Song of last year

'Fly in a Jar' - Modest Mouse

Admittedly I didn't sample much of 2007s new releases, but I did listen to a lot of new music on my radio each morning, and Modest Mouse where one of the few to pass the most basic test, to be distinguishable enough to actually notice when their song was on. Unlike a lot of music on rotation that seems the same blaze spectrum of Naval Grey from Simple Plan to Army Grey of Arctic Monkeys, modest mouse came out and did 'Sea Shanties meets Scar' and their vocalist who I don't know is at least quite original sounding switching from melodious to hysterical.
And the concept was good. I have to say that, the concept is good for the whole Album.
But even though the Grammy's are long past and I barely caught this event I barely ever watch anyway, I do recall Kanye West having a pretty weird haircut one year...anyway I noticed on youtube Dave Grohl's competition or auditions or whatever rotating around performing symphonic backup to the foo fighters during the grammy's and I suspect, the hottest chick one.
But I also noticed dave grohl sporting a very retro grunge look, that is long hair and a goatee. I guess because he was wearing a suit he probably ended up looking more like that fucking Canadian band I was dissapointed to see topping the UK album charts. Hold on while I try to remember their name - Nickelback thats it.
Anyway though, when in Japan I purchased a Bicycling magazine that had a style section. A guy asked if it was cool for him to have a goatee ala Floyd Landis.
The columnists response was that if he had a goatee in this day and age he was either A) Floyd Landis or B) Dissapointed the whole grunge thing fissled out.
Later on the other cultural pole of the world Italy, I saw an amusing piece of graffiti that read 'Grunge is dead but we're still here'.
And I am in the former example I admit option B - dissapointed grunge fissled out, and in the later case still here.
Now I don't own flannel shirts, were doc martins nor do I sport a goatee anymore but I sincerly miss this movement and think it was shortlived.
why? why do I think I'm different from thse people ten years older than me who rue the decline of Bowie and Cindy Lawper inspired fashion (and no I'm not going to look up how to spell Cindy Lawper). Well for one thing 80's fashion, style and music was centered around very tangible technological developments that spawned flouro coloured wear, plastic as an alternative to leather and vinal, synthetic fibres for wigs and of course the introduction of Midi and an era where it was acceptable to have a Synthesizer as virtually your entire backup band - think Michael Jackson and Celine Dion.
The 80s is also one of the 'eyesores' of history, and furthermore, it has enjoyed at least two or three revivals between 1990 and 2008. People are constantly going back to it for inspiration. The peak revival of the 80s was when Manson released Mechanical Animals and people started digging back through the family trees of 90s bands to discover the Cure and the Pixies and their inspirations for something new.
And at least while I may not be able to claim I'm different from the 80s generation I can at least demand some small token 90's revival.
Except the 90's was in some ways over by 1996 not even lasting a full decade. Sure I think the 90s will be remembered as Hip-hops decline, Grunges brief flare and the advent of New Metal favorites Korn, Limp Bizkit and finally the limpest of all Linkin Park.
And lets face it, Grunge was small, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Nirvana. Small but huge. There where a whole bunch of other bands but the lines of Grunge are muddy, was regurgitator grunge? certainly Silverchair, but not anymore. Then what about Faith No More, Jane's addiction weren't and neither were Rage Against the Machine, there you are heading into the shady collection of 'Alternative Music' which may just be more where I'm at when stuck in the 90's.
But Alternative is a curious name to describe the bulk of the early 90s which in my own head was and should be recognised as the most significant period in western musical development since the late 60s spawned Hendrix, Floyd, Cream, Beatles, The Doors and so fourth. Except the 60s blossomed into the 70s.
What happened to the 90s influence.
In my view it was destroyed. And the reason being was precisely because it was 'Grunge' and 'Alternative' the 'Industry' had to put a stop to it.
First take a look at Grunge and appreciate semantics. What a marketing company provides is polish, it adds value and becomes a step in the supply chain that that justifies buying some suit lunch from time to time. It makes people feel good.
Whereas Grunge is possibly as close as you get to anti-marketing. That is it is unpolished, unclean and minimises steps in the supply chain to add value. It is a paradox for such a movement to become commercially viable because it rejects so many aspects of customer satisfaction, or kissing customers hairy balls.
ANd there perhaps music is unique, especially in low context cultures, whom the original levi's took off because they where a form of rebellion. Or at least rejection of the conventional slacks.
Levi's might rightly be viewed now as 'sold out' for me in my teenage years 'selling out' was the unforgivable. It meant that someone had gone and shared your very independant identity with everyone else.
A similar concept to Grunge is the Japanese aesthetic of Wabi, or natural beauty. It is characterised by usig natural materials and preserving their natural textures, such as unpolished wood.
Thinking of grunge as wabi, and wabi as a piece of wood, the precise reason wabi/grunge needed to be crushed by an industry is that it doesn't create work for the varnishers, laquerers, painters, engravers, wood turners, wood treaters and myriad other leaches on the industry that need to add value to give you what in essence remains a piece of wood.
And not that I'm having a go at the diversity such various forms of polish add.
It is just that there was something liberating about just wearing the first things you pulled out of your wardrobe each morning, or as still is my case whatever is on the floor nearest my bed.
And there's something liberating about selecting your wardrobe in an op-shop with a budget of $10. Firstly (well until Episode remodelled) the likely hood of a shirt print you like coming in a different size sitting on a hanger behind the one you are looking at goes away, so you are forced to go creative by either buying prints you like that aren't your size, or buying clothes your size that aren't prints you like.
Your wardrobe is straightup limited by what people are giving away at the time.
Shopping like this its virtually impossible to ever get caught in the same outfit as your friends.
And grunge certainly made this approach near to mass market, as did the larger Alternative rock group.
And furthermore, grunge didn't lend itself to manufacture to easily, what you saw was record companies trying to sign and return just about anyone, right up until Interscope figured out a formula that started producing Limp Bizket, Orgy and so fourth all carefully packaged and targeted.
So even just in the ability to leach of a band in the clothes being sold, I can only think of one company that was laughing during the early 90s, and that was Doc Martins. I presume there is more than one brand of flannel shirts. But even with sunglasses they made $10 or less sunglasses cool. And that's not as valuable as Hip Hop to big companies by a long shot.
So Alternative probably illustrates the reason there hasn't been much of a 90s revival even more, although syn does have programming dedicated to Indie.
Alternative to what? alternative to big record labels. the indie comes from independant and that right there, should tell you why a revival isn't likely.
Revivals are like the 'El Maco' of the music industry and fashion industries. A chance to generate some excitement in the market and sell a bunch of goods.
Alternative was more or less, a movement like Napster, and like Blogging is to journalism and Youtube is to Television. Just a little smaller, it was about reducing the power of big institutions to decide for us.
And lastly the same shit happened to Hip-hop too. Long before anyone in Australia really got into hip-hop. Back when Skunkhour had two lead singers and John Safran was performing in Red-Cordial, Hip-hop clips were more like Grandmaster Flash's 'the message' and less like 'The Thong Song' they too were an alternative narrative to the whiney angst of Alternative and Grunge.
The Native Tongues possie where attacking Gangsta rap, and Gangsta rap won. But Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco are starting to revive the whole 'social conscious rap thing' at any rate all the trails left by the 90s are kind of fascinating, and kind of depressing.
Its not like lives aren't better now than ten years ago, but some craftsmanship does inevitably get lost. Just like you aren't likely to find Italian antiques in Ikea. There's more polish for sure, and the download phenomena has shifted the balance slightly in the consumers favour for deciding what we listen to. But there was something beautiful of the slap and dash, hectic rush to market that threw out bands like regurgitator, stone temple pilots, sevendust, deftones, RATM, grinspoon, silverchair, janes addiction, faith no more, red hot chilli peppers, nirvana, pearl jam, greenday, smashing pumpkins, soundgarden, white zombie, tool, skunk anansie, sneaker pimps, filter, nine inch nails...