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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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.
Hah. I so agree with you about the freakin’ old country thing. Johnny Cash: so annoying. I mean, I liked that movie and all — Walk The Line — but it is some total junk that people think old country is “hip.” TOTAL JUNK. I also agree about a lot of underground hip-hop and am feeling the bands you list under “Bands That Are Good But Aren’t Very Popular To Say So.”
Heh, but why isn’t it good to say that Coldplay or The Postal Service are good, because it would make you seem like a fruit or something?
Peace.
http://www.hipsterwave.com
It’s not good to say that Coldplay and the Postal Service are cool because those are bands that hipsters used to listen to like 5-10 years ago. So if you’re listening to those bands now you must be either:
a) a poser who only knows obvious bands that were popular a long time ago (like someone who claims to be a country expert whose favorite artists are Kenny Rogers and Randy Travis).
or
b) oldschool and unable to adapt (i.e. the old guy archetype — like the guy who still only listens to Led Zepplin and the Stones)
Old school Country Music is AWESOME! Patsy Cline, Hank Sr, Johnny, Marty, and all the gang. People who have GOOD TASTE in music love it. I know I have it all on vinyl.
Wow your a pretty big hater. This article is painting a bigger picture than you talking about your dislike of certain music. You hate people who are cooler than you. You need to be watched.
Farren Young, Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, George Jones, Buck Owens, Roger Miller. These are a few of the great old country song writers you can add to your list to hate
And here is some new ones with an american roots style you’ll hate also
The Jayhawks, Lucinda Williams, Wilco, Kathleen Edwards, Dwight Yoakam, Neko Case.
I agree with you on the rap stuff, but your wrong about the Beastie Boys. Once again your hate got the best of you.
And Radiohead you hate them because people you dont like like them. There an incredible band.
I dont know where you live that coldplay isnt popular. i love em just like the rest of the world. so you can check them off on your hate list. start hating them today cause alot of hipsters love em.
Your pathetic.
oh and Metallica sucks big monkey balls.
Its propane music made for white trash and carneys.
Jon. Man you caught me on a day where i’m super pissed.
Like most idiot commenters, you didn’t even comprehend what I was saying. I never said I didn’t like old country, I was saying that hipsters dislike new country but LOVE old country, even though they don’t actually know anything about it. Go back and re-read it you goddamned third grader.
So that also takes care of your second point relating to “american roots style” music.
The beastie boys are not good lyricists and most people I know do not listen to the beastie boys in their free time. I was pointing out that there is a bit of a sacred cow thing with them.
I think metallica is a good band that is past their prime and I don’t listen to them but they are/were popular to dislike.
I’d love to meet you for a fistfight sometime if you’re free.
http://www.misanthropytoday.com/wp-content/images/hipster-music.jpg
P.S. You searched “Hipster Music” and expected to find someone with favorable views on hipster music? Though you do live in Yuma, AZ and i’m sure people in that area have shitty music tastes (my sister lives in Phoenix— very shitty music tastes) and it makes you pissed off when people put down what you consider to be good, refined music. Fair enough.
In the future read stuff carefully. I actually like both old and new country but I know its mindless (both old and new) and I also know that old country stars would fucking hate hipsters.
I totally agree with this with the following exception: Johnny Cash basically was a hipster in his scene. I think that’s why they revere him so much. That and he’s widely respected, but you only have to own one CD that you’ve listened to twice and you can pass yourself off as a fan because his music is catchy and easy (ahem, aka pop).
I like a lot of old country and a good amount of the new stuff. The reason I like the older stuff better is that to me it sounds more like country and some of the new stuff sounds like bad light rock. I really like Gary Allan. I wasn’t a big fan until I saw him live. Great musician and a funny guy. His keyboard player is insane.
I also noticed that “Meade Skelton” (a hipster name if I ever heard on — probably had some seriously douchebag parents) carefully omitted Hank 3 from his list of acceptable new country. He put in Wilco, but must have thought Hank 3 was just too gratuitous and obvious.
we could go knuckle and skull over this
but im not to keen to hipsters anyway.
and yes the whole state of arizona is pretty much no good. unless your into flat brimmed baseball hats, huge logos, and jesse james of west coast choppers.
oh and ridiculuos lifted trucks
phoenix isnt any good but yuma is far worse. cant choose where your raised i guess.
i live in nashville tn now. really love it there. one of my top 5 favorite places in the US
sorry for the hate msg i left earlier.
where are you at?
oh but the fishing is good in yuma
on the colorado river
“underground artist sounds like a less-good, undeveloped version of a mainstream hip hop artist”
yeah right, you fucking nonsense.
slug=eminem, murs=j-ro?
what’s next? mf doom=lil wayne?
you clearly don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,
Just wondering if you had that fist fight? Or did you both decide to have a beer and a meet and beat in the nearest hotel room.
What you don’t know what a meet and beat is? And you are supposed to be a social commentator? Tsk! Tsk!
Well I found out when I emailed the moderator of a celebrity nude website that told me that he and other blokes would meet in hotel rooms and make friends with themsleves after they had swapped celebrity nude pictures with each other. Now most heterosexual men would be disgusted at this as I was but I remembered that most modern armies take part in masturbatory games ie the biscuit game. Its good for morale apparently.
Calling someone a weird looking albino?
Here’s a tip for you, that’s offensive.
how is “that’s offensive” a tip. A tip is supposed to offer a valuable insight, or in this case a better way of seeing things.
And Brother Ali is a weird looking albino, which is what most of his raps are about.
You should rap about being a mud turtle with a name from the 70’s.
This is the worst music article I have ever read. You obviously know nothing about good music. Coldplay, blink 182? Are you a 14 year old girl? This teeny bopper shit must go. Please don’t write a follow-up to this because I promise you it won’t get read. I will never visit this stupid page ever again.
this is very good. i feel like you need to address the somewhat newly emerging trend of what I’ll call the Anti-Hipster culture. i.e. you should address those of us that are probably equally guilty of contrived musical taste in that we are on to the irony of the homogeny of the hipster thing …those of us are keen on avoiding the title.
i agree that this article sucks, but i wrote it to make hipsters mad. so if saying coldplay is good makes hipsters pissed, well, i just humped my couch while reading a rolling stone review from 1999 calling Coldplay’s music “exciting” and “daring”. Also, it had a photo of them wearing unironic business suits. I was listening to The Fray when i did that.
this might have been offensive if it didn’t read like a 13-year olds forum posts…
So there were a few homosexual bands in the 80s hardcore punk scene, so what? At least they were accepted. The majority of the bands weren’t homosexual. Black Flag is good because of the music they made. Back before the internet, you found bands at this place called a record store, or even a live show. And at a time where the punk scene was turning into new-wave trend music, black flag was completely original. That’s what caused people to enjoy them. Now there’s bands all over the place that have been influenced by them.
I also love how you trash on underground music for not sounding up to par with mainstream music. If the band had a million dollar contract and could go to the top studios in the world, their music would sound just as overproduced and bland as the rest of the shit that’s mixed for radio.
L2Music nub