Didn’t I just hear that band?

By Laura Robida

While shopping around looking for artists to spotlight as Indie Noise artists or featured Listen2This artists we came upon a terrifying realization that hit us like a ton of bricks: every band out there sounds exactly the same. We must have listened to about 30 or 40 songs before settling on our five selections for Listen2This. We’ll let the difference between our five and the other 35 speak for themselves: all those bands sounded the same.

It was like listening to the same band on repeat. Each band was singing the same insignifcant, whiny song as the prevous band, dazzling listeners with the same chord progressions, terrible bass lines and the same riffs that seem to make the Top40 radio stations happy. Apparently every band is Fall Out Boy. Every band is Cute is What We Aim For. I can think of about 10 bands that sound like All Time Low. Give me a break. Play something else! ANYTHING! Please!

Throughout the history of popular music there have always been groups of bands that sound the same. Think about the all the songs that you’ve downloaded through scrupulous methods only to find that the artist is wrong. You know, the Scandal song that was attributed to Pat Benatar. Or The Temptations song that was attributed to the Four Tops.

Its only normal for there to be more than one band playing the same type of music but lately it seems that this powerpop/punk-pop/dance-rock style is the only style. Everything else seems to be hidden safely from earshot. On first look it appears that there is no indie rock (and no, just because a band puts “indie” on their Myspace page does not make them indie. My band says “indie” on their page and we are by no means indie. Buy a damn dictionary.” It would also appear that punk is dead. Real punk. Dead Kennedys punk. Sex Pistols punk. Metal is dead too. Rock and roll made its final death throes sometime around 1990. Or so it would appear.

This is why the Blog of Sound exists, to draw attention to all these other types of music. They’re out there if you just open your eyes and look. In the meantime we beg you to turn off your radios. Blow them up if you must. There is something else out there besides dance-rock/powerpop. Find it. Free your mind (and the rest will follow).