Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Cream / Creamtastic / Moving Pictures Music Sucks, Nashville Sucks, Blame Zach Braff Five Years Ago
Posted by Steve Haruch on Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 3:17 PM
We're always glad when people are
able to see Nashville as something other than the country music blah blah blah of the blah blah. Except maybe when people see it as the national crossroads of mediocrity and suckitude! Cold on the heels of the whole Das Racist vs. Sasha Frere-Jones "hip-hop-is-dead-no-it's-not" Internet/haiku dust-up comes Chris Milam (originally from Memphis) with a post over at PopMatters called "Bored New World: How the Zach Braff Prototype Is Slowly Killing American Music." Milam describes the unbearable whiteness of Braff Rock while more or less calling Nashville its epicenter, if epicenter is the right word to use with wimpy music that barely moves.
In coffeehouses across America skinny-jeaned lads talk about themselves talking about themselves and trade iPods in this, their own personal Cameron Crowe dramedy.
Zing, and from a guy who knows the names of film directors.
MySpace cyber-hocks chubby prep schoolers as Johnny Folk Hero, uninspired girls rejoice, and countless mix tapes are drafted for kids who don't love each other back, while everyone everywhere who has nothing better to do--and the means to do it--sings along in the plaintive falsetto of their privileged soul. And I'm here, in the back of the room, in a smokeless Nashville concert hall, wondering why the guy onstage is singing into his guitar lifelessly and, even more so, why everyone else in the room is listening.Welcome to the Art of Self-Entitlement.
Oh no, mediocre indie rock is ruining America. Since, uh, 2004, around the time that this article would have been news. Aw. Not that people aren't still crapping out the tenderoni, of course, especially here in old Nashville town.
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Comments (22)
Showing 1-22 of 22
I always attributed Nashville's "neutered adult" problem to the fact that it's such a bible belt city. But honestly why do we keep calling people in this crowd hipsters? That word, while still negative, used to at least mean somebody who was hip to something. Now it apparently just means people who shop at Urban Outfitters.
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That's a super long rant for someone that's obviously just going to the wrong shows.
Nashville has an unruly amount of guitar-playing undergrads, meaning his problem is more with the boring tastes of freshman on the quad rather than Nashville music as whole. His argument is invalid. I win.
This shit is OLD news everybody knows that feelings don't rock. This guy is doing nothing but screaming into a hole. Attempt at social criticism fail.
If believe he is referring to Ten out of Tenn types, and unfortunately he's right on the money. Now, instead of looking for major label deals, they're looking to land their songs in Nissan ads or CW sitcoms.
yeah, i may not totally agree with dumping it all on nashville (and he doesn't really, he passes it around), but i see what he's talking about.
Yeah we knew this already but Chris wrote the hell out of that piece. And he's still so right on. So much music, and especially the music of indie-or-should-I-say mainstream-aspiring Nashville is Fucking. Boring. Even the guys WITH kick drums and amps and bulging veins are mostly a copy of a copy of a copy. Yes there are still lots of truly original good shows, let's not kid ourselves, but you've gotta look harder for them than you should have to. Nashville is damn good at throwing rich white people of dubious artistic caliber in the altweeklies or up the charts.
up next? Hot Chelle Rae! supposed "local band" that we're being pressured BIGTIME to stock at Grimey's. we've never heard of them. no customers have asked. their label/distributor camp says stocking 2 copies is not enough!
let's see... (looking up on internet) "Lead vocalist/guitarist Ryan Keith Follese, his brother/drummer Jamie, and lead guitarist Nash Overstreet are the sons of A-list Nashville songwriters with multiple #1 hits between them, while bassist Ian Keaggy's dad is a world renowned Grammy-nominated guitarist."
aha!!!
I don't buy it,dude is just lazy or uniformed, music and culture are not getting worse-this same cliche has been said since folks called what they did culture. i've never had a difficult time finding interesting or arresting shows in this town, and i'm an admitted elitist-but then again, i go to shows excited and looking to have fun-not looking to be impressed...just paying 5-10 bucks, drinking a few beers and expecting a life changing musical experience everytime is absurd...
There is so so so so much good f'ing music out there. Why must we always be complaining about the bad stuff? Yes, Im just as aware as anyone of how much crap rolls through town (or from town as it may be), but man there are more bands out there than ever that I fall in love with. It seems every other day there's a new band Im turned on to that blows my mind. The fact that theres still enough good music out there to have that effect on me is astounding. If you're down on the music scene, go see Larry, Josh, Doyle, Anna, or anyone else at Grimey's and I GUARANTEE they'll show you a new band to fall in love with. Quit complaining, start searching.
strange monologue coming from someone who makes music shitty enough to make a zach braff soundtrack look like brahms.
Garden State = one of the most wonderful movie of all time
FLUFFHEAD=worst person of all time
FACT.
HOW in the fuck did you even find that article on that cluster fuck of a home page????
You had to have gotten a press release
Oh, puhleeze (uttered with the snivelling amped-up cynicism bred into these metrosexuals --- that's really what they are)!!! Music has always (ALWAYS!) been coopted from other popular songs. 95% of all music (look at the c-r-a-p from the 1930s and 1940s that masqueraded as great jazz) is borrowed and reshaped (and in some cases not even reformed a'la Climie Fisher and Rod Stewart). No defender of the platitudes on Music Row, music execs around the world are notorious for their uninspired rehashing of hits ad nauseam. It just doesn't help that there is nothing inspiring coming from the world's coffeehouses and music dives at this time. Those bursts of genre-shaking music usually come with a big infrastructure change like radio, 45 and LP records, transistor radios for the "beach sound of the 60s, M-TV, the Internet fifteen years ago, etc.. Not entirely removed from this phenomenon, Country music on the other hand actually thrives by evolving through the trite elements of the genre.
"There is so so so so much good f'ing music out there. Why must we always be complaining about the bad stuff?"
The same answer Mallory gave when they asked why climb Everest: Because it's there.
Ten out of Tenn does suck, if that's indeed what he's referring to, but there's bad music EVERYWHERE and it trends toward predominance. Dude should know that, he's practically from Arkansas.
And hey, Malim, leave some words for the rest of us. Verbose fucker must have been getting paid by the syllable.
Whether or not the post is valid, I don't think it's fair to pick on "Garden State." Anyone who has ever moved away from home, and has had to return because some shit has gone down, only to discover that their hometown and the people in it -- friends AND family -- feels completely foreign to them, understands the film's sentiment. When the music moves from being part of the soundtrack to being a character (as "In Your Eyes" does in "Say Anything"), it's a great moment. Here's a character in Portman who CAN'T leave to change her life, inspiring a character in Braff who DID leave but can't escape, and she uses music to do it.
ap, sounds like I touched a nerve.
do you still fall asleep while crying to that movie?
Every town has as many nay-sayers as it does praise singers. While I find Chris Milam's comments rather stupid and out-of-tune with the modern times, I have to somewhat agree. I've only been in Nashville for a few months but the scene is somewhat of a snoozer. From what I've seen, besides a few ok Belmont-based groups, the scene centers largely around Turbo Fruits and JEFF The Brotherhood. Now, don't get me wrong, those bands are fine (although not nearly as exciting as most of their fans find them), but the amount of quality bands in Nashville is definitely lacking. Actually, the amount of bands is lacking. So far, the most exciting groups I've seen here are Cortney Tidwell and Diarrhea Planet, the latter being somewhat of a "joke-band" from what I understand.
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