Ultimately, though, the “trouble with indie rock” may have far more to do with another post-Reagan social shift, one with even less upside than the black-white story, and that’s the widening gap between rich and poor. There is no question on which side most indie rock falls. It’s a cliche to picture indie musicians and fans as well-off “hipsters” busily gentrifying neighborhoods, but compared to previous post-punk generations, the particular kind of indie rock Frere-Jones complains about is more blatantly upper-middle class and liberal-arts-college-based, and less self-aware or politicized about it.
With its true spiritual center in Richard Florida-lauded “creative” college towns such as Portland, Ore., this is the music of young “knowledge workers” in training, and that has sonic consequences: Rather than body-centered, it is bookish and nerdy; rather than being instrumentally or vocally virtuosic, it shows off its chops via its range of allusions and high concepts with the kind of fluency both postmodern pop culture and higher education teach its listeners to admire. […]
Among at least a subset of (the younger) musicians and fans, this class separation has made indie more openly snobbish and narrow-minded. In the darkest interpretation, one could look at the split between a harmony-and-lyrics-oriented indie field and a rhythm-and-dance-specialized rap/R&B scene as mirroring the developing global split between an internationalist, educated comprador class (in which musically, one week Berlin is hot, the next Sweden, the next Canada, the next Brazil) and a far less mobile, menial-labor market (consider the more confining, though often musically exciting, regionalism that Frere-Jones outlines in hip-hop). The elite status and media sway that indie rock enjoys, disproportionate to its popularity, is one reason the cultural politics of indie musicians and fans require discussion in the first place, a point I wish Frere-Jones had clarified in The New Yorker; perhaps in that context it goes without saying.
The profile of this university demographic often includes a sojourn in extended adolescence, comprising graduate degrees, internships, foreign jaunts, and so on, which easily can last until their early 30s. Unlike in the early 1990s, when this was perceived as a form of generational exclusion and protested in “slacker”/grunge music, it’s now been normalized as a passage to later-life career success. Its musical consequences might include an open but less urgent expression of sexuality, or else a leaning to the twee, sexless, childhood nostalgia that many older critics (including both Frere-Jones and me) find puzzling and irritating. Female and queer artists still have pressing sexual issues and identities to explore and celebrate, but the straight boys often seem to fall back on performing their haplessness and hyper-sensitivity. (Pity the indie-rock girlfriend.)
Desde el primer instante que los oí percibí algo extremadamente irritante acerca de los Arcade Fire, algo que de forma instintiva me hacía detestarlos a la vez que despreciarlos. Pensé que no podía ser de otra manera tras saber que eran de Montreal, pero con el tiempo su primer album me llegó a gustar (mucho) y el que la gente sea de Canadá ya me la suda. El desprecio, sin embargo, persiste puro e intenso como el primer día. Tampoco sorprende tanto en el caso de alguien que escribe vagas letras sobre putos niños de los cojones, en vez de los puñetazos de, digamos, ‘Spare Parts’. Gracias a estos párrafos de este artículo de Slate ahora veo bien por qué. Supongo que es, exactamente, por lo mismo que a muchos les (nos) gusta Roberto Bolaño. Por lo mismo que nos fascina la obra de esos dos chicos jodidos de esa tierra baldía cultural que es New Jersey. No se equivoquen, todo ese aprecio gafipasta por Los Soprano y el retonno de Springsteen a la relevancia vienen exacta, exactamente del mismo sitio.
La foto que ven es también, cómo no, canadiense. Sin sangre. Tan sin sangre, tan de “desarrollo detenido” como tantas cosas, esta entrada la primera. For there’s such a thing as too much lube.
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