Posted on 08/16/2010 6:03:53 PM PDT by Mr. Blonde
Big Boi isn't indie. Or is he? As one-half of the rap duo OutKast, he has sold some 18 million albums, won six Grammy Awards and appeared on more hit songs than even he can keep track of. Yet there he was on July 18 at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, playing alongside bands only a fraction as successful. As thousands of writhing, fist-pumping fans swarmed the main stage and climbed on top of fences to get a look at the hip-hop megastar, thousands more were across the park, stomping and dancing to the largely unknown noise-pop act Sleigh Bells (album sales: 47,000). That doesn't usually happen to Big Boi.
But this festival is hosted by Pitchfork Media, the online music magazine that in recent years has become a commanding authority within the indie-music scene. Over three days in July, 46 acts — ranging from the recently reunited 1990s rock band Pavement to the weird, raunchy Jamaican-inspired dance group Major Lazer — blew the collective minds of 54,000 people (average age: 27) in Chicago's unglamorous, nonlakefront Union Park. "Rock used to be one living cell," says Victoria Legrand, vocalist for the dreamy pop duo Beach House, which performed on the third day of the festival. "It was all grunge or all metal. But I'm glad it's not like that anymore. The cells are dividing."
The numbers back her up. U.S. album sales have dropped 38% in the past decade — but at the same time, there's more music out there than ever before. In 2005, according to Nielsen SoundScan, 60,000 new albums were released in the U.S.; by 2009, the number had risen to almost 100,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Arcade Fire had the #1 album last week, although at 150,000 sold it is still a long way from what the really major acts move today. The album is excellent by the way.
You may be interested in this.
Wow. I’ve never even heard of this “ hip-hop megastar”
Music died in 1972.
hip-hop=rap="kill whitey"
I would LOVE to get Pitchfork to look at our new movie when it comes out in two weeks, “Rockin’ the Wall,” how rock rolled up the Iron Curtain (www.rockinthewall.com). Take a look at the trailer.
Oh, please. There’s a lot of brilliant music being written...you just have to know where to look.
>>Oh, please. There’s a lot of brilliant music being written...you just have to know where to look.<<
if you say so...
I’m impressed if you have managed to have never heard Outkast. They were all over the radio with Hey Ya and The Way You Move from Speakerboxx/The Love Below. They are a very good example of why I think the broad brush used on rap here is incorrect. Especially when it comes to mainstream huge selling rap.
Why 1972? Seems a little suspect that it is before Blood on the Tracks came out for starters, and ignores the tremendous amount of great music that has come out since.
Why 1972? Seems a little suspect that it is before Blood on the Tracks came out for starters, and ignores the tremendous amount of great music that has come out since.
I also suspect that the editorial staff is either sleeping with or belong to an apocalyptic cult formed by Animal Collective. Perhaps the most overhyped outfit in post-rock today.
Looks very cool. Definitely worth making them and the other music blogs aware of it.
>>They are a very good example of why I think the broad brush used on rap here is incorrect. Especially when it comes to mainstream huge selling rap.
<<
cRap has no staying power. In the music industry, there is a concept known as “catalog.” It basically means albums and songs that sell long after their release. Items like “Yellow Brick Road”,”White Album”, “In Search of the Lost Chord” etc. still dominate the catalog domain.
cRap music has about a 1 week shelf life. There is no catalog and eventually the industry will implode from its own embrace of the non-sustainable street poetry.
Who goes back for 10 or 20 year for cRap? No one. But people still want to buy and enjoy “Houses of the Holy.”
It's the sign of a mind that's no longer interested.
>>Why 1972? <<
Among other things, Morrison died.
It was also the last good year for GFR.
cRap is just stylized beat poetry — Maynard G. Krebs writ large.
>>It’s the sign of a mind that’s no longer interested.<<
No, just ears that have been assaulted for 3 decades by garbage (for the most part). The last decade has been particularly vile.
“I’m impressed if you have managed to have never heard Outkast.”
I don’t have time to listen to the radio and I can’t handle commercials. Plus, most of my work is orchestral so I’m rarely exposed to anything beat-driven outside of dance clubs.
It’s annoying because I known I’m missing a lot of good stuff.
Outside of U2, I don’t know if there is a major band I care for less than The Doors. Sadly Morrison’s death wasn’t enough to end drunken buffoons posing as poets.
I’m sure you’re aware Houses of the Holy came out after your arbitrary cutoff date.
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