Pseudo Hipster Rant While Waiting at the Mechanic for Edgar (or, I just don’t get it)
Nirvana's epic album.
Awhile back, I found myself waiting at a local B’More tire shop to pick up Edgar, my trusty Subaru Outback. Edgar received two flat tires, and I needed to replace all four slippers anyway. (Edgar must have rolled over some highway shrapnel.) I abused much of my time reading past issues of music magazines and Marie Claire while being assured by the mechanics not to worry, ma’am, my car would be ready before the shop closes, and my faith in the mechanic’s promise dwindling. I came to three conclusions:
(1) Half of Baltimore’s service industry is polite and charm itself–just not the most efficient.
(2) Marie Claire is a much underrated magazine. They had some great articles, and none of them with titles like, “200 Hot and Sexy Moves to Make Him Go Wild!” and “How to Snag a Sexy and Loaded Boyfriend So You Don’t Die A Failure As A Woman.”
(3) SPIN’s music reviews suck stinky ass.
Each of these ponderings make for excellent blog entries, but today, I focus my post on the third. Perhaps I’m not hip enough or withit. Granted, I live in Charles Village, with hipness and hipsters from Johns Hopkins maudlining about, and uber-hip Sonja Sohn is one of my neighbors in our hip community. I’ll admit, I do shop at thrift stores and am over-educated. But with each passing year, any residual withit-ness trickles away. The fact remains: Miles Davis, I am not. I am, after all, 36 and shop at Sam’s Club for clothes.
Still, a fuddy-duddy like me still calls bullshit phrases like, “. . . playfully caustic solo noise . . . ,” when she sees them. Sorry, but pouring flesh-eating music into my ears isn’t my idea of playtime. Fine, I get the author is meaning the artist has a biting, or perhaps sarcastic, sense of humor. The problem is caustic ain’t playful–it’s harsh and no-holds barred. Visions of children burning ants with magnify glasses dance in my head. I hear a squawking clarinet player that never practices in band class. That’s not playful, that’s painfully awkward.
” . . . puffy-shoulder keytar pop . . . . that would give Alan Parsons and Mr. Roboto pause, “ and, ” . . . there’s enough elasticity in ‘Too Much Midi (Please Forgive Me)’ to hold up an entire generation’s leg warmers. . . ?!” Please. Why doesn’t the reviewer just say, “It’s reminiscent to 80′s New Wave?” Two words: overwritten drivel.
I am not interested in listening to “grunt-garling vocals” and “serrated feedback squalls,” even if I need workout music, “provided your workout consists of jogging through a quarry while on mescaline.” It does paint a vivid picture. I’ll give points for that. Although, it doesn’t sound like any music I would listen to–more like music blasting from a car that disturbs my playground chi while hanging with Munchkin.
I have no idea what that means. Could someone translate?
I wish I was hip enough to decipher some of the reviews, as they were layered with obscure references upon references, turning them into some music-reviewese.
Ironically, SPIN dedicated the issue to the release of Nevermind, bemoaning the decomposing of Nirvana’s rage-music legacy in today’s pillowy music scene, fattened by generic Justin Beebers and Nirvanabes. Perhaps the editors should read the over-written prose and hipster-cryptic fallow littering their magazine, instead of wondering whatever happened to edgy music.
Kurt Cobain would be shaking his head in his grave, mumbling, “It figures.”
Uber-cool just ain’t my scene.
I believe I understand what the reviewer is getting at when he lauds a ” . . .yowling chorus morphs into a kiss-off for the ages.” But if I really was in the mood for that kind of music, I would pop in my trustee Nirvana CD.
Wait. Are you saying my pseudo-hipster, pseudo-intellectual rant is to conceal my own self-loathing and overwritten prose? Oh well . .
Huh?
R.K. ‘Tex’ Arado
Exactly! ; )