I read this article earlier today, and thought it was interesting but dead wrong.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2007/10/2...rmu_music_frerejones

Basically, the author criticizes the decreased influence of African-American musical styles on indie music, and sites Wilco, Sufjan, and Arcade Fire as examples of "soul-less" artists.

What do you guys think?

I sort of agree with it. It's not saying those artists are bad, it's more of an observational piece about how rock today (indie or otherwise) has eschewed a lot of the influence of black music which spawned rock back in the 50s and 60s.

BTW, I haven't read the entire thing yet, it's four pages, but it looks very interesting for those of you interested in rock history.

The author sounds like a guy who's living in the past. He's having a hard time dealing with the fact that music is evolving into something uninfluenced by his ole' favorites.

I sort of understand where he is coming from. Alot of current alternative and indie artists are not heavily influenced by black music. But I think their is definitely an emotional honesty in good indie and alternative music that is directly related to traditional blues and soul music.
To me someone like Elliott Smith isn't that different from a blues artist like Robert Johnson. Both are mining the same emotional territory but just choose to do it in different ways stylistically.

What about The Pipettes and the Black Kids who are mining the Motown sound? What about Junior Senior - sounds a lot like early 80's hip-hop to me. Anyway, I don't get the premise. When was Indie more black than it is now? He uses "Indie" in the subtitle to the article, but then just talks about a bunch of mainstream white bands. He even explicitly says on p. 3 of the article,

quote:

But by the mid-nineties black influences had begun to recede, sometimes drastically, and the term “indie rock” came implicitly to mean white rock.

That's his analysis. I don't agree with it. Indie happens to be mainly composed of white bands, but there are (very) notable exceptions - TV on the Radio, anyone?

Spoon claims to be Black.



But, in addition to that little joke I can see them as being influenced by traditional African-American musical styles.

And in defenese of Sufjan he has a lot of "gospel" influence, and I think that is a mostly African-American rooted genre and style.

The point that I found the most interesting was that the author name-drops Led Zeplin at least a half dozen times, but ignores the fact that arguably the biggest and most successful of the so-called indie bands - The White Stripes - wears their Led Zeplin influences on their sleeves.

Sure there are exceptions, but you can't deny the influence of African-American music on rock isn't as prevalent as it used to be. Even pretty big alternative/indie bands in the 80s, like the Minutemen and Red Hot Chili Peppers were really mining black music for their sound.

quote:

Originally posted by ericg75:
Sure there are exceptions, but you can't deny the influence of African-American music on rock isn't as prevalent as it used to be. Even pretty big alternative/indie bands in the 80s, like the Minutemen and Red Hot Chili Peppers were really mining black music for their sound.

I would argue it's just as prevalent, maybe more subtle or indirect, though. (BTW, since when were Chili Peppers considered indie - or alternative for that matter?) All mainstream rock music is based on blues rock going back decades, afterall.

the author's right, but the article is pointless. music with a soul influence isn't any better than music without. hell, there are plenty of folk songs with more 'soul' than some soul songs. pointing the influence finger is stupid, it all goes back to mozart anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by ezkcdude:

BTW, since when were Chili Peppers considered indie - or alternative for that matter?

The Chili Peppers didn't really achieve any mainstream success until 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magic. Although they were on a major label, they were definitely part of the L.A. underground scene in the 80s. Their first album was produced by Gang of Four's Andy Gill and the Dead Kennedys' D.H. Peligro briefly played drums in the band.

Soul isn't something exclusive to R&B or music created & performed by Black artists. The new Sharon Jones and Bettye LaVette (backed by Drive-By Truckers) may be the most soulful, new recordings I've heard this year. But damn if Iron & Wine didn't serve up an extremely soulful disc. "Carousel" and "House By the Sea" got that soul thang down pat.

There's plenty of soul in indie, pop, country, folk, electronica, ska, power pop, surf- anywhere and everywhere music gives you positive vibes.

mainstream music right now, like post-punk in the early 80's

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Hark! EricG75 Sings!,

Post-punk was a about as mainstream in the 80s as indie rock is now. It's not like Mission of Burma and Bauhaus were on Top 40 radio. That was the underground music at the time. You had a few bands that had mainstream success, but they were few and far between.

Egg...I'm soooo sorry. I meant to reply to your post but I accidentally edited it and deleted a bunch of it.

It said something about how the author was mad that there was no good mainstream music like post-punk in the 80s and grunge in the 90s.

quote:

Egg...I'm soooo sorry. I meant to reply to your post but I accidentally edited it and deleted a bunch of it.

Don't be that sorry. "I survived, it's good enough for now..."

quote:

It said something about how the author was mad that there was no good mainstream music like post-punk in the 80s and grunge in the 90s.

That's it.

What gets me is, this guy uses the Arcade Fire as his prime example and, unless i'm mistaken, several members here claim they sound like Bruce Springsteen. Bruce has lots of soul and is certainly influenced by African-american artists.

Sounds to me like a rock classicist afraid of losing his relevancy.

Not only is the loss of black influence flat-out untrue and rife with exceptions, but what makes this a bad thing?

If you want to step back and look at the whole picture, you could say a basically blues-less band like Radiohead reflects the postmodern mood we're in.

Also:

“Tall buildings shake, voices escape singing sad, sad songs, tuned to chords strung down your cheeks.”

I always read it as “Tall buildings shake, voices escape singing sad, sad songs, tuned to chords. Strung down your cheeks, [bitter melodies].” Which, I think, isn't half as asinine as the way the author shaped it. I felt compelled to defend one of my favourite songs off one of my favourite albums. haha.

This columnist has always seemed to me like someone who makes their bread and butter on calling out music for not living up to their own standards. He was somewhat famous for talking about people with "rockist" tastes - i.e. they listened to too much rock and not enough, say, hip-hop.

(I'll gladly admit that I'm a rockist, though, with the exception of A Tribe Called Quest. Those boys are ridiculous good.)

The Guy from the article has some points but he doesn't knows anything about Indie music because he never mentions The Velvet Underground !!!


Ok just a few examples of Indie albums released in the last years with tons of Melodies and lot of Soul:


Sun Kil Moon - Ghosts of the Great Highway
Animal Collective - Feels
Miracle Fortress - Five Roses
Bonnie Prince Billy - I See a Darkness
Devendra Banhart - Rejoicing in the Hands
Iron & Wine - The Creek Drank the Cradle
The Walkmen - Bows + Arrows
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

The banjo is an African-American instrument.

Really though, there's plenty of things Frere-Jones missed/ignored. The banjo's only an element of a larger theme - that country and R&B are intertwined. She also ignored a few other things, including a lot of specific examples (White Stripes, TV on the Radio) that have already been mentioned.

It's also interesting that she hones in on indie, even though for the most part her article seems to concern music as a whole. It seems strange that she would compare the biggest artists of the past (Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, etc) with modern indie, a genre somewhat dependent on the fact that it's not a huge musical genre.

And, of course, she ignores the UK in her analysis of modern music. A crucial flaw, considering how many of her classic blues-rockers were UK-based (Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix...). If we examine modern UK-based artists (Franz Ferdinand, MIA, the White Stripes, Amy Winehouse), we find artists that draw just as heavily upon black music.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MXH,