why music almost sucked in 2008 and why i agree with ben

rather than just leave a really long comment on ben's post, i'll chime in with my opinion.  

reasons music almost sucked in 2008, many points of which were aforementioned yet hardly with enough disgust in this blog..........

1.  auto-tune, vocoder, what what you mean you can't sing.  i can't sing, many somebody ought to buy me one for christmas, then i can have a hit record.  examples of this auto-tune bullshit abound, but here are a couple examples:

  * T.I. feat.  Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Kayne West and M.I.A- Swagga Like Me.  this track proves that not only do you not have to sing well, but lyrics don't matter either.  the vocoder is sugary goodness to the mainstream tongue,  and all we need is the sugar.

  *play this little drinking game i devised.  listen to Top 40 radio and do a shot every time you listen to a song with auto-tune.  promise you'll be drunk within a half hour.

  *i was in a quaint lil burrito shop in my Chicago neighborhood eating some dinner and listening to the requisite hispanic radio playing in the background, when i heard the most amazing song.  it was a combination of the standard mariachi instrumentation and Selena-esque vocals with heavy doses of auto-tune.  really?  even our friends to the south are duped into this vocoder bullshit.  what now?  italian disco with vocoder?  gypsy punk with auto-tone?  fuck.......

2.  the fleet fox effect.  imagine subpop records putting out this new pysch folk record that all the indie kids rave about.  in fact so much so that they buy up the first vinyl pressing of thousands in the first week it was out, to then realize all to their dismay, that subpop had some sort of licensing deal with starbucks.  hipster kids might not buy corporate lattes, so they didn't realize how stupid they were going to look over this record in a short amount of time.  but the fleet foxes were getting rich as yuppies bought caramel macchiatos and their brand new cd.   indie hype bands no longer means cheap street cred for hipsters,  you actually might have to listen to some music rather than just being trendy.  see vampire weekend and the shins if you have any doubts.  maybe even M.I.A........

3.  all the good hip hop artists are incapable of putting out full albums.  yes ben maybe kid cudi will give you a full length, i hear perhaps mid 2009 (source: latest urb magazine).   maybe we'll get more than an ep out of the cool kids.  maybe megasoid will actually release something in a packaged format.  maybe bangers and cash might grace us with something besides those same five songs over and over again......who knows?  

i would make a top ten for this year if anything but leaked tracks on the internet made my hiphop list (ok well bun b and lil wayne i guess would be the list, followed by the cool kids ep.....but who else released a good full length album this year in rap?)  i chalk this up to ADD.  mixtapes were the true mark of hiphop this year.  not real albums.........

4.  as i further contemplate my top ten list, i realized that many of the top ranking artists have been on favorite lists from past years.  maybe that means newer bands are standing out less, or i'm getting stuck in a groove.  but i don't think it's the latter.  i never thought i'd have every daft punk song in my iTunes playlist, but times change.... my theory is that the scenester kids that usually make the best new music are way too concerned with the dance trend.  everyone wants to be the new girl talk, hood internet or megasoid.  which to be fair is a good aspiration.  but where is the next pavement or sonic youth or even justice?  are they too coke hunger-over from dancing their american appareled selves to death last night to have enough dedication to have band practice and write new songs?  is everyone content to be a DJ?  why is deerhoof still on my top 10 list and not some over uber trendy portland band?  i don't know.  i like deerhoof, but i also want the next tv on the radio, i'll pass on the next girl talk..........

this rant might continue but for now i'm stopping.  this entry seems a bit convoluted.  2008 could have been the best year in music in a long time, but i think 2007 still beats it out......  maybe president Obama can usher us into four years of unstoppably great music.......