So much for liking good music

I'll be honest -- I bought the hype, caved in to peer pressure and went out and bought a copy of Xiu Xiu's Fabulous Muscles. I didn't really know what to expect beyond the fact that it would "totally blow me away" and "redefine my concept of music," to quote some easily-excited music fans I talked to in Collins a few weeks before finals. It seemed to pass the three-point test of indie rock with flying colors: Collins people loved it. Pitchforkmedia did too, but nobody on the street has ever heard of them. I'm not the kind of person who won't listen to music if he hasn't heard it all over the radio, though it can be kind of annoying if you don't live near a record store that caters to it. Seriously, try asking a counter clerk at Target where you can find the new …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead album -- their eyes will bug with fright by the sixth word. Some songs are good, some are better than good, some are okay, but all in all their "redefinition" of music amounts to "okay … now we mumble and whisper … mumble … hold it … hold … AARRRAAAAAAAAAGHHH!" It's nothing to write home with breathless superlatives about.\n The fact that a small number of people vaunt their mild innovation as "the best new thing EVER" puts them squarely on line to continue the succession of indie rock/hipster bands that aren't good as much as they're called brilliant ad nauseam until people who haven't listened to them start to parrot the same line. I know -- I used to do it. When I was 16, I probably said something to the effect of, "Woah man, the Velvet Underground is like hardcore, down-to-the-street music for the people, man." Then I actually listened to White Light/White Heat and was like, "Oh." The VU have put out some really good stuff, Loaded in particular, but to call them an "essential" band is just, well, strange. They were important, but to enjoy a lot of their stuff you have to suppress a certain gag reflex that makes you constantly ask yourself. "Why am I listening to this?" Eventually you can make yourself like it; you can make yourself like the taste of raw eggs, stale beer and urine, too, but I wouldn't recommend it.\n There's something to be said for being catchy or memorable, for having a hook or a melody or something to keep your listener interested. You might also notice that a lot of the most name-checked bands rarely have that. If you heard the VU's "Sister Ray" on the radio and didn't know it was OH MY GOD, LOU REED, you'd probably dismiss it as garbage before retiring to your dark fortress of IDM, ska and dance-punk, other worthless genres whose popularity can only be explained by the raddest hipster in the hive deciding it was the new hip means of musical condescension.\n Seriously, a kid recently told me that if I didn't like Joy Division (and by that logic, New Order), I didn't like real music. Okay, Joy Division had some good stuff, but some of their songs are as endearing as being tied to a chair while your grandma scrapes her nails across a chalkboard and your little brother sticks a microphone in his mouth and makes screwy noises. For every good song they did, there are five more that probably factored heavily into Ian Curtis' decision to kill himself, and don't even get me started on New Order. I can imagine that they're most popular among people in the early stages of learning this language -- not only are they danceable, but you can improve your vocabulary with lines like "here comes love/it's like honey/you can't buy/it with money." Musically, they're phenomenal, but we have to maintain a certain degree of conscience and not let lyricists like Bernard Sumner write anything besides "My Very First Book of Extremely Predictable Rhymes." But wait, they already influenced Placebo to pen gems like "I'm unclean/a libertine/and every time you vent your spleen." Thanks, New Order. You ruined English.\n Let us not forget Pavement. My friend told me that Slanted and Enchanted is brilliant and timely because the first song makes fun of "Ice, Ice, Baby," making it relevant to a revulsion of early '90s pop culture. Well, I could accept that if it was a brilliant satire, but wait, how does Pavement tear down Vanilla Ice? By saying, "Ice … baby." Well Jesus Christ, Stephen Malkmus, that just cut him right to the bone. So, nixing social relevance, what makes Pavement stand out among other bands that can't play their instruments? I can only assume that the hipster illuminati met in a secret chamber deep inside Mt. Lame, donned their Buddy Holly glasses and said, "This band is cool." For all the fiendish manipulations of corporate puppeteers, the music industry tends to take notice of bands and songs that don't suck. I mean, Modest Mouse actually made a good song and look! It's a hit! As long as the Diesel-clad paragons of awesome are deciding what is and is not good music, there's going to be a lot of uninteresting artists in the limelight while other artists that happen to run afoul of the wrong argyle-wearing reviewer will be sellouts, hacks and corporate slaves. Even Pavement wears the scarlet letter of sellout for making Terror Twilight, an album that broke with tradition by not sucking. My solution has been to just listen to anything I can get my hands on and not perpetuate the preconceived notions of the most annoying people on Earth. I call it "not being retarded"