The New York Times evidently has some short-term-memory problems when it comes to trends in hipster-friendly music. A couple of weeks back, the Times magazine ran a story about avant-garde heavy metal that struck me as strangely familiar. Maybe that's because the paper ran a story about -- you guessed it -- avant-garde heavy metal in September of last year. I had a similar experience last weekend when I read the lead story in Sunday's Arts section -- a piece on the rise of freak folk, an often whimsical and ruminative brand of psychedelic folk music with roots in '60s-inspired communalism. Hmm. It also seemed familiar. Oh yeah, the Times first reported on freak folk in December 2004. So what's the difference between the new stories and the old ones? The second time around, it wasn't just hipsters who thought they were old news.
-- David Marchese
Shares