HIPSTER RUNOFF » TV on the Radio

TV on the Radio: 2008’s Biggest Sham/ Gimmick/Pyramid Scheme

Carles — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:10:18 +0000

Let’s get serious, yall. TV on the Radio isn’t as good as people would like to pretend that they are. Not sure why they are ‘gettin s0 much love’ from Best of 2008 Lists by ‘Music Magazines with Tastemaking opinions.’ Not that I listened to their 2008 masterpiece DEAR SCIENCE, but still, you can tell it is weinery just from listening to 7 seconds of the ’single’ from it.

TV ON THE RADIO is a band that people think they are supposed to appreciate. These people are not sure why they ‘like’ TV on the Radio; however, aligning their personal brands with TV on the Radio makes them a more cultured/culturally-connected person. TV on the Radio is a band with 1 white dude and a bunch of black dudes.

TV on the Radio apparently makes music that ‘is inspired by a bunch of different genres.’ However, I would compare the end product to SLOP, the food item that u feed 2 pigs. In order 2 feed pigs, all u need 2 do is mix the leftovers and scraps from your family’s dinner table.

I feel like ‘liking TV on the Radio’ is something for people who:

don’t actually listen to music
enjoy music based on ‘what authentic buzz sources’ claim 2 b ‘authentic’
enjoy liking bands that aren’t accessible to entry levelers but actually just aren’t accessible to any one

I remember when TV on the Radio went on Letterman. They were too alternative to perform on the stage like every1 else, so they decided to have a meaningful fire escape show. Now I kinda wish clubs had fire escapes instead of stages.

Key elements to TV on the Radio’s success

They look zany/interesting-core
They are ‘from New York’
They are a mixed race band
They participate in meaningful sideprojects that are shitty/mediocre, but they provide Music News Meme Generators to ‘blurb about’ more TV on the Radio coverage
They are the kind of band that thinks their music is a healing mechanism for the world.
They take themselves seriously, enabling them to ‘take risks’ that other people think they are supposed to take seriously.
Needlessly high production value that requires the use of $200+ noise-canceling headphones (this appeals to people who order gimmick products from SkyMall magazines).

I remember when I was an entry-leveler/pure altbro, I went to a TV on the Radio concert. The white guitarist guy made every one in the audience take out their keys to ‘use as percussion.’ I looked all around me. The crowd began dangling their keys in rhythm with a babbly TV on the Radio song, grinning with delight as they ‘authentically appreciated the venue’s acoustics.’ I immediately walked out of the venue. While my life is meaningful, a part of me realized that it wasn’t meaningful enough to participate in a collective concert experience.

Let’s be honest, yall. TV on the Radio’s music has gotten progressively worse since their first album. They only have a few good songs. “Staring at the Sun” and “Wolf Like Me” are alright. It’s just hard for me to take the bro who claims that “TV ON THE RADIO = AWESOME” very seriously.

You also can’t underestimate the opportunity for white people to ‘like/appreciate’ music that ‘black people’ make, particularly when it doesn’t sound like music that ‘black people traditionally make, but since black people are making it, u can still kinda hear the authentic-aesthetic that only artists whose ancestors are [via Africa] can generate (kinda like Jazz/afro beat/etc.).’

The name of our album includes the word ’science.’ This means that we understand ‘humans after all’ on a level that goes beyond social interactions and generic ‘gripes about society.’ We are also on record as ‘Bush Haters.’

TV on the Radio is also one of those Radiohead-esque bands where you don’t know what the hell they are talking about, but you get the sense that it is ‘relevant commentary on a metaphorical level that isn’t worth questioning.’ They sort of remind me of a band of ‘intellectual dropouts who rope you into a conversation about modern issues to prove that they didn’t need an education 2 stay informed/cultured.’

It’s always interesting when a band ‘takes themselvez seriously.’ While you usually see this in your local scene with a band who is trying to ‘make it’ and just end up looking like douchebags/their band sounds like conceptual p00p, TV on the Radio has ‘made it’ and garnered worldwide acclaim. Maybe they are ‘okay’, and maybe I just don’t ‘get it’, but just wanted 2 let yall know that I’m not interested. If yall tastemaking magazines want 2 start selling magazines/generating ad impressions, yall are gonna have to start putting less conceptual crap on your top 10 lists. (Katy Perry: #1 artist of 2k8?)

I just have this image of a 35 year old man reading P4k/Rolling Stone/NME/SPIN’s best of 2k8 list, going on iTunes to buy the top 3 albums, halfheartedly listening to them, then going back to listening to meaningful songs from the late 90s, ‘back when good music was more than just weirdo conceptual crap that people had 2 pretend is awesome.’

“TV ON THE RADIO? More like POOP IN MY MP3 PLAYER.”
– a modern music critic whose gimmick is incorporating the word ‘poop’ into his reviews

1 List of 25 Bands That Kind of Hurts America’s Image :-(

Carles — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:37:00 +0000

Have yall read about how America doesn’t have any good artists n e more, and how we have to import our culture from France/the UK/Australia/Jappy-an/Scandinavia/Estonia in order to stay on the cutting edge of global alt status?

Fortunately, NME compiled a list of bands that have kept America c00l.

According to NME, these r 25 bands that r ‘making America cool again.’ I think they got some of them wrong.

HRO [EXCLUSIVE] BREAKDOWN
1 Vampire Weekend - is it Alt to hate them? or is it alt-er to transcend ‘hating them’? or is it alt-est to pretend you don’t really know who they are?
2 Lil Wayne - filling the quarterly demand for a rapper that it is [highly regarded] as being historically significant by white people who like to pretend that pop-rap is an important reflection on the social evolution of African Americans that they feel tolerant about ‘identifying with’
3 Glass Candy - a band making your electroblog authentic again/ 1 band with the #1 MILF in alt music
4 Kings Of Leon - I have heard 1.5 of their songs. They will probably be around forever and I will never give them a chance.
5 MGMT – Please direct your attention to this post about why uninteresting people think they are supposed to like MGMT.
6 Spank Rock - 1 post-post-ironic sex-core think-piece rapper. If I were a black person, I would h8 him for ‘making fun of us and thinking he is s00 smart/artsy.’
7 TV On The Radio - I think they would choose to be from another country if they had the opportunity, since it would make them ‘more authentic.’

8 Boy Crisis – with a name like that, they are probably going after the market of people who like to say ‘GIRL TALK’. But SRSLY…who is that?
9 Black Kids – 1 band that I will never learn the difference between them + The Cool Kids
10 Holy Ghost Revival -Is this HOLY GHOST! or some different band?
11 The Hold Steady - for some reason I think this band is from the emo-era of 2k0
12 Fleet Foxes - Am I not a good American if I haven’t bothered to look into finding a way to appreciate them? Does n e 1 know if they are meaningful? Or are they one of those post-2k8 semi-meaningful-authentic bands that probably should have come around in 2005 so they wouldn’t be cannibalized by blogs. (Being cannibalized by bl0gs only works for electro-ish artists, but they aren’t expecting to get paid.)
13 Amazing Baby - Have they been blggd abt? They might as well be a local band that I ignore.
14 Jay Reatard - He has an interesting name, but otherwise, I shouldn’t know who he is. Does n e 1 know if he is retarded IRL? Is that his stage gimmick?
15 HEALTH - I wonder what these concept bros are up to. Is there a HEALTH backlash after 2 many remixes?
16 The Cool Kids - 1 band that I will never learn the difference between them + The Black Kids
17 Black Lips - Do they sing the song about Hurricane Katrina? Are they one of those bands like NO AGE that sux, but ‘people appreciate them’?
18 Yo Majesty – With that kind of name, they are either an overweight black rapper, or a UK ‘highly regarded’ retro-ish band
19 White Denim - another band that high-end alts acclimate themselves to since GVB enjoys them. I <3 the power of the gorillvsbear. It’s cool because I have been GVBed, therefore, I am significant.
20 Telepathe - Sounds like they are from France.
21 Iglu & Hartly - Huh? They must have gone to high school with the magazine editor.
22 Chester French -Who?
23 Girl Talk – I wonder if he’d be bigger if he was from France/Japan? Based on the fact that he is on this list, it means that he is America’s #1 DJ. R u comfortable with that? I’d rather have him representing us in the DJ Olympics instead of some guido/eurotrash d-bag playing tacky thump-house music.
24 The Death Set – they probably have a ghey logo/ gheyer fans
25 Grace Jones - Is that the woman who looks like she is made out of plastic/used to be a mummy?

If NME really wanted to help rebuild America’s image, they should have written an article that declared ‘all other countries bl0w/r full of inauthentic ‘fggts’.’

I don’t even believe in ‘countries’ any more, yall. Borders = s0 2k7. I feel like we’re all just citizens of Blogville in the United States of the Alt-Internet. It doesn’t matter where n e 1 is even from… I just want a free mp3 and I want to see ‘the next big band’ more than 6 months before they are ‘big.’

America is fine. We just need to find a way to make sure that ________ ends up as the President. I heard he is going to lower the legal ______ age for entry level alts/lil alts. He will also pass an electro-tax that is meant to give money to myspace bands. They are also in talks to distribute a copy of Ableton Live to every single child in a public school.

If NME wants to help America get a better image, they need to start at the ground level. They need to get kids portable hypemachine players to replace their iPods/satellite radios. Our generation is lost. We just need to work for the future, and focus on alt-lectro education. That’s the only way to win THE WAR ON lofi/garage/cockrock/fggtcore/meaningfulcore/underwhelming-indie TERROR.

‘The only way to save our world is to Americanize it. Especially the brown-ish countries that believe in 2ManyGods.’
-HIPSTER RUNOFFS

1 List of 25 Bands That Kind of Hurts America’s Image :-(

Carles — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:37:00 +0000

Fortunately, NME compiled a list of bands that have kept America c00l.

According to NME, these r 25 bands that r ‘making America cool again.’ I think they got some of them wrong.

If NME really wanted to help rebuild America’s image, they should have written an article that declared ‘all other countries bl0w/r full of inauthentic ‘fggts’.’

‘The only way to save our world is to Americanize it. Especially the brown-ish countries that believe in 2ManyGods.’
-HIPSTER RUNOFFS