Pop music is thriving. It’s blooming and growing for what is hopefully a sustained moment. Then there is the alternative, rock, and indie part of the ecosystem that’s historically been the evolutionary and revolutionary side of the equation. So what is afflicting the mavericks? Why is the overarching trend in alternative music to appear as feeble as possible?
A few years back I wrote about the lethargic “smooth vibes” genre that had enveloped the alternative scene, a Mac DeMarco inspired sound that combined all the worst elements of early 80s new wave and yacht rock into a college zoomer’s afternoon soundtrack.
Slackers are not to be underestimated – a huge contingent of 90s alternative was made by the irreverent, the nihilistic and the bored. Kurt Cobain could easily have been labelled with those three adjectives.
But Cobain also had drive and urgency. As hard as he tried to not care about anything, there was a tangible nature to that not caring. There was still something resembling a message, a statement that Nirvana and Nirvana’s predecessors and peers were built upon.
The bands of the 2020s so far are built upon a different kind of nothing.
As we reach the halfway point of the decade the only noticeable stride that’s been made since January 1 2020 is the move toward occasional uptempo tracks – thanks not to alternative luminaries, mind you, but to artists like Olivia Rodrigo.
While mainstream alternative is still mining the output of the four horsemen of Mumford & Sons, Twenty One Pilots, The Black Keys and The Neighbourhood, the more underground contingent has seemingly coalesced around the anemic sound of indie band Real Estate.
At its core, the sound is a truly awful, unadorned slab of beige. A gaggle of bespectacled introverts plaintively singing about….nothing in particular. Sometimes they have mullets. Sometimes they have mustaches. Sometimes they wear t-shirts. Sometimes they add a little funk or punk to the mix. But it’s never something.
A band with a name like Winnetka Bowling League should have an eclectic sound to match. Instead they’re a midwest version of Hellogoodbye, power pop without the power. They sound virtually identical to another new artist named bob junior. Slight, non-committal, and just as forgettable.
Conversely you have Alfie Templeman, who looks and sounds exactly how you’d expect – a goofball making nondescript music for nondescript parties. A bit more energy, but no less forgettable.
Wallows. Dizzy. fanclubwallet. Field Guide. Husbands. Ekkstacy. Indigo Waves. These are the interchangeable artists that Spotify is pushing to centre stage, a place that neither they nor us as the audience want them to be.
Every era thus far has had filler music. This isn’t a new issue inherent to one generation. The problem is that the filler has become the main course. We are in 2024 and we cannot define 2024 musically. We are well past the due date of a fresh new sound and instead sorting through a hodgepodge of bland beige indie, 90s revivalism, and neverending nostalgia. The promise of the dark, innovative trap-pop introduced to us by Billie Eilish in 2019 was extinguished by Eilish herself in 2021 with her own sophomore record.
But again, the matter of genre is only a fraction of the problem. The overarching dilemma is to total and complete lack of uniqueness.
None of these artists have a defining philosophy.
You can point to Lana Del Rey and say she is the queen of slow motion Americana. You can point to the Black Keys and say they are the band most responsible for Ford truck sales. You can even point to Future Islands and say hey it’s raspy synth pop Dracula.
Who can you point to and define in 2020s alternative music? Better yet, who can you point to in 2020s alternative music? Pop music has recently begun to churn out some household names, and it appears that alternative has ceded the responsibility of being the vanguard to the mainstream. Noah Kahan and Glass Animals are shared assets, the latter on the brink of the follow-up fail.
There are thousands of problems in the world and none are being addressed through song. It has become an utterly passionless genre where singers only utter halfhearted observations about daily life.
Definition, clarity, and urgency. It doesn’t matter if you use distortion or not, how many keyboards you use, or who your influences are. The alternative world needs to start being an alternative once again.
