Rock Struggles to Say Something New

“I’ve got nothing to say, I’ve got nothing to say, I’ve got nothing to say,” The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas sang on 2006’s “Ask Me Anything.”

Two years later, not only have JC and the boys quite literally said nothing—they’ve yet to release a forth album—but it seems as though his words are beginning to be reflective of the contemporary creative condition.

Today’s music scene is one in which belief in the revolutionary potential of a song is viewed as an anachronistic pipedream and faith in rockstardom as a transcendent force is regarded as both naïve and haplessly nostalgic. This thoroughly postmodern sentiment is both the fate and the challenge of the up-and-coming artist. How can today’s artist feel comfortable being creative knowing that their music will inevitably fall short of the highs reached by a century’s worth of pop music?

The title of Toronto band Metric’s second album does justice to this longing frustration: “Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?” The ’60s counterculture had Haight-Ashbury, the punks had the Bowery—so what do we get?

The rise of irony in indie rock can be regarded as a direct reaction to this modern feeling of disappointment. Somewhere along the way, insincerity and sarcasm became de rigueur when dealing with the perceived futility of matching the creative output of past generations.

It seems—or at the very least, I hope—that this vapid, reactionary kind of irony is on the wane. Nonetheless, the aesthetic of acerbity is still very much in vogue. The issue for many up-and-coming bands—particularly for “indie” bands—has thus become learning how to sneer without sacrificing creativity.

With their debut album “Oracular Spectacular,” Brooklyn band MGMT gets at least half way there. Founders Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden manage to come off as wry while avoiding unconstructive disdain. Over an epically constructed musical mise-en-scène, they make the following proposal on their single “Time to Pretend:” “Let’s make some music / Make some money / Find some models for wives / I’ll move to Paris / Shoot some heroin / And fuck with the stars.”

They’re not serious, of course. They’re just pointing out the fact that sex, drugs, and rock and roll is still an alluring—albeit chimeric—dream that provides the basis of modern pop culture. Within the extraordinary parameters of their synth-fueled daydream, success is attained only when they “Choke on [their] vomit / And that will be the end.” The dream they sing about is both extinct and unattainable, and they know it.

In short, they’ve nailed the problem to which “Ask Me Anything” tipped its hat. They’re not the first to do it (again, listen to Metric and their song “Dead Disco”) but they’re the latest to present the issue of creative aimlessness in a way that’s accessible to the people that are most affected by it: contemporary indie music lovers.

Manhattan group Vampire Weekend, however, is the most recent group to try to posit a solution. To give you an idea of their sound: if African chanteuse Angélique Kidjo produced a mash-up cover of Paul Simon’s “Graceland” and the Talking Heads’ “(Anything But) Flowers” that was performed by The Cars and The Talking Heads, their self-titled debut album would be it. They call their sound ‘Upper West Side Soweto.” I call it Afro-twee.

What the foursome has figured out though, is that music doesn’t need to be ironic to be good. The disc’s eleven tracks are virtually free of typical indie obfuscation. There are no synths or vocoders. They’ve rightly realized that synthesis is not the same as pastiche, and that artists don’t need to act like fools or limit themselves to frivolity in order to create lower and therefore achievable expectations.

Still, I’m reluctant to make any type of messianic claims about the band. I admit—bashfully—that I learned that lesson at a tender age with the Arctic Monkeys.

That said, any step towards separating out the smarminess of modern music should be lauded. Bands with talent don’t need to hide behind a slouch to save face. The Strokes aside, some people still have things to say.

—Columnist Ruben L. Davis can be reached at rldavis@fas.harvard.edu.