The decay of originality

Sun, 11/08/2009 2:22 PM  |  Music

Happy Sunday, groundlings. Welcome back to your favorite geek-out joint. Thanks for all the notes and feedback, be it via email or thru my Facebook. Much appreciated.

Instead of the usual music news, gossip, band profiles and random freebies, this week I'm taking time to take the gloves off on certain subjects and go full on into ranting bitch mode.

The subject of my rant is not anything new. It's the kind of complaining you'll often hear at corner tables after gigs, or from random disgruntled bloggers.

No matter how many times it's said, it really hasn't made much of a difference, because most people don't often speak out in public on these subjects for fear of ruffling feathers.

I figured I've grown a pretty steady reputation for being a critical bitch during the past half decade at least; I might as well let it out this time and hopefully wake a few people up, or worst case make a few enemies. But hey, as long as what I want to say is said, enemies are fine by me.

So here it is:

The decay of originality and the slow suicide of the local scene Part 1 (of 2)

The local independent scene is not perfect. Nowhere near it. No art scene is without its downfalls or foibles - it's human nature to have them. But there are certain things that if left unchecked will ruin our local scene and turn all our creative efforts into nothing but a big joke.

The most rotten vines in our scene's family tree are Arrogance and Lack of Originality. It's a sickness that is going to continue to eat away at us and further push us onto the sidelines and perpetuate the mainstream belief that independent artists are not real musicians - that you won't ever be a successful musician if you stay independent.

The way things used to be was that musicians went independent because they wanted to explore new and original musical possibilities that would not be and had not been accepted by mainstream commercial music.

Most of the original independents were punk/hardcore/metal musicians who created their own scenes and their own way of working. Then came the bands that found inspiration in the music of the early 90s Brit-pop and Brit rock bands, bands that took those influences, processed them and turned them into new very distinctly Indonesian sounds, for example bands such as Pure Saturday and Kubik.

Most of those bands had no real interest in working within the major label systems. They chose the off-stream because it gave them freedom to explore and dabble in and play with all their influences anyway they want to. This is what made the independent scenes important and essential. And for us avid music listeners, it opened up new audio horizons we never thought possible.

However, the past few years have brought a very unnerving trend: the independent scene has ceased to become simply a space for free creativity; rather, it has evolved into an exclusive scene. It is now overrun with arrogance.

Arrogance toward the mainstream, as well as arrogance toward anything that isn't considered cool by a select group of people. The downfall began with the appearance of large and well-funded independent record labels, most notably a label founded by a chain of specialty bookstores and record stores.

A new scene had emerged, one that revolved around places such as the aforementioned chain of stores. These establishments set themselves up, either accidentally or intentionally, as the arbiters of Cool by exposing those who can afford imported CDs to a whole new universe of music previously unheard of here.

I personally don't consider the early purpose of these places to be a bad thing; in fact, I think they did a great service to the education of musicians and music lovers in town. But with the success of places like that, suddenly there was a prejudice against music lovers or musicians who weren't plugged in to this newly formed scene of cool kids.

The labels that came out of this "cool kids" scene began with a real independent spirit, producing highly original and memorable acts. The original appearance of these labels seriously helped shed light on previously unknown talents. These bands became very successful, so much so that they began to attract corporate sponsorship.

This is where things get messy. Indie became mainstream. Those originally progressive labels began to behave like major labels, urging their acts to consider their audiences more. The tampering of creative freedom became the norm. Originality began to be curbed.

As happens with the major labels, new acts are subtly guided into the musical directions of better-known popular bands, be it big local "indie" acts or whatever international act is dubbed the next cool thing by these arbiters of indie cool.

This causes new up-and-coming musicians to believe that in order to be known, accepted, successful and "cool", they have to sound as much like the bands they listen to as possible.

And the worst part of it is, the fans of the scene have also been conditioned to accept and applaud these acts of borderline plagiarism.

Musicians, in an attempt for quick "indie" success, no longer take the time to process their influences to create original sounds. And once they reach the level of success they want, instead of using this newfound success to explore new musical possibilities, they perpetuate the plagiarist attitude. Fear of originality grows. Bands that attempt to do their own sound are often cast aside, marginalized and labeled "different".

The question is now, where do we go from here?

So stay tuned for further ranting, bitching, and hopefully a little more insight in the next Underground Hum.

Feedback is always welcomed, so drop me a line at undergroundhum@yahoo.com.

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