don't believe the hype

I have been bored with most of the new music I have heard lately. There have been too many rehashes of something original yesterday or yesteryear, too many reminders of other/ better artists* and too much music influenced by Grey's Anatomy and the sad whiny folk scene or its Wimp Rock cousin.

Much of the newer alt country is terribly unoriginal as if it is entering its own Nashville in the 70s stage with each new artist a little duller and unoriginal than the last and too much inauthentic twang. Strangely Bright Eyes captured the true spirit of alt country better last year than most new artists (I leave room for Oakley Hall, which gets it). It reminds me that I can go back and listen to Uncle Tupelo or better yet Marty Robbins and George Jones.

Don't get me wrong, bands like The Weepies are fine, with charming arrangements and some insightful lyrical content, but are they the second coming of Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan? No. They are okay- standing out in a mediocre field (like the NL in baseball). That is it.

Even Bon Iver, the artist behind one of the better albums of the year cannot live up to the hype behind his very fine, but not supernatural new album. The chick singer phenomena is overwhelming me right now. They all sound like Feist or Regina Spektor, without the songs (they may have 1 or 2 good songs, but not an entire album).

Call me grouchy, but I think too many bloggers and music fans are settling for less than they should and not appreciating true artisanship and originality. Even me.

But music is not in as dire shape as Hillary's presidential bid. There is some good stuff out there right now. The bands influenced by punk and traditional European music are releasing wonderful sounds and a potent hip hop scene is emerging from Africa that can only be described as awesome (more on that next week). While I have heard only a few artists recently that will have the career arc of a Wilco, Radiohead, or REM (not even trying to get U2 or Bruce), there are other great developments, but we need to be looking harder. For every Arcade Fire (potential pantheon artist) and Josh Ritter, there are dozens of Maroon 5s and - John Mayers (and I thought Hillary was pandering with her gas tax holiday).

Lets demand more from our bands. When a band with the potential of Coldplay** plays it safe and releases drivel like X&Y after showing us great possibilities with Rush of Blood to the Head, we buy their castoff and settle as if we are voting for the president in 2004 (I mean it could be worse. right?). When Dave Matthews Band starts putting out nonsense we should not continue going to their shows hoping for the best. We should boycott them and demand our money back on their websites. We should not allow them to let us down, unless it is by striving too hard.

I know. I sound like an old fart hearkening back to the good old days, which I am. But I am also looking to the future of music, so my kids have more choices than Disneyfied pablum, Cock Rock, Wimp Rock and inauthentic corporate Rap.

I may be grouchy because I checked out some music recommended on a few friend's blogs and it was boring and unoriginal. I also may be grouchy because I read a great article this morning in Paste on one of the greatest bands of all time, The Replacements and long for something like that to loom on the horizon (of course I am probably too old to appreciate or notice such a development). Here is the article on The Replacements (please read).

by the way. here is some of the good stuff I am listening to presently...

Devotchka
Firewater
Nick Cave
Vampire Weekend
Frightened Rabbit

I am looking forward to the newest by Eef Barzelay, My Morning Jacket, Shearwater and Fleet Foxes.


* reminders are a good thing, when it is reminding you of The Beach Boys, The Beatles or Al Green without rehashing their music. It is quite another thing to remind you of how much better an artist from the last couple of years was than the one you are presently listening to. Remind me, don't ape their music (and just Pantheon artists, not average artists)

**I am holding out hope for new Coldplay on the strength of the first single

The most narcissistic things online, according to ME

While checking myself in the mirror I was not thinking about narcissism. As I started a blog posting and updated my facebook status I was not thinking about narcissism. When I looked at the number of hits this site gets, I was not thinking about narcissism. When looking at hair color to cover the mound of gray on my head and face, I was not thinking about narcissism. But, when I saw too many twitter updates on someone blogs, I became obsessed with narcissism. In fact, I see no area of our culture untainted by it (especially my Emerging Church world).

Some people have done some interesting studies lately on the subject of why we have become so darn focused upon ourselves. In fact, Dr. Drew, the TV doctor has done a Narcissistic Personality Inventory and theorizes the rise of narcissism in the past 50 or so years.

Here is what he said in Rolling Stone on January 24, 2008.

“I believe something has shifted,” Pinsky says. “Frankly, something substantial happened when we developed antibiotics and hormonal contraceptives. Before 1950, almost half of American families could expect a child to die. Way more women could expect to die during childbirth. Living past fifty was sort of extraordinary. Now death and dying don’t really exist to us. We don’t need to deal with it. And then with birth control, sexuality became unhinged from a biological reality. Throughout human history, sex carried with it heavy consequences. It could kill you. Suddenly we were unhinged from that, and I think our culture has been rattling ever since. In 500 years, people will say the biological circumstances of human life changed profoundly, and it took them 150 years to figure it out. They’ll say everyone became narcissistic, obsessed with instant pleasure, they stopped taking care of their children, and all hell broke loose.” A meditative pause. “Listen, in the days of Freud, narcissism was a footnote in psychological journals. Now it’s the standard personality of our culture. Nothing but grandiose narcissistic thinking everywhere!”

To be simplistic as the media/blog/ news world demands, it seems we have a convergence of human selfishness and self-centeredness with the advancement of medicine along with the ability to share all of our thoughts through the technological advancement of the Internet and web 2.0 (of course we can add Reality TV to the mix).

As we know Time named all of us as the Person of the Year in 2006 and good (and not so good) articles and books have been written on the subject and many have decried web 2.0 for a few years.. So, I know there has been lots of talk about it, but I have apparently hit my wall (2 days ago).

A friend had asked me to sign up for twitter a while back. I did and promptly forgot about it. Then a bunch of other friends signed up and my wife read to me some of their twitter postings. It hit me. This has to be the most narcissistic thing I have seen on the internet as of yet.

I understand how this technology can be useful- for families and businesses. However, I do not need to know what someone is doing every moment of the day.

So, I need your help. What are the most narcissistic technological advancements of the previous few years? Here is a list (in order) that I have compiled so far. However, I am a Luddite and may be missing a lot.

1. Twitter
2. Facebook status updates*
3. Myspace
4. Facebook applications*
5. Personal Blogs*
6. gmail status updates*
7. Self Promotion on YouTube
8. personal podcasts
9. googling myself (or something like that)
10. self personality inventories online*

I am not judging these, but thinking about how bad this is going to be by time my kids are older. I am also thinking about the church's and parent's role in teaching our families how to navigate this new narcissism.

*I have been implicated in these

30 Days tonight

Time to set the TiVo for the only "reality" show worth watching. In fact, this is a show I would consider bringing people together to watch and discuss.

Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days, Season 2, begings tonight at 10PM. Season 1 showed us rich people living on minimum wage, homophobes living in San Fran, Christians living with Muslims and mothers of binge drinking college students binge drinking for 30 Days.

This season will show us a minute man-type living with illegal immigrants, Morgan spending 30 days in jail and a victim of Outsourcing living inIndia.

Should be compelling.