| Whining Is Not Music |
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| I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a talented musician. Hell, I think those may have been my first words. I'm not alone. There are plenty of people out there that aren't talented musicians. This musical species, call it rhythmica Shittia, can be sub-divided into two breeds: those who recognize that they suck and try to improve themselves, and those who refuse to recognize that they suck and decide to pretend they can write and sing songs. It's the latter group that makes suicide look like a better option with each passing track. These musicians have come up with a uniform plan to pass themselves off as the genuine articles. It goes like this: Step 1) Recognizing that great art is critical but not being able to provide any meaningful critique beyond "I miss Nickelodean," the musicians adopt a mode of speech that can only be considered "whining." Step 2) Recognizing that great art is personal, the musicians whine about how shitty their lives are. Step 3) Recognizing that liberal college students are as self-deluded and whiney as they are, they market themselves to anyone majoring in Film, English, Intellectual History, Insects Rights, Contemporary Antarctican Studies, and the like. So far, the strategy has worked so well that in a given week at Ithaca I hear more Bright Eyes than Sex and the City cell phone rings (no one really wins in that comparison). Here's a list of other artists that are ruining playlists across America: |
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| Devendra Banhart Actual lyric from the Banhart song See Saw: "It sees and then saws." Wow, now that I think about it that really is a poignant observation. Forget it, I retract anything I was going to say about Banhart. No, seriously. In the 10 minutes it took me to research this piece, I actually came to like him. Weird. |
| Sufjan Stevens Congrats to Stevens for concocting the most quasi-artistic self-agrandizing marketing scheme of the last 10 years. One state isn't enough to contain the ego of this would-be astrologer, and so he's set out to make sure our whole Union feels his self-inflicted pain. His one-man band approach to life is about as pleasing to listen to as Fran Drescher reading the Bible. Maybe less so, since at least you get points with God for listening to the Bible. Stevens just gets you points with Sarah Ruttinger, and those can only be redeemed for wine and dirty HJs. |
| Anyone who covers the Postal Service The Postal Service itself isn't really whiney, but for whatever reason everyone who covers them is. It's comparable to how guys that drive Humvees and pretend to be in the military are child molestors, while regular guys in the military aren't. That means that Iron and Wine (read: Whine) are probably pedophiles. My old gym teacher too. |
| Most of the Garden State soundtrack It's no coincidence that a whiney film about how much more intelligent Zach Braff is than the rest of us is filled with music of the same caliber. "Oh my God, do you listen to the Shins? It will change your life." Hey, you know what would really change my life Braff? My money back. I'd call Sean Whiteman and demand my money back right now if he had a cell phone. And if I had paid to see it. |
| Bright Eyes I know that I just wrote "other" artists, but I wanted to make sure you didn't forget that Bright Eyes sucks. If you take one thing from this piece, it should be that Bright Eyes sucks. He takes himself more seriously than Pink Floyd, and that's no easy feat. Perhaps I'd be with him if every single one of his songs wasn't him droning on and on about how pathetic he his. Maybe he never actually says he's pathetic. That might be what I take from it. In any case, Bright Eyes sounds more like someone calling in to a suicide hotline than a musician. Treat him as such. |
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| Banhart dons his thinking cap for his next album, "Bright Eyes Sucks" |
| What really irks me about the movie is that it is NOT a movie; it's just a soundtrack of sedated rock set to images of a bleary-eyed, snotty actor who, in retaliation to a corporate media that tells us what music to like, swings to the other extreme and again tells us what music to like. Predictably, it's whiney. |
| So why is this music popular? Well, it's a lot like the story of the Emperor's new clothes in which the Emperor and his followers, afraid to admit that they can't see the beauty in clothes that don't actually exist, parade around in the buff. In front of children, no less! Once again, we see the tragic link between whiney music and pedophilia. In a nutshell, the negatives are: Bright Eyes, Garden State, pedophilia, dirty HJs. The positives: Devendra Banhart, Bibles, another Sean Whiteman reference. The Untouchables: Don't touch them. This article: Over. |