Modest Mouse, The Shins, Death Cab...famous?
musicismylife78
Posts: 6,116
heres a quote from a years back from ben gibbard of death cab
''We're not talking millions of records quite yet,'' he says. ''We're talking hundreds of thousands of records. No one's gonna put Isaac Brock or Ben Gibbard on the cover of TIME magazine like they did with Eddie Vedder. Nobody outside of our cultural niche knows who we are if we walk down the street.''
despite the wierdness of talking of yourself in the third person what do you make of his statement?
The indie rock scene seems to me to be the defining cultural movement currently happening. And didnt Death Cab, The Shins and Modest Mouse all have number one albums in 2007/2008?
Is it still accurate to say that if Ben Gibbard or Issac Brock or Colin Meloy were to walk down the street would only a few indie rock fanboys and girls flock to them and want their autograph?
Maybe what ben was saying was true in 2003, but it surely isnt true right now, where Pitchfork and Stereogum can make or break a band even before they have a record contract
''We're not talking millions of records quite yet,'' he says. ''We're talking hundreds of thousands of records. No one's gonna put Isaac Brock or Ben Gibbard on the cover of TIME magazine like they did with Eddie Vedder. Nobody outside of our cultural niche knows who we are if we walk down the street.''
despite the wierdness of talking of yourself in the third person what do you make of his statement?
The indie rock scene seems to me to be the defining cultural movement currently happening. And didnt Death Cab, The Shins and Modest Mouse all have number one albums in 2007/2008?
Is it still accurate to say that if Ben Gibbard or Issac Brock or Colin Meloy were to walk down the street would only a few indie rock fanboys and girls flock to them and want their autograph?
Maybe what ben was saying was true in 2003, but it surely isnt true right now, where Pitchfork and Stereogum can make or break a band even before they have a record contract
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
I'd say here in England, people would recognise the guitarist of Modest Mouse before they would the singer
I would say I agree that Indie rock is huge at the minute though....problem is, to me here in England alot of Indie bands sound and loolk the same with their checked shirts and styled hair....
'06 - London, Dublin, Reading
'07 - Katowice, Wembley, Dusseldorf, Copenhagen, Nijmegen
'09 - London, Manchester, London
'12 - Manchester, Manchester, Berlin, Stockholm, Copenhagen
i don't think id recognize any of them, and im a pretty big fan of their bands. ben gibbard ditched his glasses when he took the stage last time i saw them... i thought it was another opening band at first.
they have nowhere near the exposure pearl jam did 10 years ago. i don't think any bands will ever again. the industry has changed too much and to get that kind of exposure you have to play the paparazzi game. i don't think many rock bands are willing to do that.
the indie rock scene is so far from a culturally defining moment right now that it's laughable. our defining cultural moment right now is reality television.
as I said, I am not 100 percent correct but I believe Narrow Stairs, Wincing the night Away and We were Dead before the ship, all opened at #1. And I think you can pick any show on tv whether its the O.C. or Greys Anatomy, Scrubs, House, One Tree Hill and to a certain extent, The Hills, check out their soundtracks or the songs played on the show. Its almost a cliche now, you have some narrator describing some poignant moral, and indie rock plays in the background. it happens 95 percent of the time in the shows listed above.
Thats what I meant by culturally defining. For the most part these are bands and musicians who wear their hearts on sleeve and write intense, and incredible music and lyrics. Usually that stuff isnt known by many people. Its usually the Jessica Simpsons and Britney;s that people know about as opposed to music of substance.
I would argue that the indie rock bands listed in previous posts arent Paris Hilton famous, but are famous in their own way.
And look at Death Cab, number one album, opening for Uncle Neil, or Modest Mouse number one record, covers of spin and Paste, the shins are mentioned in garden state and didnt they have a mcdonald's commercial.
i'm not saying the bands aren't famous. i'm saying they're not "cover of time like pearl jam" famous. yes, those albums debuted at number one... but how long did they stay? sure, among white suburban kids, those bands are super hip and dawson's creek will always be the soundtrack of their lives. but look at the singles charts... those bands aren't consistently at the top, not like nirvana and pearl jam and stp were.
and even your examples mean people might recognize the SONGS, but not necessarily the PEOPLE. eddie vedder was iconic, so was kurt cobain. everyone recognized them. i bet a large segment of the audience you described can sing all the words to the songs, but has no idea what the guys look like.
also, how do those shows rate? yeah, grey's anatomy is huge. but the rest? whitebread tenny-bop bullshit from the cw or wb or whatever. what's number one? survivor, american idol, etc.
and album sales have plummeted. when pearl jam had number one albums, it took millions of copies moved. now, so much is downloaded. those albums debut high because the diehards all buy it, then disappear. they don't stick around on the charts.
i'm not saying the music is worse. much of it is far better than grunge. the game and the scene is just different. the music industry in general is almost unrecognizable. it's a good thing. but i do think it means that the indie bands today do not have the same kind of cultural recognition grunge did. hell, neither does mainstream hip hop or r&b.
Rock doesn't get the mainstream coverage it did back in the early 90's:(