The other day, I picked up the latest Yeah Yeah Yeahs album, released early in 2006. I was playing in my office and my office mate laughed and said that my pop music was always a year behind. He said something like, "My brother made me this album last year and I listened to it a lot for awhile and then forgot about it until now."
I thought this was interesting. I guess I am about a year behind the times or so. But the idea that music is for a particular time, while an overwhelmingly common notion, is odd to me. I'm behind the times because I buy in a lot of different genres. (A side note--I still buy CDs because I believe in supporting the artists and because I believe in the album format.) Along with this album I also bought a 2 CD set of George Jones and Sun Ra's Space is the Place. So I fall behind in with new releases in all sorts of new music because I am trying to cover my bases and buy a little of everything. Plus, I make no pretensions to actually being hip, in my musical purchases or otherwise.
But why would someone buy music that they didn't think was good enough to listen to for a long time? Does good music date itself? Is an album from 2006 not cool anymore in 2007? Or for that matter, does music from the 1940s still resonate today? I answer yes to that latter question, but the vast majority of people I know dismiss this out of hand.
I guess I don't have much of interest to say on this matter except that I flat out don't understand how you can like an album for a month and then forget about it. Sure, your tastes can change but that's not what happens to most people. Do people buy music to be hip or because they actually like it?
Well, there's the fact that for many people, being hip provides its own particular forms of enjoyment. Plus, hipness provides its own sort of cultural capital that sheer enjoyment may or may not provide.
ReplyDeleteAnd while I don't know the office mate in question (though I have an idea), he's wrong - the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs isn't as great as the first full-length, but it's still really really good. It hasn't lost anything.
ReplyDeleteI'm always learning about bands that hipsters have evidently known about for years. Rilo Kiley? Just heard of 'em a year ago. Trail of Dead? Ditto.
ReplyDeleteI've got too much shit to do to care that I'm behind the times. After the Scorcese documentary on Bob Dylan came out last year, I spent about a month listening to nothing but Dylan's early releases, so I guess there I was about 40 years behind the times.
"hipness provides its own sort of cultural capital that sheer enjoyment may or may not provide."
ReplyDeleteI guess you must be right. I don't understand. But then again, I'm kind of the anti-hip.
I used to be hip, in that I was up on the latest things before they even came out, read the zines, heck, wrote for zines, and so on. Now, I'm about a year behind, like you. Part of it is getting older and no longer having the time and energy to devote to it, tiring of the scenesterism, etc. But the bigger part is that I've greatly widened my field of musical interest, both in terms of genre and era. When half to three-fourths of the new music I'm checking out isn't technically new music, it's hard to keep up with the latest hipness, especially with the insane net-fueled proliferation of sources of novelty in terms of both music and opinion about music. It actually works pretty well for me though. I wait 6 months to a year, and then check out stuff that I keep consistently hearing good word of mouth about. Helps separate the wheat from the chaff a bit.
ReplyDeleteThe only downside I've experienced is no longer being able to catch new bands live before they hit big and start playing larger, more impersonal venues. By the time I find out about a great band now, they're already on their second tour and often playing ballrooms or ampitheatres instead of small clubs or basements, which has put a real damper on my enjoyment of live music.