The Music Fan’s Lament #3: Hype Overload
The third in this series of posts addresses hype, and the excesses thereof to which we seem to be constantly subjected at the moment. It’s certainly a common enough complaint at the moment, but I seem to remember there being plenty of hype overload well before the internet.
Once again, here are the various articles that prompted this little festival of self-indulgence, so you have some idea what to expect:
A Penny For Your Thoughts by The Vinyl Villain (read the comments as well, because some of them are very thought-provoking.
Does the World Need Another Indie Band? by Tim Walker, writing in The Independent.
Why Has Modern Music Lost So Much Impact? by the Kings of A&R.
This comment, from a reader called Alex in the comment thread of my recent podcast – The Tribecast.
And here are the other posts in the series:
1. Fragmentation
2. Over Saturation
3. Hype Overload
4. Decreasing Quality
#3 Hype Overload
Hype overload is something I’m a little divided on. In one sense, an excess of shrill hysterics about how wonderful the brand new somethingorother is had become annoyingly prevalent in modern society. You can see it in just about every form of advertising known to man, and advertising itself has pretty much infested every foetid little nook and cranny of our worthless souls, so maybe it is arguable that excessive hype really is everywhere.
In all honestly though, I just don’t think that’s really the case. Yes, media-wise whatever there is, there’s more of it, but that’s a factor of there being more media in general rather than anything that I would say is particular to the world of music. Is the hype shriller, more bombastic, more needlessly over-stated than before? Well, I don’t actually know, but I genuinely have my doubts. The only real touchstones I have with which to compare this would be the pre-Napster, largely analogue world. I am only 32 and during this period. the early to mid-90s, I was only just evolving into the sort of unbalanced music obsessive I am now.
The first really hysterically anticipated stuff I remember was probably the when The Bluetones and Gene were releasing their first albums. Leaking was far less prevalent back then – or at least it penetrated less far into the popular consciousness – and after the release of two or three blinding singles all we could do was sit and wait. Stoked by the anticipation of the press, the NME in particular, I remember charging off to the record shop at lunch time on the day of both of these releases in order to get my hands on a copy. I also remember the claustrophobic disappointment as it slowly dawned on me that the genius I was anticipating just hadn’t materialised.
Basically, it’s pretty easy to write a couple of great songs, or so it appears judging by the number of groups who seem to be able to do it. Often, inevitably, these are amongst the first couple of songs a group writes, so it can be very difficult to judge whether or not they have any more in them. B-sides help, as do live shows, but basically when you hear a new group you are making wild extrapolations based on very little information. If this couple of songs happens to be brilliant, there is no way you aren’t going to be excited and, nowadays, talk about it.
Maybe the jump from bedroom recording to chart assault is being made a lot faster these days, and this may not give groups enough time to develop, settle and figure out who they are as a band, so perhaps the hype can seem out of proportion with the professionalism or presence of the groups itself. Groups like this can seem like they appear from nowhere, with the weight of expectation around them that you would expect from a band with a couple of records behind them, but then people used to overreact to a promising 7″ single as well. Maybe because music criticism and music dialogue is much more participative now, people feel more caught up in the hype.
Maybe we feel more pressure to conform to media expectations because, with music in particular, often our friends are the media, instead of just friends who make you a few too many mixtapes. I know I find it harder to turn around to a blogger I’ve exchanged emails and comments with and say ‘No, I think your new favourite band are shite, actually’ because it just feels mean, but we’d never have hesitated to sneer at the NME’s latest favourites, even ten years ago when they had a shred of credibility still intact.
In the grand scheme of things though, I remember people getting just as over-excited about new releases in the days of vinyl and fanzines, so I just don’t buy this ‘too much hype’ stuff. Yes people are prone to over-reaction, and yes the big labels are a bit desperate for love at the moment and prone to a bit of leg-humping, but really, I just think humans have always been excitable, particularly where music is concerned.
Gene – Be My Light, Be My Guide
Gene – Sleep Well Tonight
The Bluetones – Bluetonic
The Bluetones – Cut Some Rug
that independent article is spot on.
I just wrote about a page of my thoughts on the subject, but I deleted it.
I mean what’s the point
The independent article is not bad, but it is wrong on a number of things. Indie pop and indie are fundamentally different. Not in terms of sound, half the time, but the fundamental approach is different. If you look at indie as a philosophy rather than a sound (I am guilty of muddling the two myself half the time) then ‘indie’ is alive and well, albeit more in the sphere of folk and electronica. If the question is ‘does the world need another immaculately coiffed guitar band?’ then the answer is a resounding no, but if he were really asking whether or not we need more indie bands then the answer is an unequivocal yes.
Just because the world of celebrity and disposable fashion-pop has discovered another sound it can appropriate to sell shit to teenagers and the apathetic doesn’t mean that the movement from which it stole its aesthetic is any less valid.
If you want to fire down that page of stuff I’d happily stick it up on the site, incidentally.
This is a thoughtful and considered series of articles. What is going on?
It seems to me that your analysis is correct. There was lots of hype in the past and there’s even more now. The difference is principally that half-formed ideas are easier to get out to an audience than before.
Yeah, I think that’s very true. For every band capable of having a blinding flash of genius with their first coherent thoughts, there seem to be dozens who can’t even come close.
Then again, the closer I get to the coalface, so to speak, the more I hear half-formed ideas that aren’t surpassed by the final, professional product, but maybe it takes time and acclimatisation to develop a taste for that sort of thing. Probably not something the general public are interested in.
Can I ask the question – who actually cares if a band get too much hype? I don’t. Take Black Kids for example – sorry Black Kids – who seem to be everywhere and have been hyped to the max. But who cares?? If you like it you like it, if you don’t then you don’t and if you buy it based on somebody telling you to, without listening to it or waiting to hear it from a friend who has it and then end up hating it, then more fool you for wasting your cash. I don’t think hype is relevant other than for the bands trying to get the exposure. It matters not a jot to me as a music fan. If it’s good it’s good if it’s shit it’s shit regardless of who says otherwise. Or maybe that’s just me and I’m missing the point.
I don’t think you are, Euan. There is no reason to be taken in by hype anymore, given the opportunities for previewing albums which we have open to us these days. Having said that though, I still get more excited to listen to something loads of people say is brilliant – things, no matter how shit, are popular for a reason – they appeal to a lot of people and I tend to be too generous in assuming that will apply to me as well.
What I am doing with this series is more in response to a few complaints I hear a lot from music fans these days. I’m just trying to mull through the issues, really. I know I am still a little prone to hype, but I fail to see it as any worse than in days gone by.
I don’t know. I’ll think about it. Maybe I will. It was more of my personal tirade against music, with which I have several issues with.
I just wrote another page. Again deleted it. If I were to write this page properly, it would need some revisions. And I’m not sure my viewpoint is correct.
But I guess I am the intended target audience for this indie music (being 20), and I have to say that this guitar driven bland, tasteless drivel that’s being called indie by the Jo Whileys and T4 presenters of the world is incredibily depressing. It’s the equivalent of waking up as Dan Ashcroft and realising ‘in the past the idiots were all outside, now they’ve entered the building. Welcome to the age of the idiots’ – that’s what the music described in the indepedent article is the euivalent of, in my eyes.
Anyway, I could go on for ages, but it fuels the misanthrope in me, and is the equivalent of that orange advert (“I am the bloke I’ll meet travelling, who’ll teach me the guitar!”), and makes me long for a nuclear holocaust to sort all this stuff out.
But yes, I agree that some current music is healthy, but that music is rarer and more underappreciated now than ever. And I don’t know, but maybe that makes the music more transcient, more likely to slip through our fingers. Like Alex said in that note, there’s no ‘This Charming Man’s or ‘A Day In The Life’s anymore, because everyone’s listening to something different. This might make it easier to forget, or to lose this music – because it’s often not being held onto by everyone, but just by you.
I think music now, to me at least, is far more personal, because you know that often, there’s not that many other people out there listening to it. While you can see this as an uplifting thing, that you may be the one person in the world that has a particular connection with a song by some great unknown band who only sold 10 copies of the EP you’re listening to (that song, then, is surely yours) – it can also be incredibly isolating.
I’m so bad at writing this. Maybe I should collect my thoughts and write this out proper.
Or more likely, just forget it.
Or check out The Kays Lavelle……….only kidding.
)
Actually – I’ve always been the opposite to you then Matthew cause whenever people start hyping a band I tend to end up not listening to them – at least not during the initial period of hype. I guess good examples would be Oasis, Blur, Pulp, Kaiser Chiefs etc etc. I never listened then and I don’t listen now. I even resisted the Strokes for ages and got into the White Stripes before they went massive. I try to ignore hype and trust what I want to listen to. I have no intention of buying black kids album as I know it’s not going to be my cup of tea. I do plan to buy She & Him though as I’m a big M Ward fan. I do not plan to buy Fleet Foxes – until I’ve heard it, despite the hype. I think you can get by in this world without buying into the hype. I tend not to read music mags and trust that through friends and searching I can find all sorts of little gems. Which is kind of what I like best about music.
Sorry, I should have qualified that. Normally I react the same as you, Euan, but then it depends who is doing the hyping. Music blogs are generally a pretty decent barometer for me, as my taste is more in line with the average blogger than the average T4 watcher, NME reader or radio listener. If my mates are excited about something it can rub off on me a little bit and I can start to believe them before I really have any basis for that.
Actually, I can also start to believe my own hype. When I have to wait ages and ages for an album I can get so wound up with excitement about its release that I end up too easily disappointed. But that’s my problem, not the industry’s.
I guess I can relate to that. For sure when Bart, or you, or somebody I respect musically comes to me and tells me to check somebody out cause they’re fucking amazing I feel compelled to do so and yes, may even get excited at the prospect. At the same time – if lots of friends try to force a band on me I am always tempted to ignore it for as long as possible. The Hold Steady being a perfect example. I relented and did buy their last album – but the over hype from friends actually ruined it for me and I’ve never come to love it – I feel the same may happen with Fleet Foxes – though the comparison to Crosby Steals the Cash leaves me wondering whether I want to go near it given my dislike for that trio’s work. Anyways……So it works both ways – as long as you don’t push things on me or pester me to check somebody out then I may get excited otherwise I may shun the band forever. Which is silly, but just my make up I guess.
All of which dodges the question: do you think there’s more hype and more hysterical hype these days, and that it is a problem for listeners, or do you disagree. Stay on topic, man!
I’d say this. If you look historically to say, the Beatles, The Stone Roses Oasis, The Strokes, The White Stripes, Franz Ferdinand, The libertines etc. There’s always going to be buzz bands. I guess the problem – similar to footballers getting paid over the odds in my opinion – is the hype (excessive pay in football terms) for those undeserving of it. And so yes, I think there is more hype in general for shit bands. But I don’t think it’s a problem – so long as you have a good shit filter.
)
But I think that is because the overhyped bands from the past who turn out to be shit (Menswear) tend to be forgotten pretty quickly. Will anyone remember Black Kids or the attendant hype in 2010? I really don’t think so.
I don’t know if it’s simply because I’m finding more blogs that write about genres other than “indie-rock” or if the focus of music blogs is shifting in general, but I don’t notice as many “hype” bands this year as I did in previous years…except Vampire Weekend, which I personally dislike. The radio is of course another matter, but I’m hopeful that online “Best of 2008″ lists will be slightly more interesting than those of the past.
Ps. I would personally love it if you left a “No, I think your new favourite band are shite” comment on one of my reviews.
Christ that would feel mean. But I know what you mean, Vic. As artpedro touches on above, the music experience does appear to be less of a broadly shared thing than before. C&B reckons this is no bad thing, and for the most part I agree with him. It does probably make it harder for all the ends of the spectrum to pull together to over-hype single band though.
I never feel like “the hype” is directed at me for some reason. I don’t go out of my way to avoid it really, but it just never even occurs to me to pay attention to it. I don’t watch MTV, I don’t listen to the radio very often, I don’t read mainstream music magazines, and of my handful of friends who are interested in music, none are particularly interested in “buzz bands.” I had heard a couple of tunes by Black Kids last year and saw nothing to interest me, so I simply tuned them out, and until Matthew’s review/rant last week I really hadn’t given them another thought. So much for the hype. I’d hate to think it’s my age, but as a matter of marketing, I guess hype tends to be directed at the 12-24 demographic because it’s thought that people of that age spend money not so much to get value in return but rather as a means of signaling to themselves (and other 12-24 year olds) that they are hipsters.
It isn’t aimed at you because you’re old, mate. If you were cooler, they’d care what you listened to.
WHATAZING! That was brilliant! Haha! Sorry C&B old chap, just couldn’t resist.
Oh you scamp! I’m gonna cry myself to sleep over that one.
Y’know, one benefit of old age is that we have the financial wherewithal to retain hired killers.
Apparently there aren’t as many snipers available in Washington as there used to be…
Honest to god, if there’s hype around a band I rarely get turned on by the music. Now, don’t get me wrong, I attribute that to my age, being surely older than C&B, (I’m 44 and still trying to figure out what happened to oldschool hip hop/rap – why doesn’t *anyone* make music like Salt-n-Peppa anymore?). But most genres have simply run afoul of my taste expectations: indie has gone either too folksy or too drearily post-grunge; folk has lost it’s politics; rock is so confused that on Billboard’s charts this week we have everything from Coldplay to John Mayer to Kid Rock to Beck (?), and yes, Billboard is perhaps the worst place to try and cull information from but if we’re talking hype, that’s a major source folks. I’ve been out of the music scene for a few years (damn grad school excursion) and getting back in has been a mind blowing experience because hype is completely wasted on me lol. I’m old enough to listen to what I want to and not waste time or money on crap I don’t like. But, an important thing to remember about hype in the economic sense is that if one band or artist is getting hyped another one isn’t. Or is that true? Is hype a great big pie of accolades, divvied out thoughtlessly by bloggers and promoters and music labels who care not that more deserving or more talented or harder working musicians are left to starve? Hmmmm…..
The problem as I see it with hyping a band (whether it is through the blogs or more traditional radio/video/touring means is that it removes any element of discovery. Back when I went to shows more often the best part was almost always the opening act or acts who I may have not heard as much of as I had the main atttractio. Yo La Tengo, Pulp, Stereo MCs, Inspiral Carpets and countless others were brought into my world without any preconceived notions. Today, you already know everything there is to know before a single is even released. Which increases the pressure on these artists to develop faster and not take the time to craft a truly meaningful album. Take Arctic Monkeys. I have little doubt that two or three records from now we will be talking about a really good band but will they be given the chance to grow given that the hype and subsequent failure to sustain their buzz might kill them off before they even get the chance. So I guess this is a long winded response to say that hype is inehrently dangerous but we as consumers have to now when to listen and when to tune it out in order to find the true quality musicians.
Or I could be wrong I’m kinda tired…
Well, this is a danger. When the expectations are ratcheted up to silly levels then big labels do tend to invest, expecting, or even demanding, a blockbuster. Then when it (almost always) turns out that the band are just ‘very good’ rather than eye-wateringly brilliant they can act like the band have somehow failed to perform, rather than just recognising that they themselves were the ones who created these expectations, because it is rarely the band themselves.
[...] here are the other posts in the series: 1. Fragmentation 2. Over Saturation 3. Hype Overload 4. [...]