Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Kill Your Idols

Kill Your Idols is a documentary about no wave music coming out of New York in the 1970s and '80s, as well as some of the more current bands that were in one way or another inspired by it.
The first thirty minutes or so that focused on the '70s and '80s were fascinating. I love learning about modern music history (basically, music from the late 1800s onward) and no wave is not a genre I know a whole lot about. It's full of names I've heard, but I've never heard the music that goes with those names before.
About halfway through the movie they brought in the current musicians and the movie lost a little something for me. (It also gained a beautiful Ukranian something, but I'm doing my best to not be shallow. ... Eugene Hutz is lovely.)
I think the main problem with the current bands was ...
You know, what? No. Most of the bands I had no problem with. They had some really interesting things to say. There were only two people from the 2000s I had a problem with:
The frontman from A.R.E. Weapons whose name I don't remember, who just seemed so arrogant and sleazy that I felt like I needed a chemical shower every time he showed up on screen, and Karen O from Yeah Yeah Yeahs who said "like" and "yaknow" so many times my head would explode if I tried to count them. Neither of them had anything interesting or insightful to say, and I'm sad the movie spent so much time with the two of them. All the other bands seemed to have brains and ideas, and I don't know why more time wasn't spent on some of them. (There was a nice segment where they focused on Gogol Bordello, but it could have been longer. Not that I'm biased or anything. *averted gaze* *nonchalant whistling*)
The only other part of the movie I really didn't like was the part where the musicians from the '70s and '80s that sat around badmouthing the music that's coming out of New York now, saying that they think they're all in it for the parties and adulation and magazine spreads more than the music. I think that may be true of a lot of bands (and has been since pop music and fan magazines became a thing, so what's your point?), but I don't think it's true of the bands that were interviewed for Kill Your Idols. Even the Yeah Yeah Yeahs seemed at least somewhat sincere and I didn't particularly like them. (A.R.E. Weapons didn't seem sincere; I could just pretend all the badmouthing was toward them.)
Also, I just want to say that, while I kind of understand where she's coming from and why she seemed mad, Lydia Lunch needs to get over herself. I'm sorry the music of today bores you, lady, but from some of the things they said about you, it sounds like you got into it for the sex. So how are you any different than the shallow crap you're bitching about?
The movie ends with the question of where the music is going to go from here and a montage of all the interviewees looking blank trying to come up with an answer (how much of that was honest reaction to the "what's next?" question and how much of that was just editing, I do not know). Then, over the end credits of a movie about music that is for the most part noisy and rebellious, they played Through The Roof 'N' Underground by Gogol Bordello, a song that is relatively quiet and beautiful.
I don't know why the filmmakers picked that song, but I'm thrilled they did. Not only because they ended their movie with a band I absolutely love, but because they ended their movie quietly. I don't know why, but I think that's really neat.

End of line.
-Sally

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