Still Here

I used to download these monthly compilations of indie rock—just absolute chaos, fifty songs thrown together with no logic. Interpol, Blonde Redhead, Modest Mouse buried in there between all the garbage. You’d dig through them looking for the real ones. This was what mattered. This was what you cared about.

Then it became noise. Everyone started making the same record—tremolo guitars, detached vocals, that specific kind of cool-guy disaffection. By 2012 it was exhausted. The thing that had felt urgent and alive became just another soundtrack to a life nobody cared about. People moved on to dubstep, trap, whatever. I did too.

A few years ago some young musicians started playing guitar again, but actually seriously, without the irony or the performance of being too cool for anything. Lindsey Jordan did it. Made Heat Wave and it was just good. Not good because it was reviving something dead, not good because it was clever or commented on the past. Just good.

I know how this works. The cycle will turn again. Guitar music will fade, become something for people who are stubbornly holding on. But right now it doesn’t feel like something dead, and I’m paying attention while I can.