Birth of an Abomination – Beck and the Ironic Persona
by Wallace Wylie
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. They are the ultimate consumer, willing to embrace and discard bands at a moment’s notice while never questioning what led them to lose interest in one band and embrace another. Awkward inquiries about almost any subject can be dealt with in a detached and deliberately ironic manner — following trends is awesome, selling out is awesome, being shallow is awesome, sweatshops are awesome. When it comes to fashion, trashiness battles against both vintage store retro and American Apparel chic as the dominant form, and everyone thinks that everybody but themselves is a hipster. How this 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.
Now, before everybody has an aneurysm, I’m not saying it’s all Beck’s fault. I mean, I blame Stephen Malkmus too. In reality, though, there have to be untold variables in place before a trend catches on, and then all it takes is the right social carrier to throw petrol on the fire. In this instance what were those variables? For starters, throw in some Cramps-style b-movie reverence. Add a pinch of John Waters bad taste mixed well with some John Hughes nerd-love. Simmer lightly over an emerging indie-crossover MTV audience and, voila! You have the perfect recipe for indie-loser geekdom. Not that I’m suggesting Beck planned this all in advance. He was as much a product of his generation as anyone else. But something about his image struck a chord and accentuated what was already in place.
Soon enough Beck clones were everywhere and in their wake they rendered passionate feeling an embarrassing personality trait. Even something as natural as sexual urges appears to be a source of crippling shame, with any sexual words or phrases seen as clichéd, artificial and cringe-inducing. The idea of trying to be naturally “sexy” seems absurd. So, as indicated by Midnite Vultures, sex and sexual urges are reduced to ironic gestures of overstatement and hyperbole, though presumably Beck is able to make non-ironic sexual suggestions in the comfort of his own home. Did I say Beck and his followers do not take anything seriously? I take it back, there is one notable exception. Beck’s lyrics are nonsensical unless he is talking about his own sadness. With unhappiness no fear of cliché exists. Beck is more than able to indulge in singer-songwriter triteness in order to squeeze out some emotions about a failed relationship or generalised despair. Beck became the mirror image of a whole generation who felt the need to poke fun at everything except their own sense of sorrow (though disclaimers such as “God, I’m so emo” do occasionally follow emotional outbursts).
(continues overleaf)
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Oh man. This is a really interesting article, and I’m going to read it again better later. But I think I have an essay in response! As in, one that I wrote a few years back in a drug haze after I had my wisdom teeth out (aware I may be setting myself up there). Anyway, nerdy fun ahead.
I have absolutely no idea what the point of this article is. If that makes me stupid, so be it.
and with this collapse board is back. yay! (no seriously yay!) i really mean that. i’m not being ironic. i really do like this article. i’m being very serious. this is great.
I’m with David, I have problems with this article. It‘s almost incomprehensible.
I believe I understand the intent – to identify artists responsible for destroying true ‘alternative’ culture by making it consumable to the masses. However, the thing is, it’s a salad of words that meanders from topic to topic with little focus, makes sweeping generalisations, and provides little evidence to fully illuminate.
I get half way through and think, “Is this an article about indie culture, or why Beck sucks, or how Beck ruined hip-hop for everyone?”. Elsewhere, you make sweeping statements regarding Beck using the pronoun ‘they’ i.e “they arrive, they are enjoyed in the most undemanding ways”. Are you inferring that if I don’t share this view, I’ve somehow been suckered by Beck? The focus wavers, and there seems no evidentiary basis on which to make all these claims. You’re failing to convince me.
For me, this alleged class struggle between the mainstream and the alternative is illusionary. There are no boundaries in music nowadays, smart people make up their own minds about what they like or not and technology has empowered their ability to do this. People chose to listen to Beck and all other groups that you finger as responsible for the present state of affairs that you obviously find disagreeable. Let them listen to music you hate, I can’t see how this affects your ability not to listen to Beck and co.
Wallace, I sometimes pity you. I ask again, do you actually enjoy music at all? All these essays seem to do is to attack straw (wo)men as a method of raging against the alleged mainstream, or the genres or groups posing as the alternative which you seem to think are the mainstream. At alternate times its Pitchfork, Beck, Malkamus & Pavement. Why not just blame ‘music’ and be done with it?
from what i get ol’ wallaby is from the uk and transplanted in the states, so he’s coming to this from a whole different world and looking to see why we (americans) kinda maybe stood for stuff in the 80′s to some degree in underground music terms only to turn around and stand for nothing. also it’s fun to say who the boogeyman is sometimes, and to wal-mart his boogeymen happen to be beck and stephen malkmus. nothing wrong with that.
Perhaps geography matters. I live in Brisbane, Australia and I couldn’t give two rats arses about Beck or Malkamus and who is listening to them and who isn’t.
To jump to a tangent, much like the above, Beck ain’t some evil genius out trying to destroy hip-hop. If hip-hop is dead, it destroyed itself.
Fuck’s sake, man. I have fun when I listen to music. Do you?
I know you don’t have a traditional editor who assigns topics to you or dictates what albums you must cover, so why not run with that opportunity and write about things you actually enjoy listening to?
Best posts I’ve ever seen from both Chad and Darragh. Well done, lads.
Whoa, it’s an Australia vs America stand-off. What does the UK think? Canada? Italy? France? (our next three most popular destinations)
i don’t really like beck much, but this article make me want to defend him.
watch out balls to the wallie, this is how they get you. as soon as you write some sappy fluff piece on some beard rock dude they will turn on you like they did scott. don’t say i didn’t warn ya.
Canada thinks it’s better than America, on the sole basis of not being America, although now we can add that Sloan only makes a mockery of white (at first, indie) music.
Of course, your article deserved a better reply, Wallace. Whatever culture remains has largely turned to shit and barely anyone cares since all they want are good times and their payday, with an end result of freedom from anything like a conscience. Keep calling it like you see it.
“we (americans) kinda maybe stood for stuff in the 80′s to some degree in underground music terms only to turn around and stand for nothing.”
i really like this sentence, and the idea. saying beck is crap is fine. i wish the article didn’t have all the slights against nerdy people, or people who aren’t sexy. or people who enjoy mainstream music. it just comes across as kind of nasty.
Beck has nothing to do w/ current ca. 20-30 yr old white ‘ironic’ voyeurs listening to hip-hop and getting a laugh out of it. Maybe in terms of Pitchfork’s ‘historical context’, which at this point has very little little merit in the scheme of ‘things’. Yr argument holds as much merit as blaming Mike Skinner.
“It’s all negroes at the top of the musical food chain”
Uh, I guess this article was written from the perspective of someone who still sees pitchfork etc as hep and, uhh..a significant influence on the modern indie rocker, so i guess I retract my last comment. Eminem was better at co-opting black music (is “Kim” irony??), Ghostface Killah gets rave reviews in the indie circuit but few dweebs who mingle in those circles show up at his gigs. ETC.
“Why don’t black people like my music?”- Ben Wallers
MARK E. SMITH – Ironic.
Hmmm, I’m surprised there was not one mention of “One Foot In the Grave”, because that is the one Beck album my peer group fully embraces and defends, probably because it is the least ironic of the ’90s stuff.
One Foot in the Grave is a pretty good album, I have to say.
Jeepers, for people who have ‘problems’ with this article, maybe you should stick to the Daily Express mould of cultural commentary: http://tinyurl.com/6hfplb2
Typically, the people who didn’t like it were the ones who didn’t understand it, or who think there’s no point in explaining the many cultural influences that lead to a cultural (wet) blanket like Beck being a patchwork of carefully selected, yet ultimately uncaring references to other styles. If these people can articulate these kind of ideas as well, I’d like to see them get their pens out and have a go.
I think the point you make about the hipster generation is correct, in that the current ‘alternative’ culture is based on trying to eek out an alternative to the mainstream, while showing no superior values other than maybe on an aesthetic level. Not that I like the term hipster, but I know what it is you’re referring to.
I also agree that the height of ‘cool’ now is characterised by an aloofness and pretending to not care about anything. I’d say that’s because it’s a whole lot easier to regard yourself as alternative when you operate within the corporate fold if you can pretend that your tastes are ironic or, in the case of a band like Grizzly Bear, a serious appreciation of politeness.
One minor disagreement though, Wallace — and this comes from someone who has to eat the ‘hipster’ sandwich jabbed into my mouth regularly: We urbane yet ineffectual white folk tend to appreciate hippidy-hop music because in the absence of any real guitar music with lyrical dexterity AND musical hardness, the rappers are the only ones cutting the mustard. I don’t listen to Wu-Tang Clan just so that I can jump with my arms outstretched and hands shaking and yell, “SHAME ON A NIGGER!” at parties, although I do do that. It’s no different from wanting to quote Lou Reed’s sardonic, “I’m just a gift to the women of this world.” And the reason is: IT ROCKS.
Beck didn’t invent irony – if you’re going to blame anyone blame Bah-no for foisting “Ther Floi” on us back in 1991, thus killing sunglasses as cool accessories until Kanye cam along.
Collapse once again proves that even if I don’t agree with the article, it’s well worth reading.
Nicely done.
And I think there is some serious meat here, too.
Compelling reading… Though I did feel I was being coerced into some new and improved intellectual and openly judgemental indie that is above and better than everything and everyone else in the world, not just the ironic persona or mainstream sponge head, with a default disdain for anything creative that is not in MY music collection. Beck is in my music collection, one of my favourite artists, and one who often leaves me feeling hollow through his sometimes “hollow” lyrics… But if that is not doing what music has always done, that is express the sentiments of one FRACTION of a generation, or simply the artist him or herself, then what is it exactly you expect music TO DO?…