Really enjoyed this article about the current state of popular (indie) music (according to North American white kids – when I say “kids”, I mean from mid-20s to late-30s) when it showed up in Reader. I usually enjoy the articles from Dissonant Notes: they’re often long, but well worth the read.

“The two most common characteristics of the ‘indie’ persona these days, at least in North America, are an aversion to overt seriousness and the ability to find everything ‘awesome’. These characteristics often intermingle and feed off one another, creating the voracious indie devourer who is able to simultaneously enjoy every kind of music while at the same time not particularly caring about anything… How [the hipster] persona was birthed is a relatively straightforward tale, as suburban America fell in the love with the vulgar commercial product of its youth. An ironic approach was already somewhat popular but something, or in this case someone, happened in the ‘90s to turn what was a mere aspect of American culture into the dominant personality trait of American teenagers, twenty-somethings and, at this point, thirty-somethings. That someone was Beck.”

Read the rest, and listen to the music here:Birth of an Abomination – Beck and the Ironic Persona