I Drew a Line and You Crossed It

Maybe I blame Feist. Her first album, 2004’s Let It Die, featured a couple of tracks that tested my tolerance levels: “One Evening” and “Leisure Suite” They were cheesy, quote-unquote sexy wink wink—“One Evening” especially. Feist even seemed to acknowledge this in her video for that song, in which she and her partner do a silly synchronized dance that underlines how dumb the whole thing is.

 

I recall an interview between Leslie Feist and Nic Harcourt on KCRW a few years ago in which she herself admitted that Let It Die was assembled piecemeal and was released with no expectation that it would catch on; had she been more premeditated about it, she said, she might not have put certain songs on it. I chose to assume she meant the songs I disliked. These were, after all, straight up soft rock songs. Maybe it sounds silly to say that about some Feist songs and not others—her music is, all around, pretty soft. But many of them are gentle without being corny, sexy without being “sexy,” heartwarming without being manipulative. These two songs, on the other hand, crossed over to something cheeky and ironic. Still, these were, to me, aberrations on an otherwise fantastic album.

Her next album, The Reminder, also possessed a few soft rockisms but more organically integrated. The irony was mostly absent but there was still a smoothness to it, in songs like “Brandy Alexander” and “Limit to Your Love.” I didn’t care. I liked it. Claims from other quarters were that Feist was part of a new wave in indie music that was… boring. Bland. I wrote a post at the time defending my enjoyment of the record, even if it was “Adult Alternative.” Defending my enjoyment against whom? Mostly me, if I'm being honest. Feist made me cognizant of an internal struggle over my own taste. I thought I detected a shift in my tastes toward something with less of an edge and I wasn’t really sure what that meant. The young punk in me was raging against the aging softy I was becoming. At any rate by the time Sky Blue Sky was the definition of "Dad Rock" and Fleet Foxes were winning hearts (and rousing consternation) with their latter-day CSNYisms, I was happily on board and I didn’t care who called it boring. So I'd gone soft.

*

Meanwhile something else was happening in indie rock that I wasn’t fully paying attention to. That winky nod to soft rock I’d detected in “One Evening” had become a thing. More specifically 80s soft rock, or more generally just shit music from the 80s. Critical consensus regarding Hall & Oates, they of the atrocious “Man-Eater” and “Kiss On My List,” was being reconsidered. So too was Phil Collins. I couldn’t take it seriously, and I still can’t. I’m convinced that every nod to the wonders of Hall & Oates includes a wink and sly smile—like, “They’re great (not really).”

Other than being occasionally mystified by this trend, I’d mostly steered clear of it until I saw the movie (500) Days of Summer, which I mostly liked except for the one scene that was soundtracked by Hall & Oates. Aside from a random dance sequence feeling out of place in the otherwise not-absurd film, it rubbed me the wrong way because I knew that I was part of this film’s target demographic. Maybe on the older end, sure. Here were two characters who hailed more or less from the same subcultural milieu as I did—they had jobs in the arts, they bonded over the Smiths, they sang Pixies songs at karaoke—and when Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character gets laid he bursts into… Hall & Oates. Fuck me. Whatever, it’s meant to be funny, that’s all.

 

*

Parallel to this was the emergence of “Yacht Rock,” a youtube phenomenon made by and for bearded hipsters. Clearly a joke, each of its dozen episodes found their punch lines in bad wigs and references to Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Toto, Christopher Cross, etc. It actually wasn’t that funny but a lot of people seemed to disagree based on how many times Yacht Rock showed up in my RSS feed. But whatever, it’s sketch comedy and who cares if I think it’s funny or not.

 

*

Then last year Grizzly Bear, a band who on record has zero sense of humor (intentionally, at least—often their songs remind me of the scary part of Splash Mountain), released a version of their song “While You Wait for the Others,” with the actual Michael McDonald on lead vocals. It was something of a bastard child of the genuine (not really) rehabilitation of Hall & Oates and Phil Collins and the obvious parody of Yacht Rock.

The thing that was weird about it was that the song was played totally straight. Like most Grizzly Bear songs it is dramatic and creepy and somewhat clinical. With McDonald on lead vocals, it was still all of those things. The punch line really came in the concept; the execution was straight, so you’d be forgiven if, midway into the track, you just sort of got into it the way you do with Grizzly Bear songs (assuming you like Grizzly Bear songs in the first place). Whatever. I just sort of took as an attempt at a joke by a band that had never made a joke before.

• Grizzly Bear featuring Michael McDonald: While You Wait for the Others

*

I was able to avoid all of these jokes because their whole basis for humor fell outside my sphere of interest. I was alive in the 80s and I remember these bands being massive hits. Barring a few exceptions (the Footloose soundtrack and Genesis’ Invisible Touch), I hated all these acts back then, so this whole “remember those shitty bands?” joke wasn’t that funny to me. Any joke that involves me remembering Bruce Hornsby or Christopher Cross or Air Supply is a joke I don’t need to hear. The punch line, fyi, is that it sucks.

Meanwhile I was perfectly happy listening to my bland, boring, no-edged indie bands like Midlake and Iron & Wine and Neko Case and Fleet Foxes. It’s not the softness that bothers me so much as the soft reference points. 

Note, however, that nothing I’ve mentioned thus far involves a saxophone.

 
(Note: the reason this clip is funny is because it sucks.)

*

Skip to 2010: Gayngs were joking too. They made an awful record which references white soul and R&B of the 80s. They wear matching white suits when they perform. They covered (and butchered) George Michael’s “One More Try.” When I went off on their album last year none other than Justin Vernon tweeted at me, informing me that the band in fact took their whole endeavor quite seriously. And, if you compare Gayngs' astute level of musicianship to, say, the half-assed nature of the Yacht Rock videos, he has a point. Though he also admitted it was supposed to be funny (as if it weren’t apparent). “So what?” he seemed to be asked me. (Maybe you're saying that too. Can't I take a joke?) I responded that if the band knows that, on some level, the songs are funny, then they must also grasp that they're funny for the same reason "Yacht Rock" is funny—the punchline is that it sucks.

I feel more or less the same way about Ariel Pink’s recent album, Before Today. Conceptually, the record seems to evolve over a kind of timeline, the early songs sounding like mid/late-60s garage and psychedelia, the middle songs veering toward 70s gaudiness, the end morphing into 80s cheese. Like the Gayngs record, I was attracted to Before Today because of one outstanding track which turned out, I realized later, to be an utterly faithful cover. (For Gayngs it was Godley & Creme’s “Cry”; for Ariel Pink it was "Bright Lit Blue Sky," by the Rockin’ Ramrods and later the Rising Storm.) Realizing both albums had just one gem, and that the gem required only some good ears and the musical talent to ape their source perfectly, only underlined how much I disliked the rest of their material—i.e., when they're not in tribute band mode, their ideas are bunk. I can grant that Ariel Pink is up to something more original, perhaps more ambitious (and has apparently been mining this territory for years), but it doesn’t make the music more listenable.

• Ariel Pink: Can't Hear My Eyes

*

In college my friend Dan used to say “sweeeet” a lot. He sounded like a douche when he said it, but he knew he sounded like a douche. He was mocking douches who said “sweeeet” all the time. But he did it so much—he admitted this to me—that he had gotten to the point of legitimately saying “sweeeet” in response to something cool. It had stopped being a joke and instead just became part of his lexicon.

This to me is the feeling I get while listening to Destroyer’s new album, Kaputt. The album is rife with smooth saxophone. All the air quotes that might surround all the other songs I’ve talked about here have evaporated. The music of Destroyer sounds genuine, earnest. And—going back to the same internal battle I had over Feist—that disturbs me. To me it feels like a sea change has happened within indie rock in which the “sweeeet” joke has just become part of the lexicon. At one point, back when Feist was fumbling through her choreographed "One Evening" routine and later singing about her Brandy Alexander, I felt a tide turning against that younger me who stridently hated anything appoaching lite rock. I still like Feist, and still side with myself in that inner dialogue... but Kaputt, and in fact a whole trend in indie rock, has crossed a line.

• Destroyer: Kaputt

*

I missed all the hullabaloo around James Blake last year. Now he's got his debut album hitting stores today. I've heard just two songs from this album, so I don't claim to have the last word on the dude. But God, those songs. One is called "The Wilhelm Scream," and is it just me or does it sound like Aaron Neville singing over the music for "In the Air Tonight"? The other song, no shit, is a Feist cover. Full circle!

 

*

There’s a line in one of the Destroyer songs where Dan Bejar sings “I sent a message to the press: it said ‘don’t be ashamed or disgusted with yourselves.’” I’ve seen the line quoted in a number of reviews of Kaputt, all of which cite how daring Bejar is to engage such a crap genre and how meta he is for acknowledging it. Oh, and by the way, as far as I can tell I am the only person on the internet who thinks Kaputt is an awful record. I’ve only seen raves, most of which are calling it not only good but the best album Bejar has ever made. Likewise Before Today was Pitchfork's top album of last year, Gayngs is not universally loathed or shrugged off, James Blake's debut is eagerly anticipated. I don't think I've ever felt more out of step with indie music. It disturbs me because, in the case of Bejar and Blake at least, the punch line is that there is no punch line. It's not a comedy anymore.

 

Comments

[Xander T.]

Yacht Rock is funny to me, if for no other reason than it destroys the musical torture our parents put us through as younger children. That being said, I probably liked a lot of those songs (and still do) on some base level. To me, the irony is that at some point, I discarded this like as childish in favor of more "relevant" music. Admittedly, I still find myself bopping along when I hear one of those tunes, as reference to some artifact buried in my cultural DNA. Although familiarity breeds contempt, absence does make the heart grow fonder. Despite all this, like you, I can't get on board with this post-hip ironical posturing.

[Jill]

It's seeping in to the mainstream. See: Brandon Flowers' solo stuff.

[Jill]

Into. Yeesh.

[Jaxon]

Breaking news: Aging indie-rock nerd thinks new indie rock doesn't rock hard enough.

Is this an Onion story?

[cam]

A couple points:

Setting up Destroyer's previous material as "genuine, earnest" seems misleading. When I listen to Streethawk: A Seduction, I don't hear earnest-ness, I hear snarky interpolations of Mott the Hoople, Bowie and even The Smiths. The guy seems to have been genre-hopping from day one.

Secondly, yes, the bulk of the Hall & Oates catalog is schmaltzy bunk, but there are some redeemable gems here and there. I submit "I Can't Go For That" and it's un-ironically sublime bass line for starters, and add the coked-out glam of the War Babies LP (featuring Todd Rundgren's Utopia) as the main course.

[cam]

P.S., "In The Air Tonight" is totally sweet.

[cam]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmG0sPyZJBg

You forgot to mention THIS Feist track, a Bee Gees cover!

[Todd]

This trend is yet another embrace by indie culture of 'otherness' - in this case, soft rock. The separation that occurs between this and, say metal - another common embrace by indie in the 00s - is that soft rock is defined in it's 'otherness' by the fact that it sucks. It's not dangerous. And it isn't outsider. It comes from a mainstream culture, the very same mainstream culture that indie music came out of, more or less. Isn't that why it's ultimately annoying?

[cam]

@Todd

A lot of metal sucks too. I hesitate to damn entire genres of music. There's good music and bad music, regardless of genre.

Yes, even Swing Jazz.

Soft-rock isn't dangerous for the most part, true. This is another way of saying how un-punk it is, if you will. But most popular indie stuff these days is similarly un-punk, apart from No Age and the like.

[colin]

Before Today was not Pitchfork's number one record. It was Kanye

[Todd]

@Colin: True. But Ariel Pink did take the top single.

@Cam: I agree with your point about genre. My argument is not really about whether or not indie music is un-punk. Indie music has its roots in otherness no matter how far you trace back its lineage; that's what defines it as indie. But this embrace of basically the safest music genre I can think of is trite, almost cowardly to me. I just don't really get it.

I do like the James Blake album a lot though.

[cam]

@Todd

It's weird how what is "dangerous" in the culture seems to change over time. In the 80's, the PRMC was upset over Twisted Sister and W.A.S.P. lyrics. Nowadays, we see them as caricatures (although I still remember Stay Hungry fondly).

Indie rockers of a certain age turned to so-called "safe" soft-rock after the 90s ended because the popular representations of punk/metal (Marilyn Manson, Blink 182) they grew up with failed to satisfy. If this was the "dangerous" music, they wanted the exact opposite.

[Dave Rawkblog]

Some of us actually like soft rock! I bought most of the Gordon Lightfoot discography on vinyl the other day.

Fuck Hall and Oates, though.

[Todd]

@Dave: that would likely explain why you have been calling Kaputt your album of the year since last year. Which you completely have a right to do! Even if I do think it is preemptive.

I liked this essay and thought it was worth reading because a.) I thought it was well thought out, b.) sometimes I feel that the blogosphere decides what is going to be "big" and not enough voices dissent, and c.) I don't think personal taste and history bleeds into contemporary music criticism enough. I've noticed that Scott does the latter a lot, and I appreciate it.

It just so happens that I too do not particularly like soft-rock and/or Destroyer.

[scott pgwp]

Todd, thanks for that last comment especially. For me, the personal has to be wrapped up in the critical - I honestly don't understand why one would want to divorce the two. Seems to me that some of the negative comments about this post (on twitter) are directed at that - that my comments ought to be dismissed because I make it personal. But why comment at all if it isn't personal?

Dave: I don't know, I think there is a major part of my post that I must have failed to bring forth - that being that I like a LOT of soft music, old and new. But just as some strands of punk can be amazing and others can be trite, same goes for this genre. That's the line crossed in the title.

[cam]

http://bit.ly/fLDNvT

Do I like this ironically or un-ironically?

[Brittany Julious]

Although James Blake does a cover of Feist's "Limit to Your Love," I wouldn't connect him with the "yacht rock" trend. His cover, if listened to not on laptop speakers but with a stereo, is more like a dubstep inspired cover of the song. The bass in his cover is definitely not Yacht Rock. Blake comes from a dubstep background, an r&b background. This is pretty evident if you listen to more of his music, and the actual instrumentation in the music.

Also, I'm pretty young, only 23, so my relationship to this music is probably not the same as yours. Growing up, I had more of an aversion to music people praised, all of the grunge or indie rock. I remember my parents/cousins referring to it as "weird white people music," and I never gave it a chance because it was so different to what I grew up with or understood as "good music." In fact, I probably spent more time listening to Hall & Oates or Michael McDonald (both were frequently played on the r&b/quiet storm radio stations my parents listened to in their cars). It wasn't until late high school/college that I actively tried listening to and understanding genres of music that I immediately dismissed in the past because they felt so foreign, or so stupid to me.

All of this is to say that I think a lot of music like this is about perspective. It may seem like it's coming out of nowhere but even Warren G was sampling McDonald in 94 with "Regulate." It may sound strange to you coming from what I assume to be a largely "rock music only" background but for me, I'm just reminded of references (sometimes begrudgingly, sometimes enthusiastically) to "blue-eyed soul." It wasn't a bad thing to me then and it isn't a bad thing to me now.

[Jason]

When did musicians give up on moving forward and trying new things? Where is the creativity and originality? Why are we moving back to the soft rock of the '80's? It was bad then, it's bad now.

Just curious.

[Cam]

@Jason

Moving forward and trying new things is not the job of the pop musician, it is the m.o. of the avant-gardist, the free improvisor. Our pop musicians are our storytellers, our troubadours. Naturally, they tend to use familiar forms in order to narrate more effectively to the audience, who presumably shares a knowledge of these forms.

Quite simple, really.

[David Belbin]

Hall & Oates most MOR period seems synonymous with a certain kind of derision for a generation of Americans. Here in the UK, they were a secret pleasure of mine since I bought the classic Abandoned Luncheonette in a remainder bin in 1975. After that, as well as the silver album they made a fair rock album and a good one with Todd Rundgren, before peaking with Bigger Than Both Of Us. After that, it was downhill, as they got more successful and more bland, but they have a lot of great songs, so that when bands like the great Clem Snide reference them, there's love as well as irony. The first two discs of their recent 4cd set are tremendous.

[Blake B.]

Great post Scott! Things are very confusing in the state of modern pop music.

What's fascinating to me is that these artists seem to be approaching their influences from an "honest/sincere" perspective (for lack of better term) and turning out "honest/sincere" art (at least as the discerning listener can perceive, or at least as the artist leads on to or admits to). At the same time I bet there are others out there taking the same types of influences and approaching their art from an much different angle (knowingly emphasising an element of ironic nostalgia, etc.), but probably not getting the same reaction from listeners because those types of ideas and stereotypes about the music are expected.

Its almost as if listeners/critics give automatically approval to the modern pop musicians who are influenced by soft/yacht/etc.-rock since they are so challenged by the fact that the influences are so unexpected that they have nowhere else to go.

Which begs the question: Is it officially now square to be hip?

[Tristan]

Does Phoenix not count as soft rock anymore? Yeah, they're not cheesy nor inspired by a particular brand of cheesy, but they rock so softly!

[Richard]

Scott, I just read a post Carl Wilson wrote about the new Destroyer (which I've not heard and am not likely to, not least because I haven't really liked Bejar's other work so I don't much care about new releases of his, however they sound), and it made me want to come back here and say something about the music you are calling soft-rock. (here is his post: http://backtotheworld.net/2011/02/09/kaputt-by-destroyer-2011/ )

Hall & Oates is not soft-rock. They are R&B--blue-eyed soul, white R&B, but R&B nonetheless. There is a smoothness to their sound, to be sure, but it's not the same as the Air Supply kind of soft-rock you also invoke. And, in fact, they were both popular and fairly well-regarded. Granted, not to the punk audience, but that should hardly matter. Wilson writes that one of the new Destroyer songs reminds him of a Minnie Riperton song from the 70s, which is of course the same kind of smooth, upscale R&B.

You're under no obligation to like either soft-rock or R&B, of course, but they are somewhat different aesthetics with different histories. It doesn't strike me as too unlikely that a kid who later became a punk (or perhaps never was!) loved Hall & Oates. Frankly, they were pretty good. (Phil Collins is a different story altogether. Just as the rehabilitation of Journey is very different: they were never well-regarded by rock critics, though they were insanely popular.) Anyway, just a thought to muddy the waters.

[Richard]

I forgot to say... C. Cross, Bruce Hornsby, Air Supply, Michael McDonald: these are the kinds of whitebread popular acts that I could never fucking stand either (though Hornsby's pedigree is somewhat different; still don't like him, other than maybe that one song; Phil Collins', too, obviously has a different background, being English and from the art-rock world; I must confess to having at one point liked his early solo stuff). They are "soft-rock". The difference between it and even white R&B is, of course, proximity to, or connection to, popular black music. I think this distinction is worth noticing. And frankly, the punks were very alienated from popular black music, and indie still has a weird relationship with it.