How To Have Hipster Music Tastes
Country Music Sucks, Except Old Country
I hate hipsters who don’t like country music but think they have to act like they “respect” (god I hate that word too) old country.
They will then mention a few guys who are widely considered to be “badass”: Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and Hank Williams
Then “Yeah, that country was good, but this new stuff is all shitty pop music”. Ah, this 23 year old hipster has watched bitterly as 1950’s country has gone into the shitter.
If they knew anything about country music they’d know that country music has always been “pop music”.
Also, name me three “older country” songs that aren’t by Johnny Cash.
Yeah that’s what I thought. But you just know it’s good somehow, right?
Old School Rap
I know it’s not hip to say so but all old school rap is the most unlistenable, boringly basic and annoying music on the face of the earth. Every song has the tempo and lyricism of a Barney song. You know when a parent or a “square” person in a movie makes fun of rap? That’s all based on this crap.
Where does the reverence come from?
Afrika Bambaataa? Sugar Hill Gang? Kurtis Blow? Run DMC? Man all of this stuff is so fucking bad. Why can’t we admit this and move on and be like, “ok we pretended for awhile but we’re not gonna do it anymore”?
Oh yeah, and if this shit is so good or deserves “respect” why is it that in all the parties i’ve been to and with every goddamned hipster I know who has an ipod, i’ve never heard ANYONE ever play any of this shit? Is it too good to play?
And the Beastie Boys have two or three good songs but their cult treatment makes me hate them the same way I hate Radiohead, The Arctic Monkeys and Arcade Fire (less so Arcade Fire, though).
Punk Rock’s Sacred Cows
All new punk is derivative, whereas during the era of old punk everyone suddenly began making music that all magically sounded about the same.
Again, nobody actually listens to it, but it’s very good.
Black Flag is a shitty band. I know saying this would’ve gotten your ass kicked in middle school but you’re an adult now. Let the healing begin.
The Clash and The Sex Pistols aren’t that good either– at least not as good as people act like they are.
The Ramones made pop songs. They were the Blink182 of their day (Blink182 is a good band).
They were pop then and they’re pop now. Proof of this is that you can find their music on many commercials nowadays, especially “Blitzkrieg Bop” and “I Wanna Be Sedated”, oftentimes selling fruit-infused Shampoo and Conditioner lines.
Hardcore Punk was even worse, as the soundtrack for the latently homosexual it has carried over through time even less, though the fear of sounding like a pussy keeps people singing it’s praises.
Also, remember those pussy NYC Garage punk ripoff bands like The Strokes and Jet? Man I hate those bands.
Underground Hip Hop
Most of this stuff is also very bad, and it’s underground for a reason. It usually sounds very low rent and every underground artist sounds like a less-good, undeveloped version of a mainstream hip hop artist.
Slug=Eminem, El-P=Raekwon The Chef, Aesop Rock=Kool Keith, Murs=J-Ro (from the Alkaholiks)
You’ll also notice that many of them are white guys.
But following the “nothing is any good if other people like it” mantra, you’ll definitely like underground hip hop because most of it sucks and not many people like it.
Their best rapper, Brother Ali, would be a popular mainstream rapper if he wasn’t a weird looking albino.
Addendum
Now remember what’s trendy can change overnight. Be prepared. If a clever commercial, popular TV show or movie uses a song you must quickly do your homework and pretend that you liked said band/song way before you heard it in the movie. Protip: say you liked their previous album more than this album. Say it was more “raw” or “low fi”.
Bands That Are Good But Aren’t Very Popular To Say So
Lucero
Bright Eyes
Coldplay
Descendents
The Postal Service
The Smiths
Metallica (Mentioned because, once a sacred cow, now are open game for ridicule because their drummer is against p2p downloading)
The Shins
How To Forecast What Will Be A Popular Hipster Band
Hipsters are opinionated, but they aren’t very chancey, so for a little while they will say that any band you mention “is pretty good, I should check them out again”, but once a consensus has been made one way or the other it’s set in stone.
It used to be that any band that any band with a two word name starting with “The” was a safe bet until I read a report of 2 aspiring hipsters who were beaten unmercifully for wearing “The Fray” shirts to “The Faint’s” show in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles. Similar reports have come out of Williamsburg Brooklyn and the Portrero Hill area of San Francisco.
Reading Pitchfork Media is used by many hipsters to minimize the risk of making unpopular music choices.
Click Here For The Counterpoint To This Post, By Jeremy “MGMT RULES” Azevedo
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Carol
i had a good laugh when i read this.
pne thing to keep in mind, though: don’t denounce an entire genre because of the failings of a few artists. want good punk? check out oxymoron. good underground rap? there’s sage francis, sole, and immortal technique.
aside from that, i really agree with most of what you have to say here.
although seriously, coldplay sucks.
August 15th, 2008 at 8:11 am