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poptimistsSurprised no one posted this yet-
Does the world need another indie band?
The short version of that article is that no one really knows who buys Scouting For Girls records. It is quite marvellously vehement though if you, like me, spend a mystifyingly large amount of your time trying to think of a new way of saying 'this is a shit indie single.' Not sure it goes far enough for me on some aspects (the bit with some bloke talking about the wonder of some kids dancing to 80s/90s indie as though this makes them genii is particular obnoxious) but does contain the quote from this subject line.
Edit: I might add, this isn't a 'HAR LOOK ALL INDIE ARE CRAP' post. I think the article's interesting because we've been talking about how these instantly charting indie bands are the new throwaway boy/girlband for awhile, particularly this week and although this is a smug indie person talking about it from a smug indie perspective, it's surprisingly on-the-money in a lot of places. It might be worth asking, if it's not a totally overwrung question that ultimate ends up with 'THE MAN' as the answer, why you think these particular little trends of throwaway bands/groups start and what you personally think brought on this particular glut of awful?
Also, I really cannot emphasise enough that I have had to review The Enemy three times in the last year.
Does the world need another indie band?
The short version of that article is that no one really knows who buys Scouting For Girls records. It is quite marvellously vehement though if you, like me, spend a mystifyingly large amount of your time trying to think of a new way of saying 'this is a shit indie single.' Not sure it goes far enough for me on some aspects (the bit with some bloke talking about the wonder of some kids dancing to 80s/90s indie as though this makes them genii is particular obnoxious) but does contain the quote from this subject line.
Edit: I might add, this isn't a 'HAR LOOK ALL INDIE ARE CRAP' post. I think the article's interesting because we've been talking about how these instantly charting indie bands are the new throwaway boy/girlband for awhile, particularly this week and although this is a smug indie person talking about it from a smug indie perspective, it's surprisingly on-the-money in a lot of places. It might be worth asking, if it's not a totally overwrung question that ultimate ends up with 'THE MAN' as the answer, why you think these particular little trends of throwaway bands/groups start and what you personally think brought on this particular glut of awful?
Also, I really cannot emphasise enough that I have had to review The Enemy three times in the last year.
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Some Stats!
Date: 2008-07-23 10:30 am (UTC)Top 5 Genres among 12-14 year olds (% saying "in" or "on the way in")
1. R&B (66%)
2. Pop/Top 40 (58%)
3. Hip-hop (57%)
4. Rock (55%)
5. Club/Dance (54%)
Top 5 Genres among 15-17 year olds (% saying "in" or "on the way in")
1. Club/Dance (74%)
2. R&B (68%)
3. Rock (64%)
4. Indie (61%)
5. Pop/Top 40 (59%)
Top 5 Genres among 18-19 year olds (% saying "in" or "on the way in")
1. Rock (72%)
2. Club/Dance (67%)
3. Indie (64%)
4. R&B (58%)
5. Drum'n'Bass (56%)
Top Rock/Indie band for each agegroup:
12-14: The Hoosiers (or My Chemical Romance if they don't count)
15-17: The Ting Tings
18-19: Muse
Re: Some Stats!
Date: 2008-07-23 10:38 am (UTC)Something very important is that musically you react to the people around you, not to the 'wider culture': I think when I was 16 I read the NME partly because it seemed to provide a window on some kind of wider pop culture and let me position myself within that, but I don't know what (if anything) does the same now. Whereas the article Moggy linked to seems to be assuming that the wider culture still exists and that the decline of indie matters within it.
Re: Some Stats!
Date: 2008-07-23 10:42 am (UTC)the kidz are alright! the students, however, are not.
Re: Some Stats!
Date: 2008-07-23 10:46 am (UTC)Re: Some Stats!
Date: 2008-07-23 10:51 am (UTC)Re: Some Stats!
Date: 2008-07-23 10:53 am (UTC)Re: Some Stats!
Date: 2008-07-23 10:56 am (UTC)Re: Some Stats!
Date: 2008-07-23 10:59 am (UTC)Teens bottom 5 genres:
1. Country (15%)
2. Christian (16%)
3. Folk (16%)
4. Classical (23%)
5. Bhangra (24%)
Re: Some Stats!
Date: 2008-07-23 11:06 am (UTC)Um hang on a second was hip-hop subsumed into r&b or...is it...just NOT THERE?
Re: Some Stats!
Date: 2008-07-23 11:14 am (UTC)It does well among urban teens too, unsurprisingly.
I've now got the age/gender breakdowns open, and hip-hop drops in appeal to boys as they get older but increases in appeal to girls.
Also - the jumps in indie and rock for girls as they get older are HUGE: I think this is the real story behind the article and the current situation, a 'feminization' of indie and rock's appeal (against which you'd predict a journalistic backlash obv).
Re: Some Stats!
Date: 2008-07-23 11:15 am (UTC)is this a new thing though? feels like it, but it could be an illusion
Re: Some Stats!
Date: 2008-07-23 11:20 am (UTC)Re: Some Stats!
Date: 2008-07-23 11:35 am (UTC)This might be because of the dancing aspect? Hip-hop/street dancing seems to be a v popular cross-female-demographic way to keep fit and have fun at the same time - boys tend to be less inclined towards dancing (esp choreographed dancing) for whatever reason. There are like five boys in a class of 25-30 at the class I go to, which is slightly EEK when the tutor demands that the boys run through the routine by themselves.
The feminisation of indie is definitely important, indie bands as the new boy bands etc (and just as boring as boy bands ever were! the only one I had real affection for was Backstreet Boys). I'd love to know how, credibility-wise, McFly are perceived vis-a-vis The Kooks, among teenage girls.
Re: Some Stats!
Date: 2008-07-23 04:58 pm (UTC)And "Club/Dance" topping 15 to 17! My guess is that in the U.S. "Club/Dance" gets an older crowd, but also that in the U.S. it is more distinct from the more popular genres than it is in Britain. (That said, I just got an email from Solange Knowles' publicist that says that Michelle Williams' "We Break The Dawn" - co-written by Solange - is #1 on Billboard's Hot Dance Airplay chart. That's actually a fairly small market - only about nine stations in the entire U.S. see themselves as specifically going for "dance" rather than r&b/hip-hop or urban or top 40. But "We Break The Dawn" could very easily be classed as r&b or urban or top 40, and it's a really good song, though I think Michelle's relatively nondescript vocals could be holding it back in those markets.)(And I wonder what the crossover is among your teen respondents, if someone who says "Top 40" and someone else who says "r&b" and someone else who says "club/dance" might be thinking of relatively similar music.)