The Wake

OK – so you’re perusing the music aisle at some wasteland like Best Buy, looking for a CD. Say you’re looking for the new Green Day album and you find the titles “Rock” or “Alternative” or even “Indie” hanging over your coveted music. How are you able to easily find new bands similar to your old favorites? How are you able to clearly chart music movements and ideas if everything is subsumed by “Rock,” “Alternative,” “Indie” and the über-vague “Alt-Indie” titles? They are gluttonous; they say nothing about the types of music out there or what you are looking for because so many bands have been lumped into these categories.

With that, The Wake has decided to lay down the law and make charting the masses of musical product easier and more concise. How are we going to do this? Why by making up subcategories! Once these examples of subcategories have been assimilated by the general public real music exploration and adventure may ensue. So read on and be informed . . .

1.“Poetic, sensitive, whimsical rock”: We’re talking about The Shins, The Postal Service, Death Cab for Cutie and the like. These bands make rock’n’roll that hipsters love to bop to. Influenced by pre-insane Brian Wilson, it’s surreal, sappy and sometimes just weird. Characterized by: lyrics that could double as poetry, a love for those darn synthesizers (or whatever) that create excessive melodic rock‘n‘roll, and generally creating the soundtrack to an erratic person’s life. – Kim Gengler

2.“Retro-fried for radio dance pop”: Some examples of this phenomenon would include newbies The Scissor Sisters, The Rapture, and !!! (Chk, Chk, Chk). These groups are pretentiously postmodern and great at rehashing past dance and pop movements. When going to their concerts one should expect to see way too many white people trying to dance (at least their giving it a whirl). Characterized by: sort-of nasally lead singers, groupies that love to cut a rug, crazed rhythms that call for hand clapping, and maybe some cowbells for the kids. – Kim Gengler

3.“Trying to be tough but ends up on Total Request Live rock:” When looking for bands that fall into this category, one doesn’t have to think too hard. Bands such as Nickleback, Puddle of Mudd and Tantric give rocking a real go but somehow fall on their MTV asses. Their guitar and drum driven pounding appeals to the male masses, but who can blame them? Cheap beer tastes great with easy to remember lyrics (a limited vocabulary helps). Characterized by: leather pants and tattoos, which have been passed down by their forefathers (Metallica, Aerosmith and Motley Crue), humdrum ballad, and stadium reverb. – Kim Gengler

4.“Indie, too-cool-for-school rock:” Stuff like The Strokes. Music with that “I went to school but dropped out, so f*ck you and long live rock” kind of attitude. You love them, your mom says they’re “neat,” and every middle-schooler tries to cop their style. And oh yeah, their parents? Probably rich fashion designers. Characterized by: simple melodies (after all, these ain’t no college boys!), lyrics about drinking, smoking, failing, f*cking, long hair; often prevalent drug use that comes off as perfectly normal. – Frederic Hanson

5.“Rich, Corona-drinking suburbanite sitting in corporate office, dreaming of exploiting the local Bahamanian economy lite-rock:” Hello Jimmy Buffet, mon! This is music for that man who wants to show he’s truly cultured. It’s tropical in that “let’s go pollute the ocean with our jet-skis and barter with the impoverished local community” kind of way. Characterized by: Greatest hits albums with “surfin’” in the title, songs about tropical drinks, Bermuda shorts / shirts / hats, Club-Med goers – Frederic Hanson

6.“I’m a music editor and this is THE SHIT rock:” Music for people who don’t like other people to like music. Largely lo-fi and overwhelmingly obscure, it’s the bottom-of-the-barrel crap that no one else bothers to listen to. Whether psychedelic, speak-easy sugar-shack rock or German sky-bound aerospace-turbine industrial goth-gypsy swing, it’s sure to suck. Characterized by: pot smoking, used record bins at the local children’s exchange, record store questions that start with “Do you guys have any . . . ?” and end with “who the hell is that?” – Frederic Hanson

7.My T-shirt says I’m totally punk, punk-rock:” Safe enough for even the most suicidal teen! Somewhere between Christian rock and middle-school sex-ed, this “Saved-by-the-Bell”-on-No-Doze music like, totally rocks to the max! And for some reason . . . all its protégés seem to be middle-school girls. Characterized by: kids too wrapped up in their Hot Topic to listen to “London Calling,” black – anything black, “Mom and Dad, I wish you would just like, die!” kind of tantrums, the name Ashlee or Avril. – Frederic Hanson