Hype in the time of Internets

(actually don't miss them at all)

Hey guys,

Welcome to Buzzband Awareness Week.

I was at a Passion Pit show not long ago with a bunch of other 17-year-olds out on a school night and the COMPLETELY sold out crowd was dancing their (its?) head(s) off the entire time, and it seemed like a very communal experience, with everyone "grooving to the same vibe" and having a generally positive experience. I thought, "this is what it must have been like to see the Rolling Stones in 1968-- a large group coming together to enjoy a shared entity in earnest." So then I thought, will the Passion Pits still be touring in 2047? Will these tweens grinding next to me remember what the Passion Pits sounded like when they're forty, and will they still enjoy this music?


I thought back to the beginning of buzz bands in the modern era, and I traced this ancient tradition back to the dawning of Rock and Roll: 2001. This is the year that The Strokes invented guitars. And then I thought, Where Are They Now? They're still playing music occasionally while not being dads or in rehab, but they probably wouldn't sell out clubs anymore, and many of their fans probably wouldn't admit to liking them anymore. (for the record, I will cop to liking the Strokes until the day I hear "is this it" at the gates of heaven, and even after that.)


So then I was thinking, did the "machine" of the modern music industry eat up the Strokes? Does the hype just inflate every band until their bubble of desireability just pops and the bros in the band are left standing in a gooey wet mess of embarrassment? When the Strokes were born in the early twentieth century, the internet didn't even exist. These days, bands have a shelf life of about 3 months in realtime before they are retired.


During the Passion Pit show, I thought of all the Buzzbands of yesteryear:


2001: The Strokes


2002: The Vines


2003: Jet/The Rapture/Kings of Leon/Hot Hot Heat (lol remember them?!)

--this era marks an important shift in buzzband culture as Pitchfork gained prominence amongst young music consumers and alternative music producers and fans were sick of feeling sad about their own generation being a reheated version of history. Buzzbands evolved from "dumb and bro-y" (Jet) to "thoughtful and evocative" (BSS, Arcade Fire) and "frantic and meloncholy" (Wolf Parade, Clap Hands)

2004/5/6: Bloc Party/Broken Social Scene/Arcade Fire/ Wolf Parade/Arctic Monkeys/Clap Your Hands Say Yeah


2007: MGMT

2008: Animal Collective/Fleet Foxes

2009: Grizzly Bear

2009 1/2: Passion Pit/ Phoenix??

2010: ??? xx or something? girls? animal collective again?

(the dates might be a bit off since I don't care about buzzbands-- and generally don't consume their music until they survive the first run of hype.)

In the span of those eight years, the bands got smaller and smaller, and their reign lasted less and less time. The Strokes were the Everyband, inventing the modern "indie" genre, and were made famous by Rolling Stone magazine, while Passion Pit was very popular for a week with college students who own neon clothing, and were made famous by the internet.

Looking at that list, we can see that Australian bands are not good but can maintain popularity for a while via ipod commercials (the Vines, Jet), British bands are not that good either but last for only about a week (Libertines, Arctic Monkeys), Canadian bands are "very good" and oftentimes "serious musicians" (BSS, Arcade Fire) and I suppose I can't sum up American buzzbands because these colors don't run.

Also, it's important to note that the above list doesn't include other buzz entities like solo acts (Sufjan Stevens, Devendra, Bon Iver), female artists (Joanna Newsom, Cat Power), or "genre- defying electro-terrorists from the third world" (M.I.A.). It's important to remember that a buzz band is made up mostly of white males from the English speaking world (although Phoenix is the exception to that rule, but doesn't really count since the lead singer is boyfriends with Sofia Coppola). (I also wouldn't count bands like Bright Eyes, the Decemberists or TV on the Radio as "buzzbands" although they experienced large volumes of internet exposure, because they're institutions that seem to get by more on their "hard work" and devoted fan bases rather than blog mentions/pitchfork reviews. Animal Collective sort of fits in here but they have come to define success for the buzzband, so they're on the list.)

I just thought I'd bring up this topic because it's important to remember that buzzbands are people too, and we need to look out for them so they don't end up back in Minneapolis or Melbourne on their mom's couches, or on some alt version of "dancing with the stars." If you enter into a relationship with a buzzband, remember not to hurt their feelings, and see them the next time they're in town. It's not their fault that the internet hype just chews them up and then makes them seem "uncool" when it finds someone else, or that pitchfork gives their second album a 5.4 (except for the Vines, because they were actually awful).