The Wake

Irony is tricky. Often cited but rarely understood, it is a modern day conversation-killer that has the power to make you sound both stupid and pretentious. The difficulty starts with the many definitions of the word. Beginning with Socrates who “knew nothing,” continuing through Shakespeare with Roman (dramatic) irony, and finally into the all-encompassing cosmic irony, the word has proven its resiliency until now. Plagued my constant misuse and misappropriation, we might be witnessing the death of the word in the worst expansion in (ironic) history.

Two weeks ago I was wandering Dinkytown, meeting my new neighbors, and enjoying a Friday night shirking school responsibilities when “irony” crossed my path. I met Colby, a round cheese, wearing Chuck Taylors, Rivers Cuomo brand eyewear, and a well-worn sweatshirt that read Fall Out Boy. Being Friday night, I was feeling pretty friendly, and decided to approach Colby, ask him how he was, where he was going on a glorious night, but instead I got Colby’s excuse. I asked Colby how it was going, commented on the weather, made nice, to which he responded:

“Don’t mind the Fall Out Boy sweatshirt; it’s ironic.”

I hadn’t asked, hadn’t given Colby’s fashion a second thought until he drew attention to it. I said something like “Oh yeah? Have a good night man,” and dodged his incoherent rhetoric.

The problem wasn’t that Colby supposedly dug that particular pop-punk band, but that he was using irony to explain why any self-respecting indie music fan would wear a FOB sweatshirt. It turns out that Colby isn’t important enough for either me or his friends to understand, “Oh, the hip kid is wearing a Fall Out Boy sweatshirt, he knows better, he knows that he knows better, that’s really funny.” It’s an unfortunate mindset and it’s here to stay. It’s called “Indie Ironic” and this is its story.

It started when your group of friends decided that lo-fi recording, cheap production, experimental music, jam bands, and overall melancholy were cool. You started with the Pixies, or Pavement, or Pink Floyd (it definitely started with a “P”) and moved on through the Shins, Radiohead, and recently Peter Bjorn and John. Whatever was new, hip, and nobody knew about (except for everyone who checks pitchforkmedia.com on a daily basis), you dug. You became an indie machine, spouting off facts about Sonic Youth’s love child and deciding that experimental Wilco is the only Wilco worth your time. By allowing indie to become your lifestyle, you also adapted a set of indie rules to live by:

Name drop to show your distaste.
Get into arguments about the quality of new Modest Mouse records.
When all else fails, declare yourself ironic.

Declaring yourself ironic is a task simpler than you might think. Choose something that has the mark of the indie anti-Christ, say Soulja Boy, and declare him your new favorite MC, thus showing that you understand the “ignorance” of mainstream culture by your ”ironic” love of his music. You explain that you don’t like Soulja Boy because of his funny bedroom references, but because it is “ironic.” This means that you like Soulja Boy because he is overtly “un-indie” and because none of your friends like the song. You want to be kooky, unpredictable, but this makes you neither funny nor ironic. It makes you a liar to your friends, yourself, and the indie rock ideals that you hold so precious. Liking something because it’s “so good it’s bad” isn’t ironic, it’s VH1.

Indie rock is an alternative music idiom, constantly taking careful steps away from and closer to pop music. The rise of Pitchfork has moved the underground even closer to the pop mentality, introducing a strict hierarchy of musical acts grouped by “acceptability.” There are bands that can’t do anything right (The Fray) and there are bands that can’t do wrong (Radiohead). Furthermore, there are bands that can sometimes get it right (Liars) and there are bands who can never get a good review but whose last album will always be fondly remembered in the merciless review of their latest (Queens of the Stone Age). It’s like we have our own little mom-n-pop version of Clear Channel.

This idea defeats the spirit that pioneered the movement. When Isaac Brock played guitar with his teeth, the Jesus and Mary Chain played 18-minute sets, and Dinosaur Jr. made skateboarding music that made ears bleed, they definitely were not stressing over their credibility. By saying that you like Soulja Boy ironically you are implying that there is an agreed acceptable realm of what is indie, limiting the genre to a “mainstream” tendency of what is acceptable and what isn’t acceptable. Indie rock’s only defining factor is that what isn’t conventionally acceptable is generally more widely accepted, but that statement no longer holds true. We still call it indie rock, but the music has lost its independence. For the record, that is ironic.