The problem with trying too hard

Bob Boilen annoys me. I'm a little sorry for saying it (and for using this as my re-entry into the blogging world), but it's true. Still, I'm a big fan of podcasts, and I listen to All Songs Considered more often than not. But where some people find his voice soothing and refreshingly unpretentious, I hear a middle-aged man who tries way too hard to connect with the Pitchfork crowd. I don't have much against that über-hip online mag - plenty has already been said about it, and it's ultimately up to the readers to decide if they really want to ruin Travis Morrison's career without actually listening to the records - but there is something to be said about people who now cater to the hipster elite, in some misguided effort to be seen as connoisseurs of all that is new and fresh in music. That is dumb.

I may be young, but I never remember witnessing such an explosion of new music as there has been in the last few years. It's easy, but true, to say that the internet did this. It's no wonder then, that internet magazines popped up and tried to reign the madness in. For those of us who can't spend fourteen hours a day trolling for music online, this became a great way to seperate wheat from chaff, so long as the reviewers established some degree of credibility and consistency. The problem then became: "which sources do I trust?" Pitchfork, from what I know, appeared to be the most organized and most frequently updated site (I started reading somewhere around 2000, so I can't speak to its functionality before then, but this is arguably the period around which mp3s were taking off). So now, through no real fault of their own, they are seen as the standard bearer, with most everyone else lagging behind. Sites like PopMatters and other music mags (including a now-defunct site that I wrote for) are just as good, if not better, but too many focus on "indie-for-indie's-sake." Bob Boilen obviously thinks this is cool. And that's where he starts to bother me. Here's a man with a significant amount of musical experience - he apparently was/is a musician himself - who refuses to use it and make ASC a truly unique show, that explores music that is good, not just hip. Sure, he'll throw in a jazz or non-English record in there every now and again, so as to cast an illusion of variety, but the show's title is still a blatant misnomer. Of course, jazz and "world" are the easy toss-offs to counter indie-centrism, and I have yet to hear a non-hipster-sanctioned record from a truly distinct genre on the program. To make matters worse, Bob's words of praise are often trite, obnoxious critic-speak. He'll casually describe the songs he plays with phrases like "spacious and lush sounds," "gorgeous string arrangements," or "it was an album that changed my life with its beauty and inner calm," as if these were still informative.

I really don't hate Bob. I don't know how he'd respond to my criticism, and I'm sure he has a legion of fans that would rise to his defense anyway, but the crux of this rant is really the fear of not just becoming uncool in middle-age, but the tripping-over-yourself silliness of trying to be someone you're not. After a while, do we really forget what the point of Never Mind the Bollocks was? Please Bob, say it ain't so.