I don’t think anything needs to be said about how terrible the 80s revival is for modern music. I would just like to point out two specific examples of this trend that greatly disappoint me. Not because they sound terrible, but because the musicians that made them were already so successful at bringing something unique to the musical scene that to see them submit themselves to 80s hipster dance music (using the excuse of “branching out into a new musical direction”) is simply soul-crushing.
The first is “Saturdays+Youth” by M83. M83 burst onto the scene with “Dead Cities, Red Seas, and Lost Ghosts” in 2003, an epic exploration of emotions through soundscapes, merging post-rock walls of noise with ambient minimalism techniques. While the debut was admittedly scattered in focus, “Before the Dawn Heals Us” is an incredibly focused effort that takes the listener through the soundtrack to an imaginary movie, wide-eyed, beautiful, dramatic, and terrifying. So when I hear M83 has a new album, I am breathless with anticipation. After listening to it I am breathless because I have been sucker-punched in the gut, like some cosmic joke. True, this album is a focused effort on crafting 80s-style pop and dance music. It really is. But trying to creating something beautiful from 80s music is like trying to plant oak trees in the desert. It just doesn’t fucking work.
M83’s disaster occurred in 2008. It was sad to experience, but it didn’t put me over the edge enough to write about it until recently, when I felt the exact same sucker-punch feeling again. The ultimate violator is “Immolate Yourself” by Telefon Tel Aviv.
Telefon are one of the masters of dark glitch and IDM. “Fahrenheit Fair Enough” was not the original instance of fractured melodic glitch instrumentals, but it was a sterling example of what the field should produce. Their second album “Map of What is Effortless” drew upon this source material, and combined it with sweeping orchestral aesthetic and mournful, soulful vocals, two things most electronic artists are on the whole incapable of executing without invoking terrible cliches. Again, imagine one night when I hear they have released a new album. Incredible! No. Unless you are some connoisseur of hipster dance music (in which case please enlighten me to the merits of this album), “Immolate Yourself” is actually an instruction for what to do once you are done experiencing this album so that you may never again experience the pain and suffering of remembering it. This isn’t even 80s music done right; it is as if Depeche Mode themselves had a massive hangover, woke up with their heads spinning, and vomited out an album. Unlike M83, which if I put myself in the shoes of a moron, I can see some merit to the album, there is truly no redemption for “Immolate Yourself”. It is the destruction through banality of a bright musical career of wonderfully talented musicians.
Okay I am done ranting now.