July 05, 2004

Alt-Yeah!

Entertainment Weekly had a piece in last week’s issue on the “return of good alt-rock,” prominently featuring Franz Ferdinand, Modest Mouse, and other bands that are knocking such crap as Limp Bizkit and Creed out of the alternative rock box.

While it’s good to see such generally good bands as those, Interpol, The Shins, and Death Cab For Cutie getting attention, a had a few problems with the piece: one, the bands mentioned, while all good, have next-to-nothing to anything in common with one another; two, the term “alternative rock” really lost all meaning whatsoever around ten years ago; and three, how is the roster of bands mentioned in the EW piece any different from the wave of “post punk” acts (the Strokes, White Stripes, Hives, Vines, etc.) that surfaced two years ago?

Still, nice to see some of this stuff getting mainstream attention, as opposed to the garbage that’s been dominating MTV for the past six or seven years.

Posted by Stephen Silver at July 5, 2004 11:27 PM
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