![]() ![]() Este arrived first in 1986, then Danielle in 1989, and finally Alana in 1991. The Haim sisters were born and raised in the San Fernando Valley. And at a time when shrouding yourself in mystery was the surest path to indie-world clout, Haim arrived with a backstory too good to keep secret. Yet they were also outliers of a sort - a real-deal band playing guitar-forward music at a time when synth-driven singer-producer outfits had become the norm. Their debut Days Are Gone offered a perfect synthesis of traditional “rockist” virtues (writing your own songs, playing your own instruments, a propensity to rock out) and the pop tendencies that were anathema to those same people (sleek production, tight vocal harmonies, unabashed choreography). Haim were the walking embodiment of this trend (emphasis on walking). They wouldn’t have reset the culture if they didn’t have some actual juice. Maybe that sounds like a strange or even insidious phenomenon - it definitely had some dark ripple effects - but at the time I found it exciting, mainly because all of those albums are fantastic. These records stand as key documents of an “indie rock” zeitgeist that felt increasingly untethered from traditional concepts of both “indie” and “rock,” in which many of the buzziest artists were either independent acts trying to be pop stars or major-label signees marketed to an indie audience. Ten years ago today, both Haim and Lorde released their debut albums - just a week after Chvrches dropped theirs, about a month before Sky Ferreira unveiled hers. Such was the case in the fall of 2013, when the line between indie rock and mainstream pop was growing blurrier than ever. Sometimes it’s a wave of similarly minded artists emerging at the same time, like when Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, and Sufjan Stevens kicked off the freak folk thing or when Neon Indian, Washed Out, and Toro y Moi laid the foundation of chillwave. “House Of Jealous Lovers” fomented a dance-punk movement. ![]() Slanted And Enchanted inspired a wave of quirky, laconic guitar-pop bands. Any music ever released by Chloe or Halle Bailey, together or separately, into a vacuum of global indifference? Cultural reset.Įvery genre has actual, real-deal cultural resets from time to time, “indie” music included. Some Charlie Puth single that inspired some positive blog chatter but barely made it on the radio? Cultural reset. A BTS song that debuted at #1 and then plummeted down the chart without ever grazing the zeitgeist? Cultural reset. But the phrase is often deployed recklessly, on some “ Charlie Brown had hoes” shit. It could rightly refer to game-changing albums like Beyoncé’s self-titled surprise drop or Frank Ocean’s fearlessly minimal Blonde, and certainly to BC/AD moments like the mainstream breakthroughs of the Beatles or Nirvana. Pop stans like to throw around the phrase “cultural reset.” As in, when x artist released y album, it was a cultural reset - it changed everything. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |