alt-rock-confessions

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‘Indie sleaze’ is not 2014, ‘Indie sleaze’ is not 2014, ‘Indie sleaze’ is not 2014, ‘Indie sleaze’ is not 2014!

It’s not tumblr-core and it’s not Lana Del Ray or 2013 AM, it’s not #girl interrupted, it’s not Ethel Cain (she literally is an artist of our time, what are you on about.)

It was 2001 with the Strokes on the cover of the NME every 2 weeks, it was cabaret night and English poetry with the Libertines in 2002, it’s those red and blue military jackets, it was the fucking grease in Julian Casablancas’ hair, it’s ’cocaine was the banker’s drug’ quoth Alex Kapranos, it was red and black horizontal striped tops and tight black shirts as evening wear, it was Russell Lissak’s mop top and a full page interview with London hairdressers in the NME in 2005, it was Jack and Meg’s saturated red and white dresses, it was cut-and-paste glitter on the cover of Santigold’s first album, it was the sleaze and the sex of CSS’s music, it was the anti-Bush and anti-war stances of the bands at the time, it was America by Razorlight, it was Popworld on telly and Simon Amstel being a little shit to musicians, it was Karen O defying death on stage nightly, it was throwing up in shitty nightclubs on god knows what drugs, it was the fucking danger knowing this could all collapse any second—and rightly, it should. It was the godawful egos at DFA, it was knowing that while you were lucky to be seeing these bands live, you’d fucking hate them if you had to spend even a minute in their individual company. It was Amy Winehouse telling the world to get the fuck out of her business, it was Leslie Feist and Peaches sharing a dilapidated flat above a sex shop in Toronto.

It was horrible camera flash and red-eye editing softwares and putting your feet by the warm, spinning fans of your computer while it whirred away and downloaded your albums in *checks* 46 more minutes. It was horrible, it was dirty, it was gritty, we all hated it and thought the 90s were the last time music was good and that nothing good had happened since 1997. It was garishly bright clothes we were all embarrassed of by 2011, it was multiple layers and leggings and asking your mum to cut the itchy tag on the back of your low rise jeans only for her to snip your back. It was bell bottoms at the start of the decade. It being thankful that by 2017, no one would dream of wearing low rises anymore, please please, please let them never come back.

It was faux nostalgic of the past itself. It was ‘please make sure baby you’ve got some colours in there’ in your clothes. It was moral panic over emos. It was wanting to escape into a better past that you could see was visibly impoverished in the present. It was watching your favourite programmes become less and less relevant on air. It was watching MTV decisively die a horrible death. It was watching important venues and nightclubs get bulldozed. It was watching the last regular broadcast of Top Of The Pops in 2006. It was seeing how the 2009 financial crisis most definitely put a stop to independent music in the western world for a decade, it was watching the rise of bedroom DIY and electronic music. It was seeing the phrase ‘SoundCloud rapper’ being coined. It was the rise of Disney pop. It was counter-culture Justin Bieber hatred. It was the MS paint meme of those tumblr girls thoroughly unimpressed by the guy.

It was not using the words ‘indie sleaze’ at all, in fact. That’s a retconned word. It was garage rock revival. It was ‘post-grunge’. We didn’t care what it was called, we hated it all the same. It was a lead into a decade of despair and nihilism, it was the last hurrah for the music industry before it splintered into a thousand little online ecosystems, it was the last time we had physical community and any shared pop cultural moments. It was Live8 2005. It was the same as it is now, and it was a time that’ll never happen again, for better and for worse.

But one thing is for sure: it was decisively dead by 2014. Santi and Karen O’s 2012 collab was its last hurrah and it was dead by Comedown Machine by the Strokes (2013). It has nothing to do with 2014.

[alt-rock-confessions]

I always thought U2 was too overhated by some people on Facebook. Like, I get how Bono's stage persona might seem obnoxious, but pretending they never made any good song is annoying to no ends. Joyless behavior, tbh.

U2 somehow became the band it was cool to shit on, didn’t they? Honestly, some U2 haters need to listen to the Joshua Tree in full, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Achtung Baby. So much good U2 stuff, like they’re renown for a reason!

I do know that a lot of younger people absolutely hate U2 for making Songs of Innocence unremovable from their iTunes though (can we still call that generation young? I won’t answer that question for existential reasons), and I literally cannot defend U2 from that, even though I actually think it was a good album 😭

(Also they’ve actually done so much for Irish music.)

[alt-rock-confessions]

Another patch, this screen is easily my cleanest so far. It did take about 2 hours to paint with screen drawing fluid though

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I like the part in the Muse song where the guy just starts moaning into the mic

[alt-rock-confessions]

Matt = Gender

this one goes out to my fellow transmasc musers

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Because The Night anon back to add on to that, Marissa P has honestly done so much for the image of cool alt rock girls who can shred, I’m so so sad that Screaming Females are splitting up

Honestly, Marissa's done so much for cool alt rock girls who can shred on a guitar, while also being the coolest person out there, I hope so many more people keep discovering Screaming Females even though the band are now done

[alt-rock-confessions]

I am actually weak in the knees for that one performance of Because The Night by Garbage and Marissa P of Screaming Females (a Patti Smith cover). That performance in NYC actually just flipped a switch in my brain.

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I don't hate Radiohead, but their fans online are so awful I no longer enjoy listening to their music. I know it's a silly reason to sour on a band but I don't want anything to do with them anymore.

I sympathise anon, there are definitely music fandoms that I've felt I do Not want to enter, and it's got nothing to do with the band, just that their fans can be real snobs about music.

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You know how ants, like, "farm" aphids? Like follow them around and squeeze them. love that dynamic. can't explain it. There's an alt rock musician about whom I like to sing "I want to farm you like an aphid, I want to squeeze you from the outside" to the tune of Closer

Whomst anon pray tell

(He's considering your version)

[alt-rock-confessions]

Wouldn't it be helpful for you to pin a post with a rough list of which acts exactly count as "alt rock"? because i could send an ask about kylie minogue but it wouldn't fit the bill even though she collabed with some of them jsjsjs

You’re not wrong, it might help, but also even as someone who’s been an alt kid for 10 whole years, I don’t feel any better qualified to define what doesn’t constitute an alt rock musician. Is it a certain level of success in the mainstream? Maybe at some point in the late 80s and perhaps early 90s, but like, Nirvana had a Billboard #1 album. Half the 90s bands we know as alt rock musicians put out their best work on major labels/their subsidiaries. Is it a certain kind of sound? Stuff with guitars? Idk, I’ll accept Depeche Mode or Eurythmics on here I think, so I can’t say for sure.

It becomes trickier the more I try to define it! And when I name a few bands, I exclusively get submissions about those bands, so it’s difficult. I posted a little while ago that the inbox was open again, and I figured I’d tag the post with a few bands, and it got So Long.

So I think I’d rather let people use their better senses when submitting stuff: if you’ve found this blog and find it interesting enough to want to stick around, you probably know the vibe of what something means to be alt rock. You might have artists up your sleeve I have no idea about!

I can generally say alt rock started being recognised as a subgenre from around the late 70s and up to today, and post-90s the meaning of the term has broadened/diluted quite a bit, depending on how you want to look at it.

I should make a pinned post in general at some point, but it will probably be very similar to the submission guidelines (or I might just pin this very ask, thanks anon!):

And if you feel it’s justified to send me an alt rock-related Kylie Minogue confession, I won’t stop you

[alt-rock-confessions]

I've spent a lot of fucking time expanding Matt Bellamy in my mind, I want to feed him. Fatt Bellymy....

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I really hope some posts appear on this blog. I have confessions. but I don't wanna go first lol 😭

Don't worry anon, people are on it! Feel free to send yours in :)

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I would 100 percent put my face in Peter Doherty's immense bush.