It’s Sunday, April 29th. It’s very, very sunny outside. The bay windows of my room are showing kids playing on the street, gardeners tending to their fledging little gardens, and several yard sale flyers stapled to telephone poles. There are also cars driving by, playing their country and their hip hop. I just finished uploading some new songs to my two roommates’ mp3 players, because they trust me with their music collections. I’m writing this column with a confidence I definitely didn’t have when I started two years ago this weekend. Yup, two years of Let’s Rave On columns. Sure, I’ve taken breaks on it, so much so that my column total is only 63. But that’s not bad, really. It’s not a bad output of material, almost enough to bind together into something publishable (we’ll see if it’s marketable).

Another reason I know it’s been two years is that it’s Coachella weekend. I’m watching it right now, the live feed that AT&T has put together. It’s astoundingly beautiful to watch. I’m listening to the Regina Spektor set from Saturday afternoon. She’s gorgeous. Her music is drawing major-sized crowds. Who would have thought that two years ago? Later, I’ll watch the Arcade Fire’s set from the evening on the main stage, and I’ll reminisce about when I saw them at Coachella 05, when they had Regina’s spot on the card. Two years ago, I had a lot to say about this sort of thing. Two years ago, I was kind of angry about the state of music. Mainstream rock was floundering. Hip Hop was dying. Just about every genre out there was going through birth and midlife pangs. I had enough to say that I pushed for writing a weekly column that had less to do with analyzing the news of the week and more with dealing with the big picture of things. I think I’ve accomplished what I set out to do.

At the very least, I’m less pissed off about music. The mainstream market is floundering even more now. They are still unwilling to invest in the Atlantic of indie artists out there. They still hold out for the day that people will once again pay 18 bucks for a Nickleback album. Those days are gone. The days of indie rule are not here yet. There is still tension between the two camps, and we may or may not be on the precipice of a great war between the have’s and the have nots, between the big and the small, between sides not this simple, not this black and white. Some of us are going to be sued. Some of us will get away with being “press” and “Canadian,” but others will not be so lucky. The landscape of how music works with the public will be so different four years from now that any commentary we make will be completely obsolete. Four years ago, one had to go to Coachella to hear the concert. Now, you just have to have cable internet. Four years from now, I wouldn’t doubt it if you could watch it live on your ipod.

There are stratospheres between the then and the now and the next. Somewhat, one must be angry enough with things to keep harping on about it. I’m not angry anymore. I’m rather content, actually. I like where things are going. I like that there will probably be a war. I’m comfortable with the side I’ve chosen. I’m comfortable with the music I’ve surrounded myself with. It makes me happy. I’ve reached my goal. I can watch Regina Spektor from 4000 kilometres away, hearing “Fidelity” be lip-sung by the whole crowd and nothing about this makes me unhappy. It reminds me of something from that Gandhi movie, something like “one should not press things when the advantage is ours.”

The world is getting better. Sure, this is an indie viewpoint, but I’m an indie writer. Still, this is why we’ll eventually win. The entire point of major label music is that it isn’t quite as good as the stuff that came before, and in this is their defeat. This is an abstract as hell idea, but music isn’t meant to make us unhappy. It isn’t meant to point out the fact that the world isn’t as good as it was in the 70’s (there is no worse viewpoint. The world sucked in the 70’s). Good indie music, like the stuff showcased at Coachella, obliterates this theory. One can’t be unhappy watching this show. There is fight in this music. There is verve and protest and warmth. There are colours. The ideas are still thriving. Just as I said the year before this and the year before that, all you have to do to be happy all summer is take the setlist from Coachella and listen to it. There’s about 90 bands on that list, and you probably don’t know most of them, and they’re all there for a damn good reason. Yes, even Rage Against the Machine. It’s been a long time since you’ve listened to them, I bet.

There used to not be things like Coachella and artists like Regina Spektor and avenues to find both like the AT&T blueroom (and as I’ve said before—corporations can do good, they just have to be persuaded that it will be good for them). There used to be angry journalists that would yell at their audience and get them to begrudgingly try out their snobby musical tastes, and that’s how the underground worked. It’s not like that anymore. Unless I’m inspired enough to commentate on the state of affairs, there’s no real reason for me to say anything, and there’s no reason for you to read me. There’s so many music blogs out there, you don’t need a music journalist that won’t say something fresh and inspired and angry and poetic. If you can’t do those four things, get out of dodge.

As Regina would say, and I’ll say this about pop music, indie music, mainstream music, and all of what comes in between that binds and tears, “You are my sweetest downfall. I loved you first.”

Last 5 posts by K Sawyer Paul

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