Pretense is dead; long live pretense

I was on the metro going back to my apartment from a friend's in Friendship Heights. At the Tenleytown-AU station a whole cadre of young AU freshmen hopped on. My first reaction was holy crap was I really that young? Did I really look that young? They looked like high schoolers! But now it has me thinking about what I learned once I got to American. I became acutely aware of indie hipsters, scenesters, whatever you want to call them. I was suddenly thrust into a world of irony and pretension.

My main problem with these hipsters, I've come to see, is an issue of being somewhat disingenuous despite a claim to be so advanced and cultured. In the indie rock world is a high level of pretension. The goal seemed, at this time, to do things just for the sake of appearance. Band were arty, without being "good," for the sake of appealing to the overeducated and overexposed people that I came across in those early days. Early days, jeebus I'm starting to sound like an old man. With this artiness came a seeming lack of passion in whatever the practitioners were doing. So many of the hipsters just seemed to not care about what it was they were doing or listening to or experiencing, almost to prove that they were so much cooler than anyone else they were surrounded by, despite claiming that it was something they truly enjoyed. A lot of times they were ex punk rock kids who, once they reached a certain age, decided that it wasn't "cool" enough. Maybe I'm overly sensitive, especially when you look at my previous entry where I fawned like a school girl over London Calling.

For me, there should never be anything ironic about music, and there should never be a pretense about being blase about something that is meant to invoke strong emotion. For me, if you like something, there is no reason to pretend not to, or to pretend to like it ironically. The worst is to pretend to be dispassionate about anything, ESPECIALLY music. When done right in my mind, the musician is expressing how they truly feel and it should come out in the music. He or she is sharing their passion with those who care to listen to it. It's insulting, if you ask me, to devalue what the artist has done. And those who create art with such a seemingly lukewarm attitude is an insult to the art itself. If you love a band, don't say "oh yeah, they're PRETTY rad," say "That is a great band." And if you don't love a band, don't fake it to fit in to be cool or hip. ESPECIALLY if you dislike a band. Journey is a hip band to like ironically. I hate Journey. I'll never pretend to like Journey to fit in with the skinny jeans wearin' folks at Wonderland Ballroom who try to lead a full bar in a chorus of "Don't Stop Believin'".

I hope they didn't actually lose their passion for music the way many of them seem to have. I hope I never lose my passion for music or great art or great film. I hope I don't lose my love for tacky shit I actually enjoy. Music has been what keeps me going on good days and bad, and if I lost this passion what else would I have? What else would I have if "It's Hard to Know" by Hot Water Music DIDN'T make me grab my shirt and belt out the final choruses of "Live your heart and never follow?" The last thing I want to be is a disingenuous drone who pretends for the sake of being cool. I would be a let down to myself and isn't that the worst thing in the world to think of?

Music is a very special thing, and it irritates me when people devalue it for the sake of being hip. Don't lie to yourself or others about what hits you in your gut when you hear or see it. Zealots of the indie world are just as bad as the shallow tastemakers of pop radio and MTV.