Someone left a copy of the a recent (ish) Rolling Stone on the lounge table at work. A special issue on The State of Rock. Subtitle, 40 Reasons to Get Excited About Music. Starring the Black Eyed Peas.
Special, indeed. I will now take this opportunity to sound like a grumpy douchebag hipster. Fair warning.
THE BLACK EYED PEAS ARE THE NUMBER ONE REASON TO GET EXCITED ABOUT MUSIC?! Gimme a goddamn break, that list is full of acts way better and more worthwhile than BEP (did you really think i was gonna type that out every time?). I’m not saying they don’t belong on the list, clearly they have a huge impact on current music, and Will.i.am (what the shit is up will all this punctuation, and yet they don’t hyphenate “black-eyed”…?) is definitely fucking brilliant at what he does, really, but you’re gonna put them as number one? Of course you are, because they will probably sell more copies of your magazine than MGMT, or even Them Crooked Vultures or Chuck Berry. Maybe even more than Lady Gaga. Argh-a argh-a argh-a.
Of course it makes a whole lot of sense, given Will.i.am’s assertion that all music is inherently commercial anyway. Maybe i am a grumpy douchebag hipster, but i just can’t abide by that theory. Why does it have to be? Because people want to make a living off of it, and because distribution and live performances require capital and effort. I get that. But when you are PURPOSELY making half your songs indistinguishable from commercial jingles and even write songs just for Pepsi commercials, you may be making music but you ain’t making art. And yes, i guess i’m defining art as being inherently non-commercial which is very problematic and i probably don’t even agree with that, but, y’know, like, whatever. All i’m saying is there are plenty of people out there making music that is completely non-commercial (more or less), so to say that there is really no distinction between writing/performing music and business/sellin’ shit, is stuuuuuupid.
Anyway, shit just pisses me off, i shouldn’t be expecting a huge music magazine to put any effort into promoting smaller acts over the Black Eyed Peas. The article-type-thing about Will.i.am/BEP was at least interesting, if not the most well-written thing i’ve read recently (it wasn’t).
Oh and if you want to know (you don’t but i want to write it) a few things recently that have made me excited about music, here are some:
-Passion Pit’s album, “Manners”
-The Murs show at the Middle East in Cambridge last month, with Sick Jacken, Nocando, Verbs, Reason and D-Tension. I had never listened to any of them before, but was blown away by almost all of them.
-Listening to Soul Coughing again after a couple years
So there. Or something.
Good blog post, Evan.
