Say Hello To The New Swan Fungus

So, this is it. I think I’m ready to launch the new-and-improved Swan Fungus. If you experience any errors while reading this page, please let me know as soon as possible so that I can fix them. I’m not working today, so I’ll be near the computer for the next several hours, listening to WFMU or WFAN or one of those East Coast radio stations I so dearly miss. Also, be sure to let me know what you think about this new format! Do you like it? Does it totally suck? Either way, leave a comment and let me know. Also, please notice that there are DIGG buttons at the end of every post. I’m not going to lie, it’ll help boost my traffic if you click it.

Entertainment Weekly, which I always thought was just a website that featured two articles per week detailing LOST previews and recaps, apparently thinks of itself as an arbiter of musical taste. This is the only explanation I can think of that accounts for their “Indie Rock 25″ article detailing the twenty-five best “indie” albums recorded since 1984. Not sure where they got the ’84 from, but whatever. If they’re going to claim they know the best albums released since that year, who am I to argue their pinpointing the exact moment when “indie rock” began.

Of course the first record they list is Radiohead’s In Rainbows, which isn’t even an independent release because TBD Records is a sub-label of ATO Records (a division of Sony BMG), but hey — who am I to question the validity of a statement made by major entertainment news source — I’m just a shitty blogger. I’ve already spoken about how In Rainbows is “meh” glitch pop, and how only 38% of downloaders paid for the album during its brief online release. Still, I can understand why it’s on this list. It’s Radiohead. People are afraid to criticize one of the biggest bands in the world. I understand that. While you’re off enjoying your blissfully brain-dead Radiohead albums in your densely populated fantasy world, I’ll be waiting here patiently, in the real world, for you to come over and apologize by saying, “You were right, Evan. In Rainbows fucking sucks.”

The next albums on Entertainment Weekly’s list are Spoon’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga and The Hold Steady’s Boys and Girls in America. Never heard of ‘em, sorry.

Then they list a Bright Eyes album called I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning. I just mentioned in my Vampire Weekend review how I tried to like Bright Eyes. Do you know why I couldn’t? Because I can only take so much complaining before I want to rip my headphones off and strangle the fragile little pussy who can’t stop whimpering through every fucking album he’s ever recorded. That’s why. I liked the album “Fevers and Mirrors.” There, I’ll admit it. But I sold it to Princeton Record Exchange and bought a Can album with my trade credit. You know why? Because I realized that by listening to Bright Eyes I was slowly turning into a vagina. Bright Eyes is music for high school girls, in the same way that Dashboard Confessional was when I was in high school. I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning isn’t even a left-over turd clinging to the ass hairs of Jason Pierce, who (along with Pete Kember) is responsible for The Perfect Prescription (Glass Records, 1987), one of the truly finest “indie” albums recorded since 1984.

I couldn’t feel any more nauseous right now. The follow up Bright Eyes with The Arcade Fire. I’ve written far too much about how bad that band is. Here, watch this YouTube video and see for yourself how utterly trite this band is. Look at that young Turk, he’s so punk rock! What do they call this music, it’s so…edgy.

Next on the list is another style-over-substance band. The White Stripes album Elephant is apparently one of the best twenty-five albums we’ve heard during the past twenty-five years. I couldn’t tell you if that’s true, because I hate kitschy bands and I don’t care to listen to it. I just imagine it rips off fifty different artists who never received the recognition they deserve, but because there’s a girl drummer in the White Stripes and they both dress funny everyone figured they were visionaries. I especially like how the EW staff calls Meg’s drumming “charmingly rudimentary.” Don’t cause yourself any undue stress by listening to something that challenges your ears, people. Stick to boring rhythms and safe music.

Interpol. Whatever, I liked that album when it came out, but it’s not better than The Taller You Are, The Shorter You Get by My Dad is Dead, who beat Interpol to the whole post-punk revival thing by, oh, I don’t know…thirteen years. I guess I appreciate Interpol’s take on post-punk more than I do Vampire Weekend’s, but that’s really not saying much. The Shins, one of the safest, most boring pop bands to ever garner critical acclaim. Can’t stand that voice. Can’t stand that voice. Reminds me of Garden State. Yo La Tengo’s And then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out. I like Painful more, but this is the first album on the list that I can understand, even though it probably wouldn’t make an “Indie Rock 50″ if I was in charge of the list.

Ten of the twenty-five albums are from the 2000s. Then we get the Sleater-Kinny album whose cover ripped of The Kink Kronicles. Heaven’s to Besty was better. I also think it’s ironic how Carrie Brownstein and Co. came from riot grrrl bands who fought for female empowerment and wound up as cute, nerdy girls who wear makeup and do their hair, like this. Way to stick to your guns and and not change your image to conform to the current trend, girls!

I can’t touch Neutral Milk Hotel. In the Aeroplane Over The Sea is on my list. But Modest Mouse? Learn to sing, fat guy singer. Belle and Sebastian? One of the worst bands ever formed. Archers of Loaf made the list with Vee Vee, but Icky Mettle is better, and even that one might not make my list. Guided By Voices Bee Thousand is a good one, too. Built to Spill’s Ultimate Alternative Wavers is their worst album, so it’s only fitting it made the EW list. Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted made the list too, which is probably my least favorite album of theirs. I like how the author writes, “Pavement would tighten up its songcraft and boost is production values significantly on later efforts like 1994′s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain…” which is a nice way of saying the band stopped ripping off The Fall and Sonic Youth so blatantly.

You can’t have a list of top “indie” albums without My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, but you apparently can have one that doesn’t argue for Isn’t Anything as a better album, and concludes that Loveless is better than Slint’s Spiderland in the battle for 1991′s best record. Nice goin’, EW. You shot yourself in the foot twice with that choice. Little known fact: the amount of money Creation spent on the recording of Loveless nearly bankrupted the label and forced them into merging with Sony, thus eliminating their “indie” status. Thanks a lot, Kevin Shields!

At this point, the remainder of the choices are all “Our Band Could Be Your Life”-inspired choices. Fugazi, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr…I like Fugazi, I’d put one of their records on my list. You could say Repeater is a good choice, but in another more accurate way, you could say In On The Kill Taker is a good choice. Pixies, Doolittle. Meh. Whatever. It’s like Mark Prindle says, “Are you in college? Here, have a Pixies CD.” As far as Sonic Youth is concerned… I’d rather hear EVOL or Sister than Daydream Nation.

R.E.M.? I have never liked them. That’s a rhyme! The Smiths? Gay. Also, Warner Bros. took over Sire in ’78, so those Smiths records aren’t exactly “indie”, although I will admit that many people who consider themselves to be “indie” (who all look like this) listen to the Smiths. The list ends with the Replacements, who [apparently] started “indie” rock. Nice list, Entertainment Weekly, except for the 90% that caused me to dry heave and then wet heave all over my nice new sneakers!

Four sadly overlooked bands from this era:

Karp – Forget the Minions (remember when K Records released good albums? From groups not associated with the Microphones?)
Scissor Girls – Skeletal/Binary (the mid-’90s No Wave revival sure beats the ’00s Post-Punk revival!)
Killdozer – Pile Driver (1984, Butch Vig produced album on Touch & Go)
Starfuckers – Di Marmo (deconstructed rock from Italy, mid/late ’90s)