Dubai Debt Issues Push Stocks Down
GMA: Adam Lambert, No; Chris Brown, Yes
Report: Wife Scratched Tiger Woods' Face, Chased His SUV; Update: Police Unable To Interview Couple Today
Family Gets Early Christmas Gift From Ellen DeGeneres
Street Artist Proposes on Subway Signage
Was 2008 a ground-breaking year for music? Probably not. But the past 365 days did bring us many sonic surprises, some good and some bad. Here are a few highlights, as well as our Top 3 Bands of the Year (all, incidentally, from New York).
Disappointment of the Year: CMJ Slips
One of the more disappointing trends of 2008 was the seeming decline of genuine independent music. As the industry continues to struggle to figure out how to exist, the big labels have co-opted 'indie' into a mainstream genre, not unlike 'alternative' in the 90s. While the popularity of 'indie' seems to be growing, it has little to do with the actual indie labels that put many of these bands on track. No clearer was this trend than at the CMJ marathon this fall. Once an orgy of emerging bands that nearly rivaled SXSW in Austin, this year seemed to lack much of the oomph of years past. Many of the bigger indie labels sat this one out, keeping some of their more prominent bands at home and scaling down their showcases to a fraction of the previous years. what was left was a mix of lower to middle level acts, without much direction or promotion, leaving attendees without a whole lot to grasp onto throughout the week. Perhaps it was merely a down year in a rough economy, and it will bounce back strong in the coming years. Hopefully it's not another casualty of the industry's depression.
(Photo of Sky Larkin at Gothamist House during CMJ by Adam Reichardt.)
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
MGMT sounds good on your ipod and all, but when your songs are so overproduced that you can't accurately re-create them live, the hipsters will turn on your shitty live act pretty quickly.
Unlike Radiohead who have been mesmeric live for years and were the main reason for the success of APW.
Apes and Adroids use a ridiculously overwrought stage show to distract their dumb-as-hell fans from noticing how bad their music is. Style over substance at it's worst. I can't help but pity people who actually enjoy that crap.
Happy New Year!
Color me confused. Was it major labels that have been co-opting "indie" music that ruined CMJ, or the lack of big-name bands from said labels (ie Sub Pop, who, incidentally, are %49 owned by Warner Brothers.) If major labels co-opting "indie" music is really a bad thing, why are Columbia Record's darlings MGMT listed here as one of the year's best bands? And since when is a band from MA considered local?
This post left me with more questions than I came to it with!
this is a half-ass end of year music post if I've ever seen one.
apes and androids? really? with all of the great music out there, that's your best band of 2008?
gothamist, can you PLEASE get someone on your staff who looks beyond MTV, crappy street art and ridiculous (dare i say trendy) bands for their entertainment/pop culture 'news?' good god, wake up already.
MGMT is a perfect example of major labels "co-opting" indie music. Columbia signed 2 kids who with an indie aesthetic and no previous releases, and hooked them up with one of the most respected producers in the world of indie rock. The catch here is that it worked incredibly well with no sacrifice in quality. Band of the year? maybe not, since their album came out in october of 2007...