Trendspotting: 2012 in Review

by Richard Trapunski

December 21, 2012

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Over the course of the year, through this column, I’ve been watching the global music scene contort itself into shapes. Though a different trend has been tackled for each individual Trendspotting, there are a few bigger tendencies that reveal themselves as the year comes to a close. Throw all the Instagram swag-jacking, viral insta-stars, label controversies, Tumblr screeds, mixtapes, and music industry crises at us as you want, 2012; we’ll probably still be talking about authenticity, the “new rock,” and the relationship between art and money decades down the line. As chaotic as the music industry gets, it never stops following familiar paths. Here are music’s defining trends of 2012 or, if you’ll indulge me, Trendspottingspotting. 

Indie goes broke

 As much as music purists want to split art and commerce into two distinct categories, they’re never easily separated. That’s become ever clearer over the last decade or so, since Napster popularized file sharing and the music industry essentially collapsed, but it shifted especially into focus in the last year. A much-shared New York Magazine cover story exposed the monetary instability of the band Grizzly Bear, Cat Power went bankrupt and cancelled her tour, and many clued in to a harsh reality of the current music industry: it’s not easy to make a living as a musician in 2012.

Record sales were often an unattainable ideal, so some musicians searched elsewhere for recognition. For a brief period, it seemed like every band became obsessed with the Guinness Book of World Records. Promoters, meanwhile, more focused on ticket sales than dubious recognition, looked beyond arenas and fields and towards the open seas.

 

No money? No problem.

 

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. It’s hard to deny that the anarchism of the Internet has thrown everything into flux, but while traditionalists scrambled to reinforce old-school models, some forward-thinking artists instead embraced the chaos.

Record Store Day achieved surprising success this year with out-of-the-box releases from bands like Feist and Mastodon, but savvy musicians like Jack White and the Flaming Lips found year-long success by internalizing that risk-taking spirit and living every day like it’s Record Store Day. Weirdos like Dan Deacon and Bjork, similarly, latched onto the untapped potential of new technology and experimented with mobile apps, while Beck and Death Grips recognized the shifting conception of music ownership, and put the power of their music into the hands of their fans.

Even late night shows took note, playing to the day-after blog crowd by taking chances on young and untested musicians (including Lana Del Rey’s SNL performance, which bombed spectacularly enough to fuel months’ worth of thinkpieces).

 

Everything is the new rock

With no money left in rock, some searched elsewhere to find and crown the “new” rock. Somewhere within the scramble, electronic music became big business, and, essentially, repeated the old strategies of arena rock. Teenagers donned “Sex, Drugs and Dubstep” t-shirts, EDM festivals multiplied, and artists like Skrillex and Deadmau5 became rockstars, wielding decks and samples as Slash once held his guitar. At the same time, a much less successful “new rock” emerged: food.

 

It might be good, but is it “real”?

 

Rock music may have lost its vitality in 2012, but many of its old-fashioned signifiers remained firmly in place. One that was especially hard to shake was that dogged concept of “authenticity,” whose ugly head reared itself hard at Lana Del Rey, who had the audacity to adopt an invented name and persona like 99 per cent of performers in pop music.

Eager to avoid the critical savaging of LDR, many rockers sought authenticity in the past. Bands like the Sheepdogs emptily emulated their heroes from Rolling Stone covers of the ‘60s and ‘70s, playing dress up in beards, bell bottoms, guitar solos and rootsy harmonies. But nostalgia didn’t end there. Curbing the 20-years-and-it’s-retro rule, this year saw a minor ‘00s revival, letting listeners get bleary-eyed about an era that’s just barely in the rearview mirror. That premium on nostalgia intensified so much in 2012, that even literal tribute bands lost their stigma.

 

The rise of R&B

  

As rock tangled itself in false-authenticity and nostalgia and big-money stakeholders tried to crown the new rock, a recently derided genre quietly started producing the most interesting music of 2012: R&B. Building off the slow-release influence of Kanye West’s 2008 secret success 808s and Heartbreak, the genre shook off its early-00’s corporate radio blandness and its 2011 “PBR&B” derision and legitimately embraced quirkiness, cross-genre experimentation, and vulnerability.

In July, Odd Future crooner Frank Ocean posted a heartbreaking Tumblr reminiscence of his first love, who just happened to be of the same sex. Suddenly, a genre often lambasted for its internalized homophobia was accepting a queer wunderkind (though he never outwardly identified as anything) who not only broke through long-held prejudices, but produced one of the best albums of the year in Channel Orange.

Hip hop, too, opened up to a whole new world of experimentation and idiosyncratic underground sounds. Instrumental rap made a surprising comeback, while the rap-punk influence of the Beastie Boys and Adam Yauch, who passed away in May of 2012, found its way to fight-the-man shouters like Death Grips. Rap crews made a return amongst the young guns, and that so-called “young man’s game” even made way for a new rap middle age.

Tags: Music, Featured, News, 2012 in review, Adam Yauch, Cat Power, Deadmau5, Death Grips, Frank Ocean, Grizzly Bear, Kanye West, Lana Del Rey, Record Store Day, skrillex

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