Why do "post" indie music leftists hate rock music so much? Is it some fear of white people, and based black people? Here is a counterblast I wrote a few weeks ago, I predict not just rock, but cock rock is due to make a come back in a modernized form. Read it if you dare...
Did you read my essay? The genuinely revolutionary energy of the 1960s was driven by angry young men. The feminization of the culture into a more passive mode is what made corporate pink washed genocide and neo-liberal post modernism possible. IMO we are due for a another surge of genuinely revolutionary male young energy. And I think it will come from rural areas and abandoned cities like the rust belt.
Does this mean an exact repeat like Mohawks or fringe leather jackets? Of course not the forms and styles and instruments change but the archetypal energy remains the same. IMO people are going to use ipads and midi MPCs to make music as hard hitting as punk rock, as soulful and expressive as Led Zeppelin, and as full of good stories as the best old school non Nashville country and bluegrass music. It will of course have new beats and new sounds, but a hard edge. Hard music, for hard times the very opposite of soporific poptimism. Woke has actually been really sleepy like a narcotic haze, time for an actual awakening of Dionysian primal energy IMO.
I did not have a chance to read it fully yet I was responding to your comment. I was actually in the middle of reading it until I was notified if your comment.
So I read your essay. Interesting. While it didn't convince me that rock was coming back (if you read my Substack, you can easily figure out that rock is my favorite genre and the one I am most knowledgable about) I can't fault you for following The Feeling. Ultimately, that is all I am doing by betting on hyperpop.
I would like to add that what excites me about the genre is the glitchcrunch I wrote about. I believe that sound will carry the same rage and dionysian spirit rock did in the 60s. It is too "to the point" to be confused with EDM and hits too hard to simply be considered dance pop. Yes, it has trans legends like Sophie and Laura Les from 100 Gecs. But they just play the music. They are not annoying woke ambassadors.
There is a hyperrock playlist on Spotify you should check out. But, as I said, I am a betting man, so we shall see what will be the biggest genre of the decade.
I like some of the I guess progenitor bands to hyperpop like Melt Banana, but it is too narrow and hard to listen a genre to become a zeitgest winner IMO. Kind of like Schoenberg's 12 tone music.
That doesn't mean it isn't valid, one of my favorite genres 1970s ambient is incredibly niche. But I do also think people are tired of sleepy music, and music with compressed dynamic range, and we are due for something raw and exciting and frankly masculine.
I heard one track a while back and it had a lot of piercing high frequencies I found off putting. Anything I could find on Apple Music, you'd recommend? I do Apple Music because it isn't compressed, I am a bit of an audio snob, lol.
Very fascinating take. After reading this on Sunday morning I spent a good part of the day listening to some hyperpop, and . . . I'm diggin' it, I think you've got your finger on the pulse and I would not at all be surprised to see your prediction come true.
I was listening to a user-created spotify playlist called "hyperpop / glitchcore / scenecore." Some things that immediately stuck out at me on this playlist was the general tone of paranoia and dissapointed expectations; is this common in the genre? Because if so it would align precisely with your analysis of why the genre rose to prominence. I believe we will see a lot of Gen Z inhabiting a space of coming to terms with the world as given to them by generations before—like you said, art of the techlash. I sympathize with Mr Raven above who says the genre is narrow, and might I suggest the genre broadens on scope of we consider it to be allied, in some way, with vaporwave? If I'd been asked to name the great genre of the 20s I would have said vaporwave; there's still a lot of promise in it in my opinion. Hyperpop and vaporwave almost seem like two sides of the same coin; both are entranced by the current state of affairs as informed by a historical perspective. How about this: vaporwave is what gen Z is saying publicly to Millennials about the world the Millennials gave to them; hyperpop is what Gen Z is saying about that world amongst themselves, privately. However all this analysis is only based off about two hours' worth of listening to one playlist so I might not really have a handle on what's going on.
Also, I agree with your analysis of rock, rap, and "root genres." It's telling to me that the "edgy" rock stations are still playing Nevermind. As to your theory of genres beginning to fizzle out right when their greatest artistic productions are created . . . yeah, I'll go with that. Perhaps a genre attracts attention from musicians when it is new because it presents itself as an artistic / aesthetic problem, only for that attention to wane once masterpieces get created and the genre is "solved."
Great comment. By the way, I'm not sure how I left off vaporwave to be honest. But yeah I guess vaporwave will give us the slower side of the decade, idk. Perhaps most EDM will use vaporwave for the chill-out room, who knows? I am 48, so my finger can only follow the pulse so far. Anyway, I will check out the hyperpop / glitchcore / scenecore. I would recommend either "hyperpop" or the hyper rock playlist in this paste article
Also there is my playlist which builds off the paste playlist i linked to but also has what i call Vaporgaze (vaporwave and shoegaze) plus some hyper rock tracks i found out there
Why do "post" indie music leftists hate rock music so much? Is it some fear of white people, and based black people? Here is a counterblast I wrote a few weeks ago, I predict not just rock, but cock rock is due to make a come back in a modernized form. Read it if you dare...
https://whispertrees.substack.com/p/for-those-about-to-rock-we-salute
We shall see
Did you read my essay? The genuinely revolutionary energy of the 1960s was driven by angry young men. The feminization of the culture into a more passive mode is what made corporate pink washed genocide and neo-liberal post modernism possible. IMO we are due for a another surge of genuinely revolutionary male young energy. And I think it will come from rural areas and abandoned cities like the rust belt.
Does this mean an exact repeat like Mohawks or fringe leather jackets? Of course not the forms and styles and instruments change but the archetypal energy remains the same. IMO people are going to use ipads and midi MPCs to make music as hard hitting as punk rock, as soulful and expressive as Led Zeppelin, and as full of good stories as the best old school non Nashville country and bluegrass music. It will of course have new beats and new sounds, but a hard edge. Hard music, for hard times the very opposite of soporific poptimism. Woke has actually been really sleepy like a narcotic haze, time for an actual awakening of Dionysian primal energy IMO.
I did not have a chance to read it fully yet I was responding to your comment. I was actually in the middle of reading it until I was notified if your comment.
Ok, fair enough, let me know what you think in honest blunt terms, I don't learn anything without criticism.
So I read your essay. Interesting. While it didn't convince me that rock was coming back (if you read my Substack, you can easily figure out that rock is my favorite genre and the one I am most knowledgable about) I can't fault you for following The Feeling. Ultimately, that is all I am doing by betting on hyperpop.
I would like to add that what excites me about the genre is the glitchcrunch I wrote about. I believe that sound will carry the same rage and dionysian spirit rock did in the 60s. It is too "to the point" to be confused with EDM and hits too hard to simply be considered dance pop. Yes, it has trans legends like Sophie and Laura Les from 100 Gecs. But they just play the music. They are not annoying woke ambassadors.
There is a hyperrock playlist on Spotify you should check out. But, as I said, I am a betting man, so we shall see what will be the biggest genre of the decade.
I like some of the I guess progenitor bands to hyperpop like Melt Banana, but it is too narrow and hard to listen a genre to become a zeitgest winner IMO. Kind of like Schoenberg's 12 tone music.
That doesn't mean it isn't valid, one of my favorite genres 1970s ambient is incredibly niche. But I do also think people are tired of sleepy music, and music with compressed dynamic range, and we are due for something raw and exciting and frankly masculine.
It is NOT sleepy music. Not the representative tracks anyway.
I heard one track a while back and it had a lot of piercing high frequencies I found off putting. Anything I could find on Apple Music, you'd recommend? I do Apple Music because it isn't compressed, I am a bit of an audio snob, lol.
Very fascinating take. After reading this on Sunday morning I spent a good part of the day listening to some hyperpop, and . . . I'm diggin' it, I think you've got your finger on the pulse and I would not at all be surprised to see your prediction come true.
I was listening to a user-created spotify playlist called "hyperpop / glitchcore / scenecore." Some things that immediately stuck out at me on this playlist was the general tone of paranoia and dissapointed expectations; is this common in the genre? Because if so it would align precisely with your analysis of why the genre rose to prominence. I believe we will see a lot of Gen Z inhabiting a space of coming to terms with the world as given to them by generations before—like you said, art of the techlash. I sympathize with Mr Raven above who says the genre is narrow, and might I suggest the genre broadens on scope of we consider it to be allied, in some way, with vaporwave? If I'd been asked to name the great genre of the 20s I would have said vaporwave; there's still a lot of promise in it in my opinion. Hyperpop and vaporwave almost seem like two sides of the same coin; both are entranced by the current state of affairs as informed by a historical perspective. How about this: vaporwave is what gen Z is saying publicly to Millennials about the world the Millennials gave to them; hyperpop is what Gen Z is saying about that world amongst themselves, privately. However all this analysis is only based off about two hours' worth of listening to one playlist so I might not really have a handle on what's going on.
Also, I agree with your analysis of rock, rap, and "root genres." It's telling to me that the "edgy" rock stations are still playing Nevermind. As to your theory of genres beginning to fizzle out right when their greatest artistic productions are created . . . yeah, I'll go with that. Perhaps a genre attracts attention from musicians when it is new because it presents itself as an artistic / aesthetic problem, only for that attention to wane once masterpieces get created and the genre is "solved."
Great comment. By the way, I'm not sure how I left off vaporwave to be honest. But yeah I guess vaporwave will give us the slower side of the decade, idk. Perhaps most EDM will use vaporwave for the chill-out room, who knows? I am 48, so my finger can only follow the pulse so far. Anyway, I will check out the hyperpop / glitchcore / scenecore. I would recommend either "hyperpop" or the hyper rock playlist in this paste article
https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/scene-report/the-emergence-of-hyper-rock
Also there is my playlist which builds off the paste playlist i linked to but also has what i call Vaporgaze (vaporwave and shoegaze) plus some hyper rock tracks i found out there
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4Lzri3w8PIUFoWai6G5xnA?si=FvVRPSt2T5izr_r65iX_Lw&pi=u-Rq5UOL8wQoCi
Ah, I will check out all of those as soon as I can. Thanks!
“the fedora revival of the ‘10s did not lead to a swing craze” — except that it kind of did. Electro swing was popular around ‘13 to ‘18.
I would call that a microniche revival more than a craze.
Fascinating take.