masters of obscurity: number seven uptown defeats spiderland
Music February 5th, 2009
I own a copy of Slint’s album Spiderland, mostly because I felt compelled by a rising tide of critical acclaim to get out there and educate myself. Occasionally older albums catch this wave of indie respect, and we’re all meant to pretend we liked them all along: “seminal,” we will say sagely, and for extra credit you can mention that the cover photo was taken by Will Oldham, aka Bonnie “Prince” Billy, aka all possible combinations of the words “Palace”, “Music”, “Songs”, and “Brothers”. It’s true! What’s also true is that, seminal as it may be, Spiderland isn’t particularly enjoyable - it’s indirect, arty, noisy, difficult. It’s boring. I blaspheme! Sometimes I make graven images! I shall swim in a Lake of Indie Music Fire with Rod Stewart and Neil Diamond and Dave Matthews! Allmusic identifies the following as similar to Slint: Rome, Sweeney, Barkmarket, Crain, Recuerdo, H.D.U., Big Heavy Stuff, Ui, Codeine, Dirty Three, Don Caballero, Chavez, June of 44, Rodan, Mogwai. Holy Masters of Obscurity! These are not my people. I think I can identify three of these bands. So…this is heady stuff, I’m thinking; people for whom music is an intellectual exercise. This is music for music writers and basically only for music writers. I notice that all six tracks on Spiderland have their own (lengthy) reviews on allmusic. That’s more coverage than almost any other album I’ve seen: more than, for example, My Aim is True received. Isn’t that, well, skewed?
This is a kind of music industry/music blogger insider baseball: all praise for Spiderland is preaching to the choir. It’s possible I’m not just talking about Spiderland here. For ‘Spiderland’ you can substitute ‘Latest Retro-Hip Band of the Music Industry Zeitgeist’.* They all come around eventually. We are each other’s readers and we all have Spiderland already and no one else cares. Nor should they. Anyway, I’m out: I don’t get it. Spiderland bores me to tears. I just tried to listen to it again.
They do the quiet-loud thing - just like the Pixies! Just like Nirvana! Except they do it without the charisma. The recent Slint love (accompanied by reunion) neglected to mention this unfortunate lack; I suspect, in their heart of heart of hearts, in their dark secret chambers, many music heads would rather listen to The Apples in Stereo, the Little Ones, or Grant Lee Phillips. Or maybe it’s just me.
Anyway, if you want to get me hyped about an obscure, prickly midwestern band, talk to me about Swearing at Motorists. Because they did this:
How’s your mom? We shall soon return to the short list, already in progress.
*for Spiderland you can also substitute a grilled cheese sandwich; this will make you happier. And should cost less.
February 5th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Hey dude,
It’s nice to see someone not buy into the hype!
http://theundie.blogspot.com/