’s because music snobs hang out with regular people. Not surprisingly, it quickly became something to be mocked by those that did not understand it. I remember this one girl, sitting in the back seat of a car headed to a club downtown about two months ago, exclaiming “they’re not going to have that indie crap there, are they?” Much like the internet itself, the giant world of indie music has become thrown together into one deliberate phrase that somehow encapsulates its entire essence into something that can be tossed aside by the complaint of a half-drunk brunette.
A buddy of mine was showing me his fancy new ibook, and he was going through his itunes library. He found and began to play ‘jump on it.’ He told me, “Come on, it’s a classic!” He saw my raised eyebrow. He said, “I know. I like bad music.”
My best friend from high school did the same thing with the new Korn album. She said “I know, it sucks. But I love it.” None of these people know each other. But they all know me.
After a while, I have to realize that the problem isn’t all the people who ‘like bad music.’ They don’t think it’s bad. I think it’s bad. The problem is me, and if you’re an indie snob, the problem is you, too.
To quote Mick Foley in reference to being a purist, “There comes a time when it’s just not worth it.” There was, at a time, a currency involved in knowing bands before they broke out. It meant something to see artists live in the dive bars before they made it bigger. It was important to have all the b-sides and the lost radio interviews and to be as ‘in it’ as you could be. There was a time when being a snob had its merits. But it doesn’t anymore.
Sarah Bellum, a journalist writing for Chart magazine, had this to say about it; “It’s not that I’m tired of listening to “good” music, but I am over trying to know more about music than anyone else and all of that I-was-listening-to-them-first bullshit. I still love indie rock and music that might be considered elitist, but I can’t stand how competitive the scene is. It just misses the whole point of music.” She’s spot on. The indie scene is a mass riot of ‘cool’, when really that term shouldn’t have ever breached the confines. It’s gotten to the point where it’s damn time the indie community shaped up and started acting like the metal community.
You heard me.
Now, folks who aren’t part of the metal community might be a little confused. You might think that me telling you to act like the carnivalesque crowd at ozzfest might be a little counterintuitive. But that’s exactly what I’m saying.
Yeah, folks in the metal community wear a lot of black. They have a lot of tattoos. One or two of them are pierced in some unorthodox ways. And when it comes to their live entertainment, they like it brash, violent, and full of spectacle. But they began their love of metal pretty much the same way I described with the indie kid. As well, they just happen to be the nicest community of folks you’ll ever meet, and they appreciate their music with an innocence and fervor you wish you still had.
Sarah went on to say; “Last June, I went to see Judas Priest and I couldn’t believe how different the metal concert experience was. No one seemed to be judging each other. No one cared who had heard Priest first. All that mattered was that you loved metal. A few minutes into the show, the girl next to me embraced me because I knew the words to Electric Eye. Arm in arm, we threw the goats and sang along. That stuff just doesn’t happen at, say, a Radiohead show.”
I can attest to this. I went to see Belle & Sebastian last Saturday, one of the Mecca bands of indie rock. Next to us was this couple who seemed content to dance and whatnot, until this guest singer came onstage. This singer was standing about 3 feet away from us beforehand, and after the song, came right back. All I hear from this couple is “We should go talk to her. Oh my God, what should we say?” This isn’t musical appreciation. This is celebrity worship in a place where absolutely none should be allowed.
Perhaps this metal community is so friendly because it’s been labeled ‘uncool’ by mainstream, much like the indie’s had before. Chuck Klosterman talks about this while discussing the Great White tragedy in his book, Killing Yourself To Live; “People would concede that it was tragic, but no one could discuss it without the fraction of a smirk. People were sending e-mail one-liners while the cops were still counting bodies. Somehow, it was acceptable to condescendingly chuckle at the overtly uncool people in Rhode Island.”
We’ve got an interesting image here, then. On one hand, we’ve got people listening to the blissful power-pop of Belle & Sebastian and being terribly snobby about it to the point where it becomes mean, annoying, and disheartening. On the other is a community that is proud of it’s devil worship, it’s ear-destroying guitars and violent mosh pits, who as a community couldn’t be easier to feel welcomed. It’s gotten to the point where the vast majority of indie kids have stopped ‘getting it’ while the metal kids always have. It’s two communities of folk who really should have a lot more in common than blatant disrespect of the mainstream. And it’s something we’ve got to work on, together.
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