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Underground > Radio & Music >

Irony and Indie Rock

m

18:25 / 30.03.04

In the last ten years or so indie rock has co-opted a lot of different styles under the guise of ironic posturing. For example: the trucker hat with big bushy beard country music thing, the tight t-shirt long haired 70's cock rock thing, etc. These trends seem to start out as a kind of joke, and then at some point transform into a straight faced belief in that which was being made fun of.
Why is that? Is the irony there just to offer an escape route in case a trend doesn't catch on? "Oh, I was just jokin', I don't really like X thing." Are people really that lame? What's going to be the next big ironic trend? (Looks like its 80's metal to me.)

09:46 / 31.03.04

I, personally, am hugely guilty of doing the starting-out-ironic-and-becoming-geniune thing;

the development of my love of metal is a textbook case - start getting interested in it cos it's funny, stay interested in it cos it's, um, really good actually..

Actually, I've more or less given irony the heave-ho in regard to my music taste.. all the stuff I'd previously used irony as an excuse to listen to: doom metal, stoner stuff, 70s radio rock, dodgy psyche-prog stuff..: I hereby declare that I geniunely love all that stuff and most of the time feel far more inclined to listen to it than to, say, Fugazi or whatever. And if people don't like that, the hell with them.

Actually though, an 80s hair metal revival is the one thing I couldn't really stomach.. I mean all that Motley Crue stuff was basically an ironic pose played for laughs and anchored around crappy, watered down music in the first place, so deciding to revive it.. good lord, no, bad idea. I mean, ironic second generation rip offs of bands who were themselves second generation rip-offs of some music that may once have been based on something good = BAD IDEA. Fuck the Darkness.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

13:18 / 31.03.04

Now that is a T-Shirt slogan.

I'm getting one made this weekend. If you spot me, say hello!!

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

13:18 / 31.03.04

Referring to "Fuck The Darkness", btw.

14:25 / 31.03.04

Motley Crue was ironic? You're killing my childhood, man.

Shout at the devil! SHOUT! SHOUT!

I think irony is a fairly functional defense, but it either shatters eventually or else you're left with a shallow experience of the music. I remember when love of disco was ironic, and I found it really disturbing (at the time) because I genuinely didn't like the music, and could kind of tell that at some level, people around me "pretending" to get into really did enjoy it.

Maybe "pretense" is the key. Pretension. It's cool to pretend to like something, even if it's not cool to like it... yet.

15:35 / 31.03.04

Actually, I've more or less given irony the heave-ho in regard to my music taste.. all the stuff I'd previously used irony as an excuse to listen to: doom metal, stoner stuff, 70s radio rock, dodgy psyche-prog stuff..: I hereby declare that I geniunely love all that stuff and most of the time feel far more inclined to listen to it than to, say, Fugazi or whatever. And if people don't like that, the hell with them.

if i understand things correctly, this more or less sums up one of the key tenets of joycore, as i understand joycore, anyway. maybe i've got it all wrong, and i know it's not joycore to try to pin down and define joycore, but fie to that. it's that post-ironic sincerity that works for me, that "i understand that i'm supposed to think this is crap, but i actually like it, so bite me."

maybe i'm just being optimistic, but i think that's where things are going. i think people are getting tired of detachment and the exhausting arms race that is hipper-than-thou-ism. i could be wrong, but i hope not.

m

15:49 / 31.03.04

Hey, what the hell is joycore? Is that some real shit? Does it exist outside of Barbelith?

18:32 / 31.03.04

Referring to "Fuck The Darkness", btw.

I've already made a mix CD of that name.

It's a pity the Darkness are such a shitty band, cos they do have one of the best NAMES ever.. as I've probably said before, the band was selling hats at some festival or other that said "I (heart) the Darkness" - now if the band didn't exist, that would just be the coolest thing ever to have written on your hat..

00:52 / 04.04.04

I'm so tired of irony. So...very...tired. I dont know what's worse; pretending to like something you dont really like because it's funny, or pretending to like something ironically that you actually really like? er...yeah. And in the grand sceme of things, the Darkness arent much different than a band with real "cred" like.......I cant even think of one. Nirvana, or whoever. I mean, it's OKAY to like Nazareth and John Coltrane. ABBA and Stravinsky. I thought it was due to go away, but the irony is starting to make me feel reeeealy claustrophobic. Oop. Almost started to rant, there...

Simpsons -
"Dude, are you being sarcastic?"
"I don't even know any more."

All Acting Regiment

20:06 / 04.04.04

Unhip dickhead says: like whatever you want. It's bound to come into "fashion" sooner or later whether you want it to or not.

20:55 / 05.04.04

this is exactly what happened to me with regards to phil collins.

20:56 / 05.04.04

oh, and i'm not kidding.

10:00 / 06.04.04

Phil Collins is exempt: it will NEVER be cool to like him, ironically or otherwise. I thought that was one of the ground-rules..

Jack The Bodiless

11:01 / 06.04.04

But it was cool to like Phil Collins. In the '80s. You know, when you were barely alive, Riz.

And Motley Crue - irony? Feh. You kids don't know shit about 'hair metal' (revolting yank term that it is. Try 'cock rock', people - it makes more sense. If anyone seriously thinks that Ratt, Poison, Warrant and Danger Danger were 'metal' in any sense, you need to be educated VERY fucking quickly). Riz, Tommy, Vince, Nikki and Mick think irony is what blacksmiths do. Trust me on this.

And The Darkness are a great band, unrepentant throwbacks though they may be. The songs are catchy odes to a time gone by, very well played, and they're fully able to take the piss out of themselves and others, which is something the Crue couldn't ever manage (cf - Justin Darkness is informed that Jon Bon Jovi hates them. "Well, that's a real shame. I wonder what the rest of the cast of Ally McBeal think?"). I don't think they're the future of rock n' roll by any means - they're a cabaret band, kind of like Oasis with all the earnestness taken out.