Mac DeMarco

I saw a Mac DeMarco concert last night.

I. Do. Not. Get it.

Can someone please explain this guy's appeal to me? He just seemed like a third-rate Jason Mraz to me, all 80s soft rock and an awkward sense of humor that I couldn't tell whether or not it was a put-on. But his fans loved every second.

Am I old and crotchety? Is this guy a fraud that's filling a hole in the lives of teens desperately bored with everything else? Is he a genius and I'm just too stupid to understand? I really want to know. I've gotta be missing something.

> He just seemed like a third-rate Jason Mraz to me ...

Well, Jason Mraz's popularity is a mystery to me, so I got nothing to offer here.

One of my co-workers said if you closed your eyes he sounded like John Mayer. That's not too far off, I suppose. But I would think the current generation (and most of the audience was teens/early 20s) would have no use for that crap.

Maybe this is how they're rebelling against the indie rock, Americana and hip-hop their older siblings and/or parents are listening to - smirking 80s soft rock. Maybe this is the ultimate endgame for the yacht rock revival. I don't fucking know.

I'm just gonna go back to my Rowland S. Howard records.

I get Mraz's (brief) popularity - catchy song, delivered directly and without bombast, and feels romantic to kids who haven't really lived life yet. I don't care for it, but I understand it.

DeMarco I don't understand - he's like the iincompetent, mentally challenged version of that.

> Maybe this is how they're rebelling against the indie rock, Americana and hip-hop their
> older siblings and/or parents are listening to - smirking 80s soft rock.

I was recently considering something along those lines. Thinking back to my own teen years, I recall that not all my classmates were particularly "rebellious." Some were, sure, but a lot of others just basically wanted to fit in, get through life, and enjoy what it has to offer. Thinking back, those were the ones who seemed perfectly happy with Top 40 radio.

Perhaps these young Mraz/DeMarco fans are perfectly happy with that sort of music -- not because it expresses rebellion, to make such selections for musical listening, but simply because they enjoy it on its own terms. Maybe this cigar is just a cigar, so to speak.

Then I guess they can put it in their mouths and smoke it.

I don't begrudge people enjoying stuff I don't, obviously. But usually I get the appeal of something to his/her/its fans, even if it doesn't appeal to me. (Ed Sheeran, for example.) But the appeal of Mac DeMarco escapes me completely.

I've actually never heard DeMarco, but if Ed Sheeran had the best-selling album of 2017 and Jason Mraz and John Mayer are hugely popular too, doesn't it make sense that an indie rock version of the same basic aesthetic would also be big?

P.S.: I listened to DeMarco's album SALAD DAYS on Spotify, and it's perfectly pleasant background music, but nothing I would consciously seek out or pay money for. But I feel the way about Sufjan Stevens, and he has a gold album and a good chance at winning an Oscar for his song in CALL ME BY YOUR NAME. In a world where much more talented indie singer/songwriters like Steve Gunn and Bon Iver's Justin Vernon exist, I don't get his appeal any more than the rest of you guys.



Post Edited (02-28-18 15:11)

I have never heard of any of these people. You guys need to join me in the cave.



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

I decided to listen to a bit from Mac, so I went to Amazon.com to hear the 30-second samples of some of his songs. Dude has an album called Rock and Roll Night Club, so I figured that'd be as good a place to start as any.

Jeez, this dweeb wouldn't recognize a real rock 'n' roll night club if he caught an STD in one.

I must be living in Monk's cave cuz i don't know these guys either. But the wimpy-but-popular phenomenon is an ancient one. The blog "My Husband's Stupid Record Collection" is written by a 35 year old woman going hubbie's vinyl. She actually says that his collection isn't stupid, and now likes quite a bit of it, but she would have been too intimidated to have listened to them when she was younger. It's total TP stuff: The Clash, The Cramps, old school hip hop, obscure indie weirdness. She says she was a "music-theater geek" in high school before moving onto the likes of Dave Mathews, who she now denounces. She wishes she had been exposed to this stuff when she was younger but thought she wasn't cool or tough enough (Ha, cuz look at what a bunch of switchblade-wielding delinquents we are!).

So that might be the answer to Toland's question: sheltered young people are scared to move out of their musical 'safe space.' They need something no more threatening then, as steevee put it, pleasant background music. Hopefully they'll marry a TP-er and start going thru their stupid record collection.



Post Edited (03-01-18 21:20)

The very popular indie film LADY BIRD, which might win a bunch of Oscars, features the Dave Matthews Band prominently, and its writer/director Greta Gerwig has talked derisively in interviews about dating guys who tried to convince her to listen to Pavement.

I think it's safe to suggest that what binds our love of the "TP music" that we all seem to like is that we are collectively dissatisfied with the norms of society. It's no wonder our preferred music reflects this.



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

Trent Reznor railed against social media and the internet causing music to become boring:

'Artists are trying to make music to please the tastemakers that tell the sheep what to like. It’s a vicious cycle and I think it’s unhealthy. I don’t see any Princes emerging on the scene today. I see a lot of people making formulaic, made to please, vegan restaurant patron-type s***. And I think it creates an environment where people are too f***in’ worried about what other people have to say. And people who have never made anything think it’s OK to talk s*** about stuff they have no right to talk about. You got a Facebook account? Nobody gives a f***. You haven’t achieved anything.”'

but doesn't seem to take into account that people were making "formulaic, made to please" music loooooonnnggggg before the advent of the internet, or that said modern muzak wouldn't have become so popular if there wasn't an audience for it.

[www.alternativenation.net]

If anything, the profusion of sites offering links to music they recommend and the wide availability of streaming has demolished whatever monoculture existed. Hate the "mumble rap" teens like? There are sites offering links to MP3s, mixtapes and videos of rappers that guys in their 40s who are nostalgic for '90s street hip-hop would probably like. Bandcamp offers a guide to their picks for the best DIY albums and EPs released in every genre they stock, including classical, each month. The Internet does not leave me with a feeling of overwhelming blandness. It makes me feel there's way too much music being made. And while Reznor has a general point about the toxicity of social media on discourse, fanzines never would have existed if everyone felt the way he did: Mark P. and Byron Coley were just guys with opinions who "hadn't achieved anything." If you think new music is too polite, you need to check out modern punk bands like the Armed and Special Interest or the Ice Cube/Throbbing Gristle synthesis of JPEGMAFIA.

I prefer to rail against Trent Reznor making boring-ass teen doper angst s*** that lost currency with me at the far too late age of 32 [mea culpa], when I wised up and relegated his first three singles into the dump bin. And what did we end up with? Trent Reznor won an Academy Award for his soundtrack to "The Social Network!" Arrrgh! Now that causes me angst!



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

Trent sang and wrote a pretty great song with "Hurt," even if Johnny Cash improved on it. As for new Princes on the horizon: if that means jumping over boundaries over genre, race and gender and making major music, how about Arca, King Krule, Yaeji, U.S. Girls, Perfume Genius, Mdou Moctar (who actually starred in a remake of PURPLE RAIN made in Niger), Sampha or Khruangbin?



Post Edited (03-05-18 16:23)

"I don’t see any Princes emerging on the scene today."

Neither do I. But I'm sure the next Trent wannabe is just around the corner.

Like the saying goes ... If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.

>>And while Reznor has a general point about the toxicity of social media on discourse, fanzines never would have existed if everyone felt the way he did: Mark P. and Byron Coley were just guys with opinions who "hadn't achieved anything."<<

Could probably include Greg Shaw, Tim Yohannan, and some guy named Ira among said lot.....