Blackblack – Blackblack
Well after last week’s posting of The Shaggs, I wondered why it was that I found that album so oddly compelling. Partly, it took that tuneless indie aesthetic to a ludicrous extreme, so I thought that might be it. Then it occurred to me that perhaps we just don’t hear music that startlingly bad very often, so there was something bizarrely fascinating about it. Hearing this album, I am tempted back to the former conclusion.
There is something about indie music that sounds just slightly out of key, off-rhythm and flat that really, really appeals to me. The Shaggs took it too far, but Blackblack manage to take something broadly similar, add a bit of bite and a few abrupt changes of tempo, and hit the nail pretty squarely on the head.
If you’re not into this kind of stuff, I can imagine playing this to other people and having them gaze at you in a sort of uncomfortable incomprehension, having absolutely no idea what you could possibly find to enjoy in this kind of discordant clatter.
For those of us, however, that really do like this kind of thing, I’ll say this. They have an excellent blend of moods, breaking up the plaintive and alienated sound with the right amount of snarling guitar and crashing cymbals. The flat delivery also breaks occasionally and unexpectedly into really rather nice melody as well, although not so often as to rob the album of its attitude – just enough to remind you that they probably could be sugar-sweet if they so chose.
Fortunately, they do not so choose.
Blackblack – Sophia
Blackblack – I Wish I Were a Scientist
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Yeah, I’m really shit at that. Basically if you push me on it I would define it as DIY music – ie not involving any major companies, be they record labels or distributors or anything like that.
In practise, though, I am far more loose with the term. I tend to use it to desribe a sort of enormously vague umbrella of guitar music. In fact I would probably say that I’m so vague that it’s almost meaningless – it’s just a lazy habit, really.
In this case I am referring to a sound that I think first really hit the mainstream (well apart from the Velvets and so on) during the original 80s indie boom in the UK. Again, though, I know I’m being a bit loose with it, so you’re quite right to pull me up.
my major concern with the term is this…….is it a ethos or is it a sound?….can’t be both in my book
The trouble is, Tom, for years ‘indie’ meant both: a universally understood/recognised sound & look & manifest went hand in hand. Then the 2000s came along & all manner of things started to happen as bands started bringing in differing influences/instruments/multi-member communes, etc. until everything started sounding like something you thought you’d heard before.
I’ve quoted it before & I’ll quote it again, because it’s fucking true: They’re selling hippy wigs in Woolworths, man.
It doesn’t matter what the tag means, why it’s there, or what it evokes any longer. Everything is duplicated & facsilimied beyond recognition & as a result it only really matters to those who remember what it meant when the term first meant something.
In conclusion, who gives a monkey fuck?
Well, who a gives a… etc apart from the fact that I have a bad habit of using it completely inconsistently on this site, which can’t help people to actually understand what I’m on about. Some sort of consistency, even if it’s just on these pages, would probably be helpful.
Bollox, Toad – that’s the problem with overused terms that lose their meaning through mass reproduction.
The thing is I understand exactly what you are talking about when you use the phrase (be it in relation to sound or manifesto or whatever). Christ, anyone who has to pull a fucking almanac everytime it’s used, rather than listen to the fucking songs & make up their own mind, really isn’t in it for the music. now, are they?
You’re not doing anything wrong & you’re not confusing matters in the slightest. Sure, it’s not a black & white issue – but look at black & white issues (for example, black people tend to be brownish & white people pinkish) & take heart. Indie means nothing anymore but it meant something & we’re of an age to understand what that is. I don’t think either of us is doing ourselves any favours by explaining to people who were too young to or didn’t bother paying attention the first time around.
Indie is kind of like “alternative,” just a bit more … erm … indie.
I like these tunes by the way. When you can’t really play or sing that well but you stumble across a nice melody or hook, it’s always a good idea to impose a 2:02 limit on yourself. Actually, the singer makes me think of Mo Tucker and Alison Statton, which is a very good thing.
Ah fuck it, and apologies to the band, but this is what I tag “indiecrap” on my blog. All that tempo changing, all that toneless singing with absolutely no meaning to the lyrics to boot, all that clashing of cymbals with no apparent reason, it’s dreadful, I’ll come right out and say it. It’s like some kids listened to a generation of post-punk music and didn’t get it, didn’t understand the reason why post-punk was POST, for fuck’s sake!
The reason indiecrap is crap = lyrically its a wasteland with no vocal stylization to redeem it. It’s no fun, it’s not angry, and you can’t dance to it. End of rant. Again, apologies to all involved. I’ll ban myself from here now for awhile and come back when I have something productive to offer, I promise, Matthew xoxo
Dancing to anything has never been a criterion in my book, for anything. And if this sort of atonal style was pioneered by the Velvets in the late 60s then it certainly isn’t ‘post’ punk. And as to clashing of cymbals with no apparent reason – well apart from the fact that someone likes the sound of it, there’s rarely much reason for anything much in music is there? The lyrics here are definitely not a huge strong point, but you can’t say there is no vocal stylisation to it – they’ve clearly chosen a particular aesthetic very deliberately because there are moments on the album where they show that they can sing more tunefully when they decide to.
That said, this kind of style is definitely more than something of an acquired taste and perhaps only for the genuine indie obsessives. I don’t think anyone who listens to this kind of thing could honestly say that they blame anyone for not really taking to it.
Nope, tart, I’ve listened again and I’m pretty sure this is flat-out good. And I’m serious about the 2:02 limit; brevity is the soul of wit.
Tart, I’m with you on this one. No good at all. I love messy music that boarders on chaos, but this just doesn’t quite make it. The sound is too thin, and her voice just doesn’t really have a lot of emotion.
In my opinion.
Well, I’m with Tart but with a little less gusto.
Most of the voices in this area have little emotion. It may be an unpopular choice, but it is a choice nonetheless.
And despite the tunelessness, they have hooks, and pretty bloody good hooks at that.
Surely ‘Indie’ is the sort of word you learn by context and usage, and not by definition. If you hang around in Indie-type circles and listen to enough Indie-type music you get the hang of it pretty quickly. In fact, by being obtuse to the outsider, it’s a word that almost embodies it’s own aesthetic…
….Oh dear. With that last sentence, I appear to have disappeared completely up my own arsehole.
Disappeared up your..? Not like any of the rest of us of course.
indie…..context….usage…..not by definition…..well blow me, i dunno how i would describe the music type crowd that i hang around with….let me ponder on that one……anyway i come to terms with my idea of indie is all wrapped up with the ethos of the thing……
Mine too, in all honesty. But I still have a habit of using it to describe generic guitar music like fucking Coldplay, despite their being Not Indie At All.
and Oasis……and Keane……and Bloc Party….and any other pish that NME maybe pushing….amen
I’m defintely on Tart’s side of the fence about these guys, along with Ben.
They’re just not putting enough imagination or effort in to be considered musicians or artists. It’s dreary and predictable.
As for the definition of indie argument.. I’m with C&B (despite questionning his very indie credentials just now on the Mumford thread.. Teehee!) I kinda like the word ‘alternative’. It suggests an attempt to subvert or kick against the mainstream, which appeals to me.
The mainstream keeps changing and absorbing the thin and watery arse-gravy end of ever more genres of music, which is where your Keanes and Oasises and Bloc Parties come in. So someone avoiding the mainstream will be taking a route that could be described as ‘alternative’, would they not?
Apart from Blackblack, who are just a bit rubbish.
Hang on. I agreed with Tart and Ben about Blacblack, and Tart and Ben disagree with C&B. So therefore I disagree with C&B on that subject. However, I agree with C&B about the word ‘alternative’.
So that makes me the only one who’s completely right.
Cool!
They’re just not putting enough imagination or effort in to be considered musicians or artists.
Erm, you know better than to come out with this sort of rubbish.
My biggest problem with them comes back to Tart’s comment about the lyrics. Definitely, I would agree that the lyrics on this album are pretty thin. Other than that, though, I like the music, particularly the cymbal crashes and slightly odd changes in tempo.
Well, I’ve mulled it over a bit…. and Matthew, you’ve heard the whole album I assume? Do they suffer so lyrically throughout?
This is what happens when we judge a band by one song, in my opinion. Hasty, rash, and cruel prognoses with little backing and too much diatribe, oh I should have had my coffee first and not read D&C’s comments on another post, hehehe. We’re all sheep here anyway, and Dylan, you are most certainly not cool! Pffft…
One song, indeed… I’m reserving judgment, or trying to from now on.
Ah fuck me, he gave us two songs. Ok, time for more coffee today I guess.
Well there’s a nice one called Energy, but for the most part the lyrics are a little bit basic. I don’t mind it particularly – it sort of fits with the faux-naif vocals and stuff like that – but I wouldn’t be coming here to find the next Bob Dylan.
In terms of judging on too little information, it’s only an EP to begin with, so there’s not that much to draw on anyway.
Don’t love this one, indie or not. Wasn’t the fellow in this band also in Phantom Planet? Alex Greenwald, no? He sings better than this ladysinger.
There was actually an article in The Stranger (Seattle’s “alternative” weekly paper) about a controversy with Blackblack, the suggestion that their schtick of wearing black face paint made them racists. If only they had chosen blueface, right?
i think you need to define ‘indie’