In defence of hipsters (1 Viewer)

[Kermit McDermott]

Mind you we still have Mainline The Brothers Movement Sweet Jane Buffalo Sunn

BUFFALO SUNN | Facebook

I have to admire their persistence.

 

[Lili Marlene]

todays Lefsetz Letter

HIP IS HISTORY

Used to be you wanted to be hip, today you want to be knowledgeable.

You remember hip, where I know about what you don't and it's so much better than what you've been exposed to and as a result I'm so much better than YOU!

We all know these people... Tell them about something you just bought and they'll tell you about something better. Forget about being impolite, trampling what you've just purchased, they've got a desperate need to demonstrate their status, which is embroidered by their accoutrements. Even better, or worse, is that in many cases the people belittling what you've purchased, what you've experienced, have never ever utilized/listened to your purchase/preference, they've just got an innate need to feel superior.

And then came the Internet.

First and foremost, all information was available for everyone to see.

In other words, if someone tells you about their cousin who knows this or that...you can check it out, instantly! Especially in an era of LTE. You'd think this would eliminate old wives' tales or heresy, but the truth is many don't like facts/absolutes, they'd rather make up their own reality.

Like in the music business, where everything popular sucks.

Really?

Yup!

Now it'd be one thing if you listened to their choice and discovered it was demonstrably better, but this never happens anymore, because the truth is everything worth liking/listening to by most people gets traction.

But that's less stuff than ever.

Huh?

In a world of many, most gravitate to the few.

It's like selling shoes... Show the patron two and he'll buy one, show the patron five and he'll buy none, he's confused, and the truth is in the last few years we've all become confused, we're overloaded with an onslaught of information.

You'd think the self-styled experts, the faux hip, would acknowledge this, but instead they keep digging deeper into the ditch, removing themselves from the mainstream, all in an effort to demonstrate their superiority.

But the truth is hip is passe, today nothing lies in wait for eons waiting to be discovered. If it's any good, it blows up instantly.

That's if it's great, actually.

If it's good, it'll find a niche.

If it's not good, forget about it.

So the hip trumpet edgy and good, forgetting that to maintain, to grow, to dominate, it's got to be edgy and GREAT! We're open to anything if it's great, but there's very little great out there, and the hip denigrate the great, because usually all they've got is their self-anointed hipster status, and they can't bring themselves to acknowledge what everybody else thinks is great is.

Used to be we lived in a limited universe. Five thousand albums a year. Now we're deep into six figures, everybody's playing in music. But we've developed no new ears, no one to listen to all these tracks.

There used to be a filter, that's why there were only five thousand LPs. You needed someone to believe in you, because recording was expensive and distribution was a huge hurdle. Prior to iTunes, et al, getting your album in the store was almost an impossibility.

So, when the hipsters trumpeted their preferences...they truly weren't that obscure. Their favorites got written about in magazines, they got some airplay, there was context for their choices.

But now there's no context, because what the hip are into almost nobody else is. There are no walls for their message to echo off of.

In other words, if someone is telling you the obscure music they're listening to is better than the big hit you are, ignore them, everyone else is.

And especially ignore the wannabe musician with no traction who tells you what he does is better than what is a hit. Because today everybody gets a chance, everybody can play, and if what you're doing is great, you'll blow up.

Yup, it's true, if you're great, people will be lining up to give you money, not only labels, but promoters, they need acts to fill out the festival bills.

So if you're great you'll get mainstream promotion and then you'll hit and the hipsters will hate you, because you're not obscure anymore.

And then there are the hipster favorites, who sort of break through, like the Alabama Shakes, who've got a good sound but no hits. Do we blame the radio formats? Why don't the Shakes hunker down and release a smash... BECAUSE IT'S NOT IN THEM!

Maybe it is, we'll see, but it's been so long since they've released new music.

But they got ink in magazines that have to feature something, hell, every week they're trumpeting something new that's forgotten almost instantly, which is the bane of the major recording artist - they put it out, everybody shrugs their shoulders and moves on.

Except occasionally.

We've all got so much input, we've all got so many choices, what makes you think yours demands time from me?

That's what I hate about Pandora, that's what I hate about Songza, do you really want me to sit through mediocre, unappealing stuff?

The halls are narrowing, what makes it through is less in quantity, and as a result we've got a whole bunch of people left out who are bitching.

Do you hear the concert promoters bitching? They only book what can sell tickets. They're equating great with demand. They're today's kings, if you have a fan base, people should show up and buy tickets. But the truth is, most of what's hip sells very few tickets if it can sell any at all.

It's the data culture we live in. Music is soft, subjective. And as a result, those passionate about it like to exclude the objective, the data that illustrates some are winners and some are losers.

And the biggest losers of all are those who keep telling us hits are crap, what they listen to is better, and that they're much hipper than we are.

Hip, WHO CARES?

 

[sleepy]

todays Lefsetz Letter

HIP IS HISTORY

I'm sorry but that's just a total pile of shite. He just comes across as an embittered gobshite who never got over being laughed at by the older kids for liking NKOTB as a youngster.

There's so much wrong with his reasoning that I'm not sure where to start.

Songs don't become successful because they're just that awesome. It's generally down to marketing and wearing the listener down with constant airplay . Just look at Get Lucky by Daft Punk. I remember reading in one of his previous posts about how this song became a smash pretty much because of the quality of it. I have to admit that I still remember the first time I heard this tune but not for the reasons that he suspects. I was in the car driving from kilkenny to Dublin, the radio was stuck on 2fm and I'd no cds. The dj announced that they had a 1 minute clip of the song which they played 5 times in less than an hour each time telling us how amazing it was, then after that they got their sound engineer to loop the 1 minute clip 4 times over so it sounded like a complete song. I don't care if this makes me sound like a hipster dick but I was sick of that song before it came out.

Here's another thing, people don't seek out new music to feel superior to other people. If they do, chances are the other areas of their lives are so bleakly shit you don't really need to worry about their opinion of you. Personally speaking, I hunt out non mainstream music because I still get excited by hearing music being done in different ways and having new possibillities opened up.

With that in mind, chances are people aren't mocking him for his music taste, it's probably more likely that he's being a wee bit oversensitive and probably has a massive inferiority complex. The NKOTB comment from earlier notwithstanding; grown people don't really get too bothered about these things

 

[nlgbbbblth]

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[David Kronenbourg]

Some cunty new bistro has opened up round my way. Here's their reaction to a poor kid staggering into their restaurant after being stabbed...
I mean, the thoughtlessness of that kid! Didn't he know it was their opening week? The tweet has since been deleted.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Ah, a little understanding, that's them telling someone else in the industry. They should have been more circumspect. But it was their opening week. The planning that goes into that shit.

I kinda like my restaurants without stabbed teens staggering in

 

[David Kronenbourg]

Ah, that's them telling someone else in the industry. They should have been more circumspect.

I kinda like my restaurants without stabbed teens staggering in.

Well it's a well known dodgy area, or at least it was before the hipsters moved in. Now it's full of pop up restaurants and sourdough pizzerias. Teenagers have been stabbing each other on the streets of Clapton for decades.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Well it's a well known dodgy area, or at least it was before the hipsters moved in. Now it's full of pop up restaurants and sourdough pizzerias. Teenagers have been stabbing each other on the streets of Clapton for decades.

Why do you hate bistros, Bernie?

 

[washingcattle]

Why do you hate bistros, Bernie?

Because they're run by the type of cunt who opens their ponce driven shit hole in a neighbourhood that they know fuck all about, and couldn't give two fucks about the locals then they go about serving bags of wank to pretentious shiteperbolous cuntslobs and get ratty when the "local culture" invades their safe haven for aforementioned Shiteperbolous cuntslobs.

Fuck bistros. Open a restaurant or a cafe and serve people what they want instead of opening a fucking bistro and essentially telling people what they want or more accurately that "you, yes you... you there with the shitty job that doesn't involve blogging... yeah you... you don't fucking matter so fuck off, this is a bistro yeah ? it's a tenner for a salad. You don't want it so stay the fuck out"

And if you need any proof of this read the fucking tweet again

#welcometohackney is it ?


So your first time stepping foot in the area is it ?

Right fuck off back to fucking Oxford you bored middle class shitebag.

I also love "great look for our first week" as opposed to "great luck" Some poor prick got fucking stabbed and it's all about appearances fuck that prick and fuck his bistro.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

I didn't realise that everything had to be for everyone.

 

[washingcattle]

I didn't realise that everything had to be for everyone.

The attitude of the average bistro owner is that their food is specifically "not" for some people. There's a massive difference between everything being for everyone and having some cunt moving in next door to you and going "not for you, fuck off"

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

I know plenty of restaurant owners and they're only too happy to take people's money. Proud and of what they do and happy to share their creations.
Plenty of people don't like anything outside their comfort zone, and that's fine too.

Maybe it's just Londoners that are cunts in this regard.
It is a spectacularly depressing place, I have found.

 

[washingcattle]

I know plenty of restaurant owners and they're only too happy to take people's money. Proud and of what they do and happy to share their creations.
Plenty of people don't like anything outside their comfort zone, and that's fine too.

Maybe it's just Londoners that are cunts in this regard.
It is a spectacularly depressing place, I have found.

It's not just London, it's like this everywhere. You can find any manner of business anywhere that moves into an area with any kind of local identity and blatantly says "we don't want you here". You can call it gentrification that's one thing but the open hostility that some businesses show towards the local people in areas is staggering. 99% of people everywhere are normal folks with normal jobs who just want to get on with their lives and it's cunts like the above mentioned cunt who I fucking garauntee moved to that neighbourhood and tarred them all with the same brush because they couldn't give two fucks about the area they now make a living in. Did he/she post "jesus some poor lad just got stabbed, thank god the ambulance responded in time" assuming he was

A. A victim
B. Innocent victim
C. In need of help

No he/she fucking didn't. He or she is a cunt and fuck them I hope their fucking Bistro burns to the fucking ground.

 

[David Kronenbourg]

. He or she is a cunt and fuck them I hope their fucking Bistro burns to the fucking ground.

same

 

[David Kronenbourg]

The #CSIClapton bit. What a fucking cunt.

 

[David Kronenbourg]

their apology on FB is getting slated
The Bonneville - Bar | Facebook

 

[nlgbbbblth]

"you with the shitty job that doesn't involve blogging".

Used get that vibe from my more creative customers. Despite going above and beyond for some of them.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

their apology on FB is getting slated
The Bonneville - Bar | Facebook

Jesus

 

[тхеодоре кацзынски]

Jesus is right, they're getting slated, hilariously.
They deserve it too for that 'branding' alone.

 

[GO]

Just skipped through the album and as a passing fan of 60s psychedilic rock it ticks the boxes

But it's odd seeing this sort of thing being treated as contemporary music. I have no beef with it apart from that.

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Theres fuck all wrong with this