7.03.2008

Fleet Foxes :: "White Winter Hymnal" (in which we meditate the over-commodification of indie rock)

Has Sub Pop been secretly releasing the same record for the last five years? That's unfair. But at times Fleet Foxes sound like a Shins cover-band playing songs off Pet Sounds. Throw some Oh Brother Where Art Thou? in there while we're in a name-checking frenzy.

Fleet Foxes are, of course, more than just a cobbling of influences. They've been featured in the heaviest music publications and on the up-and-coming gangsta of the yuppie music scene ... NPR! (Holy shit! It's All Songs Considered! ) My Dad even looked over at me when "White Winter Hymnal" spun through the radio speakers two weeks ago. He didn't say anything and he didn't need to. It's inoffensive and delicate in all the right places. It's good new music for people that don't really have time to go find good new music. It's underrated and over-publicized. It's major label indie. Everything has officially lost its collective mind. Read that one more time.

Which is why, like Natalie Imbruglia, I'm torn. Is this song more than just okay? There's a 12% that this is really good. If it was self-released and not getting the Sub Pop treatment, would anyone be talking about it? How do we reconcile this stuff? How long does the jury stay out on this? Or have we gone all OJ Simpson 1994 (your second 90s pop culture check of the paragraph) and the jury is back - they've just made the wrong call. It's a little record and it's getting pushed big. At what point will "indie" be short for "industry" not "independent?" The world is upside down. This was the dream the revolution built. And I might be okay with that.

Listen :: Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal

1 comment:

phoebeplagens said...

you actually had three 90s pop culture checks of the paragraph, with "torn" being a Ednaswap cover. it's like pop-up video. oh, snap. that's one more.

p.s like the song.