music overload

I'm out of touch with music.

I've been this way for a long time now.

And here's my best guess as to why: most of my iPod is based around 90's alternative bands, and I refused to listen to the radio between 1999 until about 2006. Now there's a flood of Indie bands with strange names... and music that seems completely foreign to me. The musical guests on late night talk shows are either so different from what I usually listen to or just something I would never buy or download in the first place. So strange. Everything from commercials or soundtracks of artists and bands have seemed so... unknown. I refused to go to local concerts because all the bands were trying to copy Death barf for Cutie.

I'll be honest- I think I like most of my 90's alternative because many of those bands based their sound from 70's rock: early metal bands, progressive rock, etc. I love 70's rock. But I can't really figure out where all these recent indie bands get their sound from. Folk music?! Is it 80's alternative (because I never really liked that stuff that much)? Some of these groups seem like they've brought back the art punk/new wave/alternative idea of music that rebelled against the sound of the 70's. Who knows. Or is it an original art form that can't be defined? Some of these bands have been floating under the mainstream radar for so long that they have many many albums to listen to.

When I think about it, sometimes the indie scene is just another "my-obscure-taste-in-bands-is-better-than-yours" type of thing. So what? It can be said that the mainstream umbrella term of "alternative rock" that conquered mainstream radio in the 90's allowed this lo-fi, independent underground music to thrive until it too became popular a few years ago.

So I decided to look at the lineup for the Coachella festival this year, and every band that I didn't recognize, I decided to download one of their albums. I'm probably going to hate it, but it will save me the price of tickets to see the actual show. About 80% of the entire lineup was completely new to me. In a future post I'll review my findings. I might make a graph or create a musical degree of separation chart.

To the select few that read my blog:

What music/bands are you listening to right now?