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…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Used CDs in the Dollar Bin
(Or rather, unused CDs returned to the distributors.)
In more fun with the office iTunes, I finally got around to giving the new(ish) …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead album, So Divided a listen, and it’s not so bad but not great by either.
But Trail of Dead are more interesting these days as a case study in career burnout and the cold realities of music business than they are as an actual band, and that’s got to be an increasing bummer for these guys. If people are going to their shows it’s probably either to see tour-mates the Blood Brothers or in the hopes of witnessing some nouveau Brian Jonestown Massacre shenanigans.
I’ve been thinking about the Trail of Dead story, and I think it’s indicitave of something we’re going to be seeing a lot of in the near future: 90s kids who thought they could make a living making music are going to find the bottom falling out of indie rock. Check it out:
-Christgau says there’s more music made each year than is possible to listen to, ie. the market is ridiculously saturated, simple supply and demand.
-The only people buying records anymore are Disney-enthralled tweens, the elderly, those without internet or with enough of a puritanical streak to avoid file-sharing, and a few stalwart indie rock (and likely other genre) supporters who for whom the record purchase is less a consumer act than a dutiful tithing.
(I’m about to get in way, way over my head after the jump, so bear with me if you continue)
America has passed through it's most prosperous moments, materially. Oil is drying up and Empire is fading. The material abundance, fairly peaceful and liberal political climate, and new media/information explosion of the 90s created the illusion/dream of a middle class in music, call it indie rock, artists and labels that were neither of the bourgeoisie big 5 nor of the proletariat folk.
The rock star was a hallucination of post-war prosperity. In the grip of stagflation, punk tried to kill the rock star, but OPEC extended its life span for at least another couple decades. Then in the 90s something funny happened—actually a lot of funny things: rock lost its pop cultural primacy to hip hop, electronica, pre-fab teen pop, etc; the internet boomed; history ended—and the result was that, while there were still just as many stars and undiscovered buskers, there emerged a sizeable middle class in rock—people who weren't rock stars, but could comfortably live off their artistic exploits—bands like Pavement, maybe—bands that still depended on the excess capitol of the owners (as opposed to being set for life) but that maybe didn’t have to work day jobs.
That was the 90s dream, but in the 00s, nobody's buying these too-many-to-listen-to records, gas (the primary cost of independent touring) is only going to get more and more expensive, and this indie rock middle class is poised to evaporate, leaving in its place a world divided between Disney/Sony-backed pop stars and toiling regular folk, for whom music is an avocation. Some bands are gonna have a tough time adjusting.
Or maybe, after two luke-warm, major label records flopped, the band is merely going through artistic menopause, and the public is privy to its every embarrassing hot-flash.
Comments
Sure, everbody hurts, but the comfy middle will hurt first.
Perhaps making a living, playing stadiums and selling a bunch of records are NOT good reasons to play in a band. Perhaps the pinhead from AYWKUBTTDMXYPLX should have sussed this out as virtually everyone I know who harbors even a passing interest in music could tell you these are expectations and dreams that will be unmet for 99.999% of all bands. Perhaps you should play music for yourself and because you love it - even the boring or frustrating or disappointing parts of it. If you can't muster any passion for playing live (probably the most visceeral musical experience), you really should consider a new outlet for your creative non-energy. Great music doesn't have fuck-all to do with the economy or world politics or the machinations of pop culture trends - it has to do with great bands writing great songs and working their asses off because they believe in the necessity of what they're doing. Sure, fans and money are nice because they eliminate some of the soul-crushing aspects of the work but I don't think The Minutemen are any lesser a band for lacking these things or that Huey Lewis and the News were greater for having them.
I don't think the trend you're discussing has anything to do with the death of indie rock; it's about the return of indie rock to the non-mainstream. It's about goddamn time. Now when is the fucking "bottom" going to fall out of Pitchfork?
That's what I'm talking about, Danmohr—underground music becoming a folk thing again, with the realistic expectations that go with that.
Ah, I think the word "folk" threw me off. And maybe I missed the use of socio-economic strata as tiers of rock band popularity metaphor and took the discussion too literally. Damn your linguistic trickery!
Well, we can now return to the glory days of constantly bitching about bands who should be more popular rather than constantly bitching about bands that are too popular.
But I stand by my assertion that Conrad Keely is a shallow twat in need of a cockpunch.
I hear there's a certain highschool football coach looking for work...
Sounds right to me. But spell correctly, don't just guess, okay? Now half the people who read this think "bourgeois" is spelled "beaujolais" or however you spelled it.
damn. fixed. too much beaujolais for me this morning.
eric, I'm not trying to move the Vera flame war over here. I just think some of your observations here describe (better than I did) the real issue. Vera is a manifestation of excess capital. Kids who need to do music, or performance, will find a way (and a place) to do it. Just like musicians. There is nothing wrong with some musicians having been active during a historical anomaly and made a living wage. I'm happy for them. But I agree things are swinging back to "folk" - in the Minutemen sense. A band on every block.
Precisely. Like it or not, music is going to get a lot more local/regionally focused in the coming oil collapse. There's going to be a serious separation between the artists that have the financial backing to continue doing tours and massive record releases and those who simply play out on a small scale. The middle class of indie rock will disappear, and the idea that the Connor Keeleys of the world can survive of only their music will disappear as well. But the non-profits will soften the blow for a time.
Record sales are not really relevant to the conversation--no mid-level artist makes much money off them anyway (even that annoying Trail of Dead guy said he's never recouped). It's all about touring and merch. Now, with gas getting expensive, with kids turning to other forms of entertainment, the Showbox-level venues aren't selling out, and the next Yo La Tengo (the perfect 15-year-mid-level-career band) may never make enough to go on a second tour. That's sad, but playing just to play is fine. The only people who suffer are the misguided souls who thought they were working as a barista only until they made it bigtime.
That said, Trail of Dead was never very good. I tried to listen to their hit record and was bored.
Perhaps I should've been clearer. It's not just music's middle class that's basically fucked. It's the middle class in general.
Although it remains to be seen if the enormous potential of download sales, which would remove so many of the obstacles facing independent artists, ever develops into something that actually makes money for artists. As long as it's just a really nifty way to give away the fruits of one's labors for free, then I'd have to say that you're right on the money about indy music of all varieties becoming a largely unpaid gig.
Astute observations. But it ain't just music's middle class that's an endangered species.