Cheat sheet: Music
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Date Posted:
July-6-2010 15:36
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Next time your music-nerd mate gets heavy, shut him down with this.
Essential terminology
Alt-Country: Studied, emotive country that makes big-hat Nashville stuff sound like the flappy plaff that it is.
Proponents: Wilco, Ryan Adams.
Post-rock: Epic minimalism of the loud-soft-loud-soft-build-build-build variety kicked off by the Pixies, incorporating classic rock line-ups in non-classic ways: guitars as textures, no lead singers and
lots of drone.
Proponents: Mogwai, Sigur RÓs.
Indie folk: Casting aside the dreamy, contemplative and protest elements of folk music could leave you with… well, music. But the new folksters have revved it up with pace and verve.
Proponents: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Mumford & Sons, John Butler Trio.
Supergroups: Once, the grouping of musicians to form a whole of glittering parts was a rare and random occurrence. Today’s bands hook up like drunk students.
Proponents: Them Crooked Vultures, The Saboteurs, Basement Birds.
Alternative: These days a catch-all for anything that isn’t Michael Bolton. Also known as “indie rock”.
Proponents: Most of the Triple J playlist.
Emo: Now there’s the mascara and appeal to suicidal teens, but the original form of the genre is often genuinely emotive, lyrically superior and ballsy as hell.
Proponents: Jimmy Eat World, Texas is the Reason, Archers of Loaf, Kisschasy.
Hip-hop: The genre is so big now that it also spawns its own crap. But the good stuff is still great stuff.
Proponents: The Roots, Lil Wayne, Hilltop Hoods.
Some catchphrases to remember and how to one-up your mate...