Born Under Punches

Today in a conversation with my friend Nick, I breathlessly described the album Bitte Orca by the Dirty Projectors to him. I called it one of the gutsiest and most reckless albums I had ever heard, an incredibly bizarre album that manages to sound like a what should be impossible mix of The Talking Heads and Beyonce that through some form of magic works perfectly. This album, however, is not their newest work.  

This summer the Projector's released a new album, Swing Lo Magellan, and I liked it. But I didn't love it. Not like Bitte Orca. Swing Lo Magellan is a restrained piece of work, an exercise in minimalism after the nearly overflowing excess and sound of Bitte Orca. But while the sound of the new album may be good news for some and it may provide a new direction for the band's sound, what I loved about Bitte Orca was how it was done; that utter lack of abandon, the need to be reckless because the leader of the band, David Longstreth, seemingly had so many ideas and he could not simply let some of them go.

The reason I'm in love with this recklessness in music is that in more mainstream indie music, where the Dirty Projectors landed after Bitte Orcaand the stuff I listen to most, it is long gone. Everything now sounds nice and pretty. I pick two boring words to describe the sound of the music like "nice" and "pretty" because that's exactly how I feel about the music. It's boring and clean and sounds just like The Beatles on a few songs. This isn't to say the Beatles are bad. Only that every band feels the reason to sound like them these days. I know they're influential. But there are other bands you can be inspired by.

But regardless of my feelings this Beatles syndrome gives other people their fix. Personally it makes me want to punch a wall. The worst part is it's the bands that break out because of risky records that are the culprits of this trend. They get big and then an album or two later have become too simple for their own good and turned into a watered down version of their past selves.

Now, I'm not saying artists have to listen to me but take a look at the two Dirty Projectors albums I mentioned. One is a mix of alternative-world music vibe of The Talking Heads and the soul and Rn'B of Beyonce that somehow works brilliantly. The other is a clean sounding minimalist pop record with a few songs that sound like The Beatles.

Without a doubt, I'm drawn to the first one. Even if it didn't work as an album I would try it because, no offense, I've heard The Beatles plenty and don't need to hear another band imitate them and to notice as I listen that they even lifted the bass line from "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" to add that true Beatles flavor. But The Talking Heads mixed with Beyonce? That's crazy, not to mention more interesting and attention grabbing.

I can't lay the blame on only the Dirty Projectors. Off the top of my head a few other more mainstream indie artists that are suffering from a lack of guts are Jack White, Sleigh Bells, and Bon Iver, but the list goes on and on. This is not to say they all fit in the narrow definition I put them up to. Not all of them sound like The Beatles. But all of them sound nice and pretty and uninspired after releasing records that were gutsy as hell and out there idea wise. It leads me to ask, was it a one time only deal? Did they waste it all on one ambitious record or just decide to play it safe and mainstream after they broke out for some reason?

Indie mainstream artists, who were once the innovators of their genre in their younger days, have gone the way of bland. Indie used to be such a large genre in idea; it could sound like anything it wanted. That's what made it fascinating. The Dirty Projectors used to exemplify that out there attitude.

Now they exemplify what seems to happen when you break out in the genre: you become boring. So while the fringe artists of the indie world are putting out challenging records, the mainstream artists are serving as terrible and dull poster children for the genre. One can only wonder if on top of their boredom, they will realize that they're putting their audience to sleep as well.