The problem with indie rock tenure

I've written two blog posts on Andrew W.K. already, and this will be my third. Truth be told, I don't dislike his music; I'd even choose it over half the stuff that's out there. And by all accounts, he's like the nicest guy on the planet. So why do I find the cultural elite's embrace of him so problematic?

I think the answer lies in the following two hypothetical questions: Given any beloved album, could an unknown band speak to similar values and hold their own, or even beat it with an album that's superior? Would such an attempt even be welcome? Every band has its devoted fans who'd answer "no!" to both, of course. They're not my concern here.

My concern is only the cultural elite, who have to answer "yes!" to both, because their musical tastes are grounded in some communicable, defensible rationale for being good. And good music requires an open market where different ideas and sounds are free to compete.

Competition in an open market is great for two reasons. First, it assures us the best quality, and second, it gives us the freedom to decide. Commercial goods and services easily come to mind as examples, but politics works this way as well. If we don't like who we voted for, we can vote them out next time.

And this is precisely the problem with Andrew W.K.: He's undefeatable. I don't mean like Rocky Marciano, who never lost a boxing match; I mean like a monopoly or an autocrat. He literally can't be beaten, because once he's voted in, he can't be voted out.

You don't have to dislike his music to find this problematic, just like you don't have to dislike Facebook or some benevolent monarch to protest their hold on power. Once the market is closed, we no longer have the assurance of quality or the freedom to decide. Those who were opposed from the beginning lose the most, of course. But we all lose in the long run.

In other words, when we grant exposure to Andrew W.K., not only is that slot no longer competitive from now until forever, but a precedent has been established for the same thing to keep happening, over and over, until zero slots are left.

I'm not exaggerating Andrew W.K.'s tenure in the public eye here. Think about it. An artist known solely for making a "so bad it's good" album ten years ago was almost appointed cultural ambassador to Bahrain as recently as last year? How's that even possible? You don't hear anyone talking about Beulah or the Wrens these days. But it all makes sense once you consider that Andrew W.K. is undefeatable. What can't be beaten, will never go away.

Or here's even simpler proof. Just how would another band compete against I Get Wet, anyway? In other words, what could a "so much worse it's actually better" album possibly sound like, especially when Andrew W.K. himself hasn't managed to pull it off in the last ten years? So the answer to our first hypothetical question is no, and the same probably goes for the second one as well. Which means Andrew W.K. is perhaps the only artist beloved by the cultural elite for whom their reluctance to entertain any new challengers exactly matches that of Justin Bieber's fans.

Of course, one could argue that this is all symptomatic of a larger problem. Bands these days no longer compete for our awe and admiration the way the Beach Boys and the Beatles once did with Pet Sounds and Sgt. Pepper's, respectively, but instead huddle together to bask in our unconditional support like children putting on a Christmas pageant. Of course, we haven't actually succeeded in replacing competition with communal harmony. When so many want exposure and so few can have it, competition must necessarily exist. It's just done out of view now, leading to a preselection process that's more haphazard and brutal than ever before, precisely because we don't see it.

So maybe Andrew W.K. is just a symptom, not a cause. I'm sympathetic to that. I just don't think we should so quickly resign ourselves to blithe acceptance once we believe it's the former rather than the latter. What if the two are intertwined and mutually reinforcing? Maybe there's no harm in celebrating Andrew W.K. while there are no new Radioheads to speak of. Or maybe the new Radioheads aren't getting exposure precisely because we're all too busy celebrating Andrew W.K., who knows?

I don't know. Just a thought, that's all. In any case, this is the last I'll be writing about Andrew W.K. for sure now.

Postscript, May 23, 2013: Yes, I know, he's also known for his motivational speeches. But this side career isn't really noteworthy by itself, since the power of his message stems precisely from what little he's accomplished relative to how far he's come. It wouldn't mean anything coming from Beulah or the Wrens, for example.

Addendum, May 23, 2013: Good Lord, I'd completely forgotten about Har Mar Superstar. This might throw a wrench in my whole argument here, since I definitely haven't heard from him in a while. I'll have to think about it some more. On a side note, I shared a bill with him in 1999, back when he was Sean Na Na. He ended his set with an ironic R&B cover, but other than that, he gave no indication at the time of being anything other than a bookish scenester.

Addendum, May 24, 2013: No, I don't think the example of Har Mar Superstar contradicts my point, since he was always much more transparent as a joke.

Disruptive innovation and musical upstarts

Most mainstream bands aren't very good, and countless memes and entire websites are devoted to mocking the worst of them. Indie rock, by contrast, prides itself on putting out really, really good music first and foremost. So on those few occasions when an indie band finally breaks into the mainstream, it's reasonable to assume that they'll quickly mop up the place with their superior talent and artistic brilliance. And yet, more often than not, they end up being the ones getting mopped. Why is this?

I think the answer lies in my previous blog post, the one about scalability in music. The average indie band might be far more palatable than the average mainstream one, but it's not any more scalable. It's like a pizza joint in this respect. There might be one in your neighbourhood that's very popular and makes the tastiest pizzas, but it'd face serious resistance if it tried to scale on a national level. Why? Because there's a million pizza joints out there, plenty of which are just as good, if not better.

The backlash against Bon Iver might be understood in this context. Despite its beautiful sound, and despite being critically acclaimed and Grammy-approved, his second album is currently rated 3.8 out of 5 stars on Amazon, on par with Coldplay's latest. Why? Probably because we all know bands similar to Bon Iver that are at least just as good. And while we don't mind the Pitchfork lovefest, a Grammy takes things into new territory. Bon Iver's music might be very good, but it's just not very scalable.

This won't trouble Jagjaguwar, of course, who surely found a windfall in Bon Iver's modest success within the mainstream, but it isn't reassuring to those of us who'd like to see another Beatles or Radiohead in our lifetime. That is to say, a band that combines widespread popularity and cultural relevance with critical acclaim, artistic brilliance, and pioneering invention. If the one scene that prides itself on putting out really, really good music isn't capable of bringing us this band, then what hope is there?

I think the solution might be found in The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen, which seeks to answer the question of why so many top companies take a nosedive in the face of advancing technology and societal change. The examples from history are endless: Western Union, Xerox, Montgomery Ward… and so forth. Popular wisdom, of course, would argue that they suffered from poor management, neglected their customer base, and failed to continuously innovate. But the book refutes this argument by showing that these companies were actually managed very well, extremely attuned to the needs of their customers, and constantly investing in new research.

The key lies in Christensen's distinction between sustaining innovation and disruptive innovation. The early automobile, for example, was a sustaining innovation, because it didn't change markets or assumptions. Only the rich could afford it, so they simply replaced their primary means of personal transportation. The term "horseless carriage" might sound whimsical to us today, but it genuinely captures how this new contraption was understood and accepted by those living at the time. By contrast, Henry Ford's Model T was a disruptive innovation, because it changed both markets and assumptions by bringing the automobile to the middle class.

Now, it was obvious to all that the switch from carriage to automobile represented a huge leap forward in technology. The mass-produced Model T, however, looked so plain and dreary next to the shiny fittings and plush interiors of its predecessors. What respectable steel magnate would be caught dead in that? For this reason, the other companies didn't treat it as serious competition until it was too late. The lesson here is that if your understanding of progress is defined by sustaining innovation, then not only will you fail to recognise disruptive innovation for what it is when you see it, you might even consider it a step backward.

What Christensen also observed is that established companies enjoy a huge advantage when it comes to staying on top of sustaining innovations, so upstarts tend to fare worst when trying to compete within established markets and values. The ones that do well and eventually take over, on the other hand, are those that create new markets and values⁠— in other words, they create disruptive innovations. Personal cars, personal computers, web-based email. And there are plenty of cases where it wasn't even planned at all; the upstarts resorted to it in last-minute desperation, simply as a matter of survival.

And that's the problem with indie rock's forays into the mainstream: They don't challenge prevailing assumptions or values. There's no real difference between what Bon Iver fans and Coldplay fans listen for in music⁠— as opposed to, let's say, those of classical versus hip hop. At best, Bon Iver fans can argue that his music represents a superior take on what Coldplay has to offer⁠— in other words, a sustaining innovation. But as we've just seen, that's not enough for an upstart to compete with an established act. On its own turf, Coldplay still wins by default.

So the next Beatles or Radiohead to truly succeed in the mainstream will only do so by fundamentally challenging our assumptions about what good music can be, where it might come from, and how it gets made⁠— in other words, it'll represent a disruptive innovation. Which means that, unless we're open to the lessons offered by The Innovator's Dilemma, it's quite possible that when the time comes, we'll look this upstart straight in the face⁠— and then immediately dismiss them as representing a step backward.

In fact, it might've happened countless times already.

Major labels not too shabby on the People's List…

While mentioning privilege in my last post, I linked to an editorial that lambasts Pitchfork's recent People's List for being made up mostly of White and male artists. (They've since changed its title to be less incendiary, but you can still see the original in its URL.) Anyway, plenty have discussed this aspect of it to death, so I won't. What I find interesting is that half the artists in the top ten debuted on a major label, including Radiohead, who occupy the first, second, and sixth slots. (The others are the Strokes, Wilco, and Kanye West. Since Radiohead appears three times, there are only eight in total.)

The fact that Radiohead makes the strongest showing by far is particularly noteworthy, given that few had any real faith in them when they were first signed. Remember, they were just a Nirvana clone like every other band of that era, all swept up by the major labels using the shotgun approach despised so much by indie rock kids to this day. And through the years, Radiohead themselves have tried hard to downplay this ignoble origin, along with the incredible resources afforded them because of it. But in doing so, they're doing us all a huge disservice, by obscuring the reality of where great music might come from and how it might be discovered.

The indie labels look for bands whose creative habits appear fully blossomed. This approach helps guard against nasty surprises, but it also ensures that a breakout phenomenon like Radiohead will probably never happen under their watch. And yet, Radiohead made the two best albums of the past fifteen years, according to the very subculture that most ardently supports these indie labels!

Isn't that weird? That's weird to me.