sometimes i can be trundling along happily as a listener, sticking within the relatively narrow sphere of my habitual interests, and i'll start to thinking, "well things ain't so bad...  after all, that new Laurel Halo record, it's pretty weird,  untaggable, real close to an honest to goodness New Sound" or "hey this footwork album is futuristic"....  so yeah, i'll be cruising along as this fairly contented and catered-for consumer,  but  then something or other will jolt me outside those regular reliable channels and back into the larger world, where  I'll be rudely reawakened to the actual state of things, just how dire and retrograde they really are

viz

the NME cover story on them of a few week ago said they takes cues from Bowie, Reed, Otis, JB, or My Morning Jacket or Kings of Leon

Alabama Shakes say their dream collaboration would be with Jack White and Jim James (of MM Jacket)


 the writer of the piece argues that

"for all their retro elements, it's not just nostalgia that makes Alabama Shakes the hottest thing since self-immolation. It's the honesty, pain, and redemption that gushes from----"

i cannot finish transcribing this sentence

the piece is laced with boxed endorsements from Bon Iver, Vaccines, Alex Turner, their hero Jack White

Shakes singer Brittany Howard: "A lot of people are like, 'I want to be different, I want to be original, I want to be an electronic band that mixes this and this', instead of just writing songs together as people and being sincere about it." 

 
meanwhile Jeremy Gilbert, with exasperated incredulity, directed me towards The Cribs and their "Glitters Like Gold"

which i thought was not far off Teenage Fanclub Revivalism if such a thing could exist

so far this year (see also Best Coast, Beach House, Blunderbuss etc etc) is not doing much to disprove Retromania