ON AND OFF THE BANDWAGON

Getting On

A couple months ago while I was on a surf trip in Madeira, Portugal, my friend Bingo and I had spent too much time in a car and not enough time surfing. Because we had so much time to drive around we were able to listen to all the local radio stations. I've always been a fan of the radio, but quality radio programs are few and far between so we opted out and bought the Best of Jimi Hendrix and Pearl Jam's Ten. Bingo and I were there for a week and listened to the two albums so many times, speaking for myself, it'll be a while before I willingly listen to any of their songs. Once again, our only choice for music was the radio.

The four stations that the car consistently picked up were a Portuguese talk show, a classical station, and two top 40's stations. I can only listen to classical on certain occasions and getting pumped to surf isn't one of them so we resorted to the top 40's. Every once in a while a good song would come on, but more often than not, there would be songs I had never heard that just all around sucked. Memories by David Guetta is pretty old for us folk from the states and since I've been in Spain, I've heard it waaaaaay too many times in the clubs and honestly hoped it would come on to save me from what I was listening to.
It shames me to say that it wasn't some guido looking euro bro who made my ears bleed, but America's own. What a surprise right? Before you read on, please listen to this.

Here are the lyrics...

Whatdya think?

Right right, turn off the lights,
we're gonna lose our minds tonight,
what's the dealio?

I love when it's all too much,
5am turn the radio up
where's the rock and roll?

Party Crasher,
Penny Snatcher,
Call me up if you want gangsta
Don't be fancy, just get dancey
Why so serious?

So raise your glass if you are wrong,
in all the right ways,
all my underdogs,
we will never be never be anything but loud
and nitty gritty dirty little freaks
won't you come on and come on and raise your glass,
just come on and come on and raise your glass

Slam slam, oh hot damn
what part of party don't you understand,
wish you'd just freak out (freak out already)
can't stop, coming in hot,
I should be locked up right on the spot
it's so on right now (so fuckin on right now)

...and that repeats twice.


'WHY SO SERIOUS?' .....Music is art and doesn't have to make sense. Half the music I listen to is just bleeps and bloops with meaningless samples. It's all preference and I respect that, but I can't stand is when people like Pink wrap shit in tinfoil and sell it like it's the latest/coolest thing. The reason I write this is because I like going to clubs and dancing and all that nightlife business, but when the DJs in the clubs play bullshit like Pink's Raise Your Glass it just kills the fun vibe. I came across a couple of guys who tried to make their own club anthem in 8 hours to prove, according to them, "how easy it is to become the next katie perry." Watch the process here.

These guys have production knowledge and skill and I guess that's all it takes. Today, Andy Samberg's The Lonely Island group creates funny and memorable music that's great to hear at a party or a club. At the same time their music mocks those artists who are actually famous for producing that which is top 40 material. This is where the problem lies. How can we tell the good musicians who value quality apart from those who prefer to simply feed off the collective? I mean you could do both or try to, but you don't know anyone who is still stoked on American Idiot. It was always about Dookie and it always will be. So, the mainstream audience is a powerful tool, it can make a band legendary or worse, make the world reminisce on how good they used to be.

Getting Off

I was raised in the mainstream with modern rock like the Chili Peppers, Incubus, and Muse. I eventually heard MGMT and I couldn't stop listening to them. Their music is both upbeat and mellow, playable at a party or as your winding down to sleep. The neat thing about MGMT is that they were a indie group gone mainstream who somewhere along the way decided they didn't want to be that kind of band anymore. Oracular Spectacular was a hit and their next album, Congratulations was not. Personally, OS is better, but that doesn't mean Congratulations was bad. It was 'bad' because it didn't sell like OS and didn't have an 'electric feel' or 'kids', but looking at who MGMT is working with these days (the dudes from EDBANGER) reveals that maybe the content of Congratulations was intended to not be not liked by the mainstream audience. The two stand out songs besides Brian Eno and Flash Delerium are Siberian Breaks and Congratulations. Siberian Breaks is a 12 minute song, but not a long 12 minutes and is said to be Andrew VanWyngarden's favorite on the album. Give it a listen walking to class. To me, Congratulations sounds the best while the music video sheds light on how the band views it's current state with it's followers. WATCH

The beast is symbolic of the mainstream audience while it's eventual death in the desert portrays the long journey the *band had the last few years. The demise of the beast represents the decreasing support from the mainstream, but it is difficult to say that the mainstream will completely forget about them. In my opinion, MGMT is attempting to return to their indie roots as much as possible, but that became a problem when indie music became popular.

Websites like Pitchfork and Gorilla Vs. Bear get thousands, maybe tens of thousands of hits a day. This makes it hard to define what mainstream really is. For many artists its a better and faster way to become famous. Social sites make it easy for musical bandwagon to get moving while helping groups get more opportunities to become better known. At the same time, I respect those who choose to lay low and do their thing without the support of the masses. Maybe MGMT's plan will backfire when their next album is released? It could have a few hits, pulling them back into the limelight or maybe not. I think they didn't want to produce something that would make or break them. They definitely didn't want to sell out or do the Daft Punk hide forever, come back and suck trick. They've gone back to their roots and hopefully they'll come back with some cool sounds.

Back to the bandwagon... there's no fighting the mainstream and I don't expect to hear music I listen to in the clubs or the radio. Clubs try to do to their party partakers as politicians do to their constituents and that's catering to everyone. Being a club goer and English speaker I guess I need to be a little more understanding of the Spanish/euro DJ's. For them, it's all just sound that's pleasing to the ear. As much as top 40 bugs the shit out of me, next time I'm in a club I'll have reconciled that this the only place that it's acceptable to enjoy. So when you're dancing and realize Justin Beiber is playing or that you've heard the same song 4 times, just toss back a shot, think of Pink, and how it's so on right now (so fuckin on right now). Then repeat until it really is 'on'.

happy clubbing.

-gonz


*a misconception is that the band is only two members