Folk artists are migrating to Portland, and hip-hop artists are finding their scene in Baltimore. Popular music is no longer about dominating the charts; it’s about commanding a region.
While the Internet has helped musicians find audiences beyond borders, artists are always looking for a place to call home. They want friends to collaborate with and live audiences to play in front of.
With that in mind, some cities are becoming musical safe havens, while other cities are becoming musical dry spots. Places like Toronto, Canada have brought together super groups like Broken Social Scene. Sometimes borrowing members from bands all across Canada, Broken Social Scene plays with as few as six members to as many as 19 members. The band even has popular artists like Leslie Feist in its mix.
As of yet, Pittsburgh isn’t exactly dry, but most good musicians don’t stay in the city long. Oftentimes it feels like artists only stop by Pittsburgh on their way to New York.
This is all so unfortunate because Pittsburgh has the potential to explode on the music scene. Few cities support their artists as much as we do, and even fewer can match our affordable housing. Our city is the perfect place for emerging artists to collaborate and call home, so make a point to support local talent. Go see a show!
-Stephen Epple

What is music criticism? What has it been? What is it now? Music criticism is tied into social class, race, and politics as much as it is tied into novelty and modernity. So, in one word, music criticism is, has been and always will be convoluted.

Case in point: I once criticized the song “Mr. November” by The National as being “bad.” I didn’t give any reason. The next thing I knew, I was being called a right-leaning moderate who was criticizing a song that was, among many, an anthem of change for the Obama/Biden elections. It was an honest mistake; in truth, I just disapproved of the excessive screaming and profanity.

At this point, no one cares about my opinions on “Mr. November.” In fact, I would guess that most would agree with me in saying that the song is not one of The National’s best — I should know; I’m one of their biggest fans. The funniest part of this entire episode: I am a moderate who often leans right on economic policy, and The National is a band that leans hard left. Classifying me based on the music I like and dislike is not entirely inappropriate.

Now, I don’t know how I feel about being so easily labeled by genre. I really hate being labeled a hipster for liking indie music, but I am pretty hip.

I would like to blame this all on an opportunistic and exploitative music industry, but that excuse has run its course with the meteoric rise in independent labels. What we accomplish now by criticizing music is anybody’s guess.

What is music criticism? What has it been? What is it now?

-Stephen Epple

Dancing is legal in all 50 states, but you would never know it from going to a Carnegie Mellon concert. Last Tuesday, the 8-Bit Alliance Tour rocked Rangos, but there was no fever pitch. As New York’s Anamanaguchi played the last act of their month-long U.S. tour, I couldn’t help but notice that our crowd was stiff and our emotions dissonant.

With no kick from the crowd, Anamanguchi was surprisingly upbeat. I wondered what it would be like to follow these guys with a camera on a concert tour.

I’ve always found rock documentaries a little funny because, while you follow the band through their trials and tribulations, you also follow their audience. A good audience is what butters a musician’s bread. Audiences should learn how to give their performers a good show because concerts aren’t cheap, and it’s hard to get what you pay for. Concert documentaries have to be the best way to learn to dance and feel comfortable looking like an idiot.

The Rolling Stones have documentaries like Shine a Light and Gimme Shelter. They are the head-banging concert documentaries that, when made by such famous directors as Martin Scorsese and the Maysles brothers, have inspired the rest. The Maysleses revealed a harrowing image in 1970 with Gimme Shelter. I personally prefer the documentary A Skin a Night that followed the band The National. Under Great White Northern Lights, the documentary about The White Stripes, was screened on campus just last week.

Concerts have the potential to become amazing experiences, but I wonder if people don’t see them that way. I remember watching The National’s concert documentary and thinking I would give anything to be at that show. Maybe that was when I stopped standing at concerts and started dancing.

Why doesn’t Carnegie Mellon have more dancing at concerts? I don’t know. I just hope we do our part and get a great concert someday. Besides, if no one else is dancing, I just look like an idiot.

-Stephen Epple