What is the music of Hipsters?
Mon, 03/19/2012 - 9:34am
I had some conversations about the term Hipster this weekend. Is that term already dated? Anyone here care to try and define it? I was trying to think about what Hipster music is? Would that be considered Indie Music of today?
Tue, 03/20/2012 - 9:36am
#2
There's a derogatory
A friend of mine put it an interesting way once, and this was back on 2003: we're all hipsters. Even if one thinks that they aren't associated with that term at all, to most people living outside of NYC, making music *in* NYC puts you in a hip category...you might as well be in the Arcade Fire as far as most civilians are concerned. You're hip. And we all *are* hip. We're hip to all sorts of bands that 99% of the countries population doesn't know about. We're hip to underground parties and secret bars, clubs, festivals, places to go, people to see. We're hip to it all. The term has grown to mean something a little more derogatory: a shallow, Pitchfork-reading trust fund kid. But there's no way around it...relative to the rest of the world, artist scenes like this are basically giant cool/hip lunch tables. I think we're all in it.
Tue, 03/20/2012 - 10:08am
#3
I'll buy that. Someone was
I'll buy that. Someone was passing around a Hipster Handbook and it kind of reminded me of The Official Preppy Handbook, which was big back when I was in Jr. High and High School. This made me start to think was there ever Preppy Music? This guy looks a little like Jarvis Cocker.
Wed, 03/21/2012 - 2:05pm
#4
1 correction
trust fund kids are NOT hipsters. They're Trustafarians. :)
Wed, 03/21/2012 - 9:24am
#5
This sort of thing has been
This sort of thing has been going on a long time. Perhaps there have always been "hipsters." Certainly, there's a cartoon in the March 1954 "Mad" which is 6 pages of "Bop Jokes" and a "Bop Dictionary." One of the entries is "Kat: Latest version of hep-cat and hipster." These kats are all young white guys, using some version of black/jazz slang, digging Charlie Parker, making fun of the "cubes" (squares), wearing loud ties, sombreros or berets. It's not quite clear if the article's stance is that these guys are ridiculous, or if they are actually incredibly relaxed, enlightened dudes.
Now, Preppies. Is/was that another story? They were not hipsters. I remember when preppy fashion first hit my school. I was in 7th grade, so this was around 1980-81. I remember thinking "they've GOT to be kidding." Eventually I was wearing it too. You HAD to, to survive my Jr. high school. There was no dissent.
It was the true backlash against the long-haired hippie thing, which was by that time just the relaxed way people dressed. I'm not sure if it preceded Reagan or not, but it was a sign that the tide was turning and our baseline culture was going to get a lot more uptight. It really was like a return to the 50's. I guess it was "hip" at the time, but only insofar as, in the 80's, being a materialist reactionary who might actually think Reagan was all right was a shockingly dominant mainstream stance. God, I hated growing up in that period.
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