So I’ve been tossing this idea around lately that instead of just doing music reviews I’d also write about music in general and the musical culture. Opinion pieces and whatnot. Let’s try it out and see how it goes. 

Hipsters and Other Such Bullshit Terms

  Lately the internet has been a fire with people that have come to be called hipsters. From what I gather, and I may be wrong here, they are a group who have awkward facial hair, big sun glasses, triangles and like Neutral Milk Hotel. Now, I have no problem with most of that. People can do whatever they want. It’s the association with certain bands, like Neutral Milk Hotel, or types of music, like “inde” rock, that really gets under my skin. 

  This is what happens. New music comes along and a scene starts. Sometimes scenes grow (sometimes very quickly) into nationwide or even worldwide sensations. This is when that type of music is at it’s peak. Everyone is open to it and it’s still just music. Then it mutates. Some people who particularly love this type of music start dressing the same and go to the same places and worst of all, they start excluding others. It turns into a cult. Then members of this cult start bands of their own to make more of the music they love. Unfortunately, they usually sterilize it down to it’s basic elements and create a formula. This leaves the music as a steril parody of itself. Then the scene implodes. Repeat.

  This has happened since the beginning of rock’n’roll. It happened with the hippies in the 60’s, then the punks in the 70’s, then pop music and hair metal in the 80’s, then the 90’s had grunge and emo music and no it’s happening to indie bands. Each movement started as something fresh and devolved into party themes, cliches and Halloween costumes. Each one of these once great music scenes now comes with baggage and preconceptions. When’s the last time you saw someone with a tie dye t-shirt, long hair and bell bottoms and thought something along the lines of, ‘Look at this lazy hippie.’? What if I told you that dude voted Republican? And not to be “ironic” either. 

  These assumptions we make in turn reflect bad on the bands associated with that stereotype and that’s the real crime. People see fans of certain bands and think, ‘Oh, they like *so and so*. I’m not interested then.’. It’s simple minded and dumb but it’s true. The best example I can think is the story of how I came to like Bright Eyes. 

  Back when Bright Eyes first became big I was in 11th grade. I was just getting into the music of the 60’s and 70’s by this time and was really digging all the early punk stuff. This is when a friend of mine mentioned Bright Eyes. Before I had a chance to really listen to them, I started seeing people in Bright Eyes shirts and hearing the name more and more. Now as a young and naive individual, I took the close minded approach and noticed all these kids dressed and acted the same. They were the “emo” kids. I didn’t want to be an emo kid so I decided not to listen to the music they did. It wasn’t until a few years ago I actually opened up and gave it a listen. Now I’m a pretty big fan and even met Conor Oberst. Younger me was completely wrong.

  My point is, keep your mind and ears open. Don’t listen to music based on the fans and don’t become a stereotype. I don’t consider myself a hippie, punk, grunge kid, hipsters or any other dumb label used to sort CDs in a record store. I’m just a dude who loves and makes music. There are in reality only four types of music. Music I love, music I don’t like but respect, music I hate and music I haven’t heard. Everything falls in there somewhere. My advice is to listen to music with that in mind. Listen without comparisons and preconceptions and keep it as music and not style. Be a human, not a commercial.