This applies to all genres: the same things happening in indie rock and pop are also happening in country, hip-hop, and dance music. Even if it sounds good, chances are you’ll just want to listen to the better act that already did something similar. You’ll read a glowing review but it spends most of the time talking about the act’s biography, the acclaim they’ve already received, but breathtakingly little about what the music is actually like. “Vibes artists” can become massively popular thanks to marketing, the artist’s likability, and because people actually enjoy the songs. I’ll listen to an entire album and afterward not be able to hum a tune, remember a hook, or take anything away besides who the artists’ influences are. Too often, I’ll check out a buzzy new act and wonder where the songs are. It’s “lo-fi chill beats to study to” as musical philosophy. It’s like a Marvel Easter egg or tossed-off callback joke set to music. The “vibes artist” mines nostalgia for content and empty references, where the listener’s easy recognition of a musical homage becomes the point. The typical “vibes artist” will usually be a couple of years late on musical trends, sounding eerily like something better, but still garnering a fanbase because it’s close enough. It’s the difference between a cool band and a great band. This glut of unremarkable music is from “vibes artists.” It’s style over substance music-making that might be good for an H&M dressing room, bumper music on Catfish, or to fill a quota on Spotify’s New Music Friday, but there’s very little to grab onto. Go through an algorithmic playlist on a streaming service broadcasting new tunes and chances are you’ll only find three or four worthwhile out of dozens. It sounds like an inferior version of something you already like but it’s ultimately pretty forgettable. It’s serviceable, and maybe good to soundtrack a dinner party. When you’re checking out new music, so much of it is just fine. It’s also a way to demand more from the music you listen to and to demand more from yourself as a discerning listener. You obviously can’t cleanly boil down all of recorded Western popular music to a “songs” and “vibes” binary but it’s a fun thought exercise to examine why people like the things they do and why certain artists have longevity. (To be clear, the band I interviewed is a bonafide “songs artist,” despite what they said about their old tunes). What makes this distinction between vibes and songs fun is that it’s entirely a matter of subjective taste: there are “songs artists” that other people are going to think are “vibes artists” and vice versa. Looking back, I probably shouldn’t have used “good” or “bad” to delineate the two but I still stand by it even though it rubbed some Twitter Blue users the wrong way (here’s a binary we can all get behind: people who pay for Twitter and smart folks who don’t). I have a weekly Substack and sometimes you gotta flesh out your tweets if you need an idea for the newsletter. I wrote, “There are “vibes artists” and there are “songs artists.” No matter the genre, the former is bad while the latter is good.” I also wrote, “I won’t be explaining further but it’s true.” I lied. So, naturally, I tweeted my takeaway in a pretty hyperbolic post. That throwaway quote from the interview clarified something that I’ve been thinking about for a while. Though I thought they were being unkind to their previous albums, which have incredible songs, their new one is clearly their best. “Sometimes in the past, the sounds inspired the songs but, the songs informed the production,” they said, jokingly referring to their former approach as being “stuck in ‘80s jail.” Artists tend to be pretty hard on their old stuff, especially when they have something new in the tank. According to this bandleader, they often felt like they were more concerned about setting a particular mood and referencing a specific era in the studio than the actual songs on their early records. A couple of weeks ago, I interviewed a musician about their new album and they said something that stuck with me.
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