Skip’s Records & CD World has been Eugene’s largest independent record store since opening in 1989. But even hardcore music geeks in Eugene may be unaware of it, especially if they’re anywhere near the University of Oregon campus.  Located more than three miles west of the Duck Store, Skip’s sits comfortably at the intersection of West 11th Avenue and Seneca Road. Access is an ordeal without the help of a car or at least two bus lines.

So what makes Skip’s worth the distance?

The selection, for one thing. Skip’s contains tens of thousands of records, in addition to novelty items, T-shirts, posters and pins.

A.J. Nichols, a UO student and vinyl fan, frequently chooses it over the much more accessible, but far smaller, House of Records, which is located on 13th Avenue between Pearl Street and High Street.

“House of Records has cool collector’s items and great deals,” Nichols said. “But if you really want to get something without getting it off the Internet, Skip’s is the place to find it.”

One major attraction that brings customers to Skip’s is the Mystery Grab Bag. It’s a collection of seven vinyl records for only $2. But there’s a catch.

“There’s a paper bag, so you can’t see anything,” says Katie Matthews, a Skip’s Records & CD World employee. “But that’s the fun in it.”

Purchasers of a Mystery Grab Bag can expect anything from shiny new releases to classic albums to total obscurities. But most often, they’ll probably end up with a bunch of assorted odds and ends — maybe an obscure dance music 12-inch single, an album of sea shanties or Meryl Streep narrating The Velveteen Rabbit. Customers can’t expect much less just from casually browsing, either.

Skip’s also hosts a few in-store concerts every year. Among the better-known artists to grace the record shop are Michael Franti, Matisyahu, Of Montreal and Blitzen Trapper.  Last year, they hosted ’90s indie band Toad the Wet Sprocket, punk band Against Me! and ukulele player Craig Chee. The 2015 roster hasn’t been announced yet, but given its prior lineups, there are sure to be some surprises.

Surprise is key to Skip’s appeal – whether buying a record you’ve never heard for 10 cents or seven records you’ve never seen for $2. That’s not even to mention the bizarre artifacts you’re likely to find while browsing through their vinyl selection.  Though Eugene doesn’t exactly suffer from a dearth of record shops – many of them closer to campus – Skip’s is certainly worth the drive.

Follow Daniel Bromfield on Twitter @bromf3

Photo from eminem.com

Eminem is spent. The classic three-album run he scored at the turn of the millennium (The Slim Shady LP, The Marshall Mathers LP, and The Eminem Show) was enough to secure his stature as a legend, showcasing a formidable technical and lyrical talent that was unafraid to shock and potentially alienate his fan base. But unfortunately, his shock value relied in no small part on homophobia and violent misogyny. And he’s still doing the exact same thing he was doing 15 years ago to his detriment as both an artist and a potentially relevant cultural figure.

Railing against gay people on a mainstream record in 2000, as he did on The Marshall Mathers LP, wasn’t terribly difficult. Eminem defended his lyrics by citing the use of the word “faggot” in battle raps, saying: “The lowest degrading thing that you can say to a man when you’re battling him is to call him a faggot and try to take away his manhood […] ‘Faggot’ to me doesn’t necessarily mean gay people. ‘Faggot’ to me just means taking away your manhood.”

Eminem’s excuse attempts to decontextualize the word, but instead demonstrates why it’s so dangerous. Even when Eminem isn’t talking about gay people, he still believes calling someone a gay slur is the most degrading thing you can say to a “man.” By “man,” he of course means “a straight man.” I wonder whether Eminem would still use the word if he thought there might be an actual gay man at one of these “battles”—imagine how much more degrading it would be then.

It’s also remarkable how similar this excuse is to the one he offered for his use of the same word in his technically dazzling but incredibly homophobic 2013 single “Rap God”: “It was more like calling someone a bitch or a punk or asshole.  So that word was just thrown around so freely back then. It goes back to that battle, back and forth in my head, of wanting to feel free to say what I want to say, and then [worrying about] what may or may not affect people.”

This is not the battle. In Detroit, Eminem was not rapping for the public; as a superstar, he is. This is why his recent line about Lana Del Rey “Bitch I’ll punch Lana Del Rey twice in the face like Ray Rice” (at 14:50) is particularly insidious. Eminem spat this particular couplet at a cypher promoting Shady XV, the new compilation album from his vanity label Shady Records. Eminem not only knew this would be viewed by millions, he wanted it to be. And his mindset has not changed since he first threatened to smack Pamela Anderson 15 years ago on The Slim Shady LP.

He knows these tactics will court him attention, but he’s on a far too large platform to peddle such archaic-seeming “shock value.” Many of Eminem’s straight, male fans have never even seen a gay person or had either a friendship or a relationship with a woman. It’s bad enough that many of the films, songs and television shows ingrained in American cultural consciousness are deeply homophobic and/or misogynistic. But when someone who’s still at least somewhat relevant is broadcasting those same prejudices, it might suggest to those people that nothing has changed. Eminem’s time has come, and there is nothing more he can or should contribute to music.

Chase Chandler is a man you’d expect would know how to put together a good party playlist — in part because that’s his job. As DJ Good Vibes, he’s a regular at campus events and house parties in both Eugene and his hometown of Santa Barbara, California. Studying crowd reactions to his music has given him a good idea of how party goers react to changes in music, and as such, he’s got a formula for when he throws parties.

“You need three party playlists,” Chandler says. “If you’re going to do a (pre-made) Spotify playlist, you need to switch the playlist three times. If you pick hip hop, it’s just gonna be hip hop for the whole party, and that’s not good. You need to progressively keep an audience engaged.”

Chandler believes partiers would rather hear songs they know, but he puts a unique spin on things by introducing remixes of those tunes to the crowd.

“Everyone knows a song like ‘Forever’ (by Chris Brown),” says Chandler. “But you gotta keep them on your toes, so you want a new remix of it. When you just put to some electronic song, nobody knows it, but a song like that everyone sings along. It touches on everyone’s emotions.”

The style of song or remix corresponds with the three stages of a party Chandler perceives: the warm-up, the peak and the post-rager kickback stage at the end. These are the ways in which Chandler approaches each.

Stage 1: Deep house/tropical house

“You have the time when everyone’s walking in–that’s the warmup. Everyone’s meeting each other and talking. The music doesn’t have to be blaring, but it should have energy.”

Key tracks:

– Akon ft. Bone Thugs N Harmony – I Tried vs. The Notorious B.I.G. – “Can I Get Witcha (Matoma Remix)”
– Zhu – “Moves Like Ms. Jackson”
– Disclosure – “F For You”
– Alex Metric & Oliver – “Hope (Original Mix)”

Stage 2: Progressive house

“If you keep playing deep house, people won’t hang out. You gotta keep people on their toes. When people are coming in, it’s getting close to being a full house, I’d switch to more progressive house. That’s what Vegas is totally down with.”

Key tracks:

– The Knocks feat. St. Lucia – “Modern Hearts (Dave Edwards remix)”
– R3hab & Vinai – “How We Party (Original Mix)”
– Sam La More feat. Gary Go – “Adrenaline (SCNDL Mix)”

Stage 3: Hip hop

“Once I’m done with progressive house, I put on these classic high school songs everyone knows. There’s a big difference between high school hip hop and stuff that’s coming out now, like Juicy J and 2 Chainz. Some people like that, but it’s more slow, more lyrical, more for kicking back and hanging out. High school hip hop is the stuff our age group listened to in high school, and it’s usually faster.” (Chandler is a senior at UO.)

Key tracks:

– DJ Felli Fel – “Get Buck In Here”
– Chris Brown – “Forever”
– 50 Cent – “In Da Club”

Chaz Bundick’s strongest suit is his pop craftsmanship. On the albums he creates as Toro Y Moi, Bundick wraps generous helpings of reverb and phasers around pop songs, crafted with a light, almost Beatles-like touch. So it’s interesting to see what he does with the pop element stripped away. Michael, Bundick’s first album as Les Sins, provides an interesting context to his Toro Y Moi work, and it’s also a pretty great listen on its own.

There’s only one pop moment on Michael, and it’s “Why,” a joyful, almost Michael Jackson-like slice of vintage dance-pop.  It’s an incongruous radio single par excellence, in the manner of Disclosure’s “Latch” (from Settle) or Drake’s “Hold On, We’re Going Home” (from Nothing Was The Same). That it’s surrounded on either side by acres of disjointed experiments may be a disappointment for some.

But Les Sins is a side project, and if the stakes were higher, it would be underwhelming. Free of the pressure to follow up three great albums, Bundick decided to craft something that could be taken at face value. The incongruity of “Why” may have been for the better. The less Bundick reminds audiences of his day job, the more capable his music is of standing out on its own. (That guest singer Nate Salman sang “Why” suggests Bundick was aware of this.)

Michael is an outlet for everyone Bundick wants to be but Toro Y Moi. There’s shades of Nicolas Jaar’s Zen-room techno, and sublime opener “Talk About” recalls Luomo’s almighty house classic Vocalcity. The dancier tracks are the strongest, most notably “Talk About” and the luscious Italo disco pastiche “Bellow.” Other experiments don’t work as well, like the cop-show throwaway “Sticky” and the confusing deep house/hair metal hybrid “Bother.”

But Michael‘s slippery approach to genre experimentation allows the individual parts to slide together into a cohesive, 40-minute whole. If Bundick had favored one style over the others, Michael‘s more capricious moments might impede the album’s progress. But Bundick mixes things up throughout the tracklist to keep listeners on their toes.

Michael is an inconsistent, indulgent record, overflowing with ideas and ping-ponging between genres with little regard for logic. But it can’t really be faulted for any of this given its pet-project nature and consistent listenability (I find it an easier listen than Toro Y Moi’s latest, the overlong Anything In Return). Even its worst moments are interesting, and at its best it triggers pleasure centers as well as any of Bundick’s pop songs. Michael isn’t a masterpiece, but I’ll definitely be listening to it a lot in the future.

Follow Daniel Bromfield on Twitter @bromf3

“Indie” means “independent” as in “independent label” as such, indie music is maybe the only genre that’s theoretically based on the artists’ label affiliations rather than their sound.

Yet many of the notable bands saddled with that increasingly abstract epithet are on majors these days. Thus, in 2014, its meaning changed to refer to a sound, as is more conventional with genre tags. When did this change happen? It would be ridiculous to try and pinpoint a moment, but a large proportion of the musical and cultural hallmarks occurred in 2004, ten years ago.

Here are a few events that put 2004 on the map as the year “indie” simultaneously became both a big thing and nothing at all.

July 28, 2004: Garden State is released. 

Indie film and music were both inspired by Zach Braff’s 2004 movie, which helped set the sensitive-guy/Manic Pixie Dream Girl couple trope as indie’s gold standard of cuteness.  The songs on the soundtrack – most notably by the Shins, though he did have the mua-ha-ha-worthy idea of having Iron & Wine’s cover of Such Great Heights by the Postal Service – brought indie pop under this umbrella. Thus, the music and its nascent aesthetic were permanently packaged together and introduced to the mainstream.

See also: Juno, Juno soundtrack, Michael Cera, (500) Days Of Summer, (500) Days Of Summer soundtrack, Zooey Deschanel

September 14, 2004: Arcade Fire makes “whoa-ohs” a thing. 

On “Wake Up,” the biggest song on their debut Funeral, Arcade Fire tapped into the potential of wordless vocals to express a youthful joy that perhaps lyrics couldn’t adequately capture. That idea was not lost on the pop industry, and the “whoa-oh” is as rampant in 2014 as dubstep drops were in 2011. The song’s use in the trailer of Where The Wild Things Are, in tandem with the movie’s woodland-monster visuals, explains a lot of contemporary indie pop aesthetics (most explicitly in the video for American Authors’ “Best Day Of My Life”).

See also: American Authors’ “Best Day Of My Life,” Of Monsters And Men’s “Little Talks,” Young The Giant’s “Cough Syrup,” Fun’s “Carry On,” Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive,” and even non-indie pop like Beyonce’s “XO,” Maroon 5′s “Daylight,” and Tove Lo’s “Habits (Stay High).”

September 28, 2004: Brian Wilson finishes Smile.

The solo completion of Brian Wilson’s scrapped Beach Boys masterwork Smile gave indie bands a purpose in capturing the album’s ideal of “transcendence.” Thus, while the early-’00s indie landscape was full of cynical guitar bands, the later half of the decade saw an increased acceptance of artists with Wilson-scale ambitions and passions for wacky instruments. Hence, the overflow of glockenspiels, vocal harmonies, and obscure string instruments that continue to dominate indie music.

See also: The Ruby Suns’ Sea Lion, Animal Collective’s Feels, Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest, Sufjan Stevens’s Illinois, Califone’s Roots & Crowns, The Shins’ Wincing The Night Away, Panda Bear’s Young Prayer and Person Pitch, Neon Indian’s Psychic Chasms, Gotye’s Making Mirrors

November 2004: Death Cab for Cutie signs to Atlantic. 

In the early 2000s, Death Cab was one of Barsuk Records’ biggest successes, a paragon of how to launch an assault on the pop industry from the underground. After Transatlanticism charted, the group got snatched up by Atlantic Records – a demonstrably non-indie record label. Though Death Cab didn’t change its sound too much, this gesture effectively invalidated the original meaning of “indie,” for better or worse.

See also: the entire pop industry.

After being denied the visa he needed to tour in the United States, Vladislav Delay, a.k.a. electronic producer Sasu Ripatti, found himself with a lot of spare time on his hands. What did he do? I like to imagine that Ripatti glanced around his domicile and saw his pile of electronic equipment waiting for him, angelic harps played, a lightbulb went off, and the producer sat down to commence work on Visa, his most compelling release under the Vladislav Delay name in some time.

Ripatti has never been one to rely on extended drones and loops to kill time, but Visa may be his most physical-sounding album yet. Throughout the record, we hear Ripatti exert himself on his equipment, twiddling knobs at will and relishing his role as puppet master. Visa is an album made for fun, and Ripatti’s sheer joy at making these sounds shines through in the vigor with which he produces these tracks.

Ripatti calls Visa his first ambient album in over a decade. The Delay discography can roughly be split in half between his early ambient period and the more aggressive, dub-oriented approach he took following 2004′s Demo(n) Tracks. Elements of both eras are present on Visa. The metallic whirrs and clangs of the latter periods are abundant, but the way they’re integrated into a shifting whole is most reminiscent of his early oeuvre.

But what makes Visa so compelling is the new tricks Ripatti tries out. The most notable of these is the full-track pitch-shift, which Ripatti employs on every track, but the gorgeous, looping closer “Viimeinen.” There’s also a lot more structure to these tracks. “Viaton” is composed of two distinct parts, while “Vihollinen” has an audible, jarring ending that contrasts most with Delay tracks’ tendencies to fade into something else or fade out abruptly. Most of the tracks also abruptly yield to a different soundscape at least once during their run time, with “Viimeinen” once again the exception.

The most impressive track here is the 23 minute opener, “Visaton.” Though its sound is more in line with Delay’s dub-period work, its appearance is a welcome throwback – all of his Vladislav Delay full-lengths until Demo(n) Tracks contained a track 20 minutes or longer. Like the long songs on those albums, “Visaton” functions as a trial by fire, an obstacle course to cross in order to obtain the ambient treasure on the second half of the album.

Yet, despite the best efforts of “Visaton,” Visa may be Delay’s most digestible album. Its accessibility largely owes to its length; it slides neatly by in 54 minutes, nearly half of them taken up by “Visaton.” In its brevity and musical palate, it reminds me most of one of Ripatti’s earliest releases: the 42 minute Kemikoski, released in 1999 as Conoco. Most of his subsequent albums have been over an hour long. Could it be that Ripatti is looking backwards to a time when the joys of making electronic music were new and exciting? Perhaps his free time offered a solution.

Ricardo Acosta put on a great set at this year’s University of Oregon Campus Oktoberfest. Although the minimal tech house music he spun attracted a fervent group of followers, many audience members expecting the deep house and trap styles currently in vogue were disillusioned. In a prior interview, Acosta told me:

“There needs to be a way for people to be introduced to just how big the cave of electronic music is. I feel like people are right at the door, but it goes so much deeper, and I feel like people are going to open up – just give it time.”

This playlist, assembled by Acosta himself, should be the best conduit.  Here are ten key cuts that represent to Acosta the vast and varied world of electronic music.

Dominik Eulberg – “Der Tanz der Gluehwuermchen (Kollektiv Turmstrasse Dirt Glow Remix)”
“This is my favorite song from the German producer Dominik Eulberg. He’s one of the few producers that can master a slow, trancy techno vibe and still rock the dance floor.”

Heartthrob – “Baby Kate (Original Mix)”
“Nothing screams minimal more than the legendary record label Minus. Any song that comes out of this label is sure to be a bomb on the dance floor.”

The Japanese Popstars – “Out Of Nowhere (The Japanese Popstars Remix)”
“To get a release on Bedrock Records is not an easy task, but when you put out a song like this you are bound to crush the techno charts.”

Ambassador – “The Fade (Guy J Remix)”
“I saw Guy J perform in L.A. and I had an almost spiritual trip. It is too hard to explain – you have to listen for yourself.”

Mladen Tomic – “True Story (Original Mix)”
“This is my favorite song from the Suara record label. This song is a quick fix of pure tech-house energy that can get any crowd moving thanks to its contagious drums.”

Harvey Mckay – “Slip (Original Mix)”
“This is my favorite song at the moment, so just listen to it.”

Maxi Madrid – “Cacula (Original Mix)”
“I saw Reset Robot perform this song in my hometown two years ago, and the catchy synth line has been stuck in my head ever since.”

Luis Flores – “Program (Original Mix)”
“This one’s for those techno heads out there. Mexico’s leading techno artist and the forefather of the techno scene in my hometown Guadalajara delivers a killer tune.”

Daniel Maloso – “Boney (Original Mix)”
“Whenever I listen to this song it reminds me of jumping.”

Nic Fanciulli – “Cat out of the Bag (Original Mix)”
“This track is really special to me. A friend gave me a CD from the once-existing record label Renaissance. The first time I heard this track I experienced my first escape while listening to electronic music. This song just hypnotizes you into a state of trance like no other.”

Pink Floyd was at least four bands throughout its quarter-century existence, so comparing its first posthumous album The Endless River to the rest of the group’s legacy would be futile. And though the album bears the closest similarity to Floyd’s final David Gilmour-fronted incarnation – mainly because that’s who recorded it –, it’s worth noting that The Endless River was not meant to be a Floyd album at all. These are stoned jams recorded in the ’90s as The Big Spliff, and they sound like it.

The Endless River does not deserve to be promoted as the continuation of the band’s legacy, if only because it’s the slightest and least ambitious album Pink Floyd’s ever done. But it doesn’t deserve to simply rot and not be listened to. There is a lot of good material on this thing, and aside from the only vocal track, the rank “Louder Than Words,” there’s nothing truly cringe-inducing on it. I can’t say the same about A Momentary Lapse of Reason or The Division Bell, Floyd’s two prior records to this lineup.

Much of The Endless River‘s appeal owes to the fact that Gilmour is zeroing-in on the thing he does best here: making pretty sounds. Liberated from the colossal baggage of the Floyd name (at least at the time), the band members were able to harness their collective talents into an anything-goes pet project. It’s an archetypal side-project album, albeit one made by some of the most skilled musicians in rock.

As such, The Endless River‘s flaws must also be discussed in that context. Most of its major issues come from Gilmour’s tenuous grasp on what makes ambient music really work. Though this is a nice album to put on the background, it’s not texturally interesting enough to break through the barrier of the ears and start messing with the brain. Gilmour’s guitar and Richard Wright’s toothy synths are too familiar-sounding for them to evoke anything more than other Floyd albums.

I will probably listen to The Endless River a few times in the future, but it will probably never see heavy rotation on my iPod. Gilmour’s underrated solo album On An Island does everything The Endless River does much better, while I will almost always choose an actual ambient artist like Gas or Vladislav Delay if I want to hear background music. But The Endless River isn’t anywhere near as dreadful as it could have been, and, by playing to the band’s strengths, actually ends up being a pretty solid album.

Since Measure 91 was approved and you can’t legally light up until July, it may seem too early to recommend good albums by which to get high. But as Oregon’s new marijuana laws still forbid toking in public places, stoner behavior in Eugene isn’t likely to change too much once the legislation goes into action.

You can celebrate Oregon’s victory now with these albums and your favorite still-illegal substances — or wait to listen until you can walk down the street with a sack without worry. These four albums cover most of the bases a good stoner album should, but I’ve recommended a few others, should they not suit your taste.

Madvillain – Madvillainy

Hip-hop is the most weed-friendly popular music genre, and as such, there’s no shortage of great stoner rap albums. Madvillainy is my pick because of its broad crossover appeal, which owes not to pop compromise but to the sheer strength of the rapping and production. It also contains “America’s Most Blunted,” the most eloquent song ever written about shoplifting cigar wrappers.

Recommended scenario: social smoking, joint rolling
Recommended strain pairing: Northern Lights
Others: Doggystyle by Snoop Dogg, Pilot Talk by Curren$y, The Unseen by Quasimoto

Gonjasufi – A Sufi And A Killer

The debut from the in-house vocalist for L.A. electronic label Brainfeeder is made explicitly with weed in mind — just look at the guy’s name. Beginning with warped but catchy pop songs, the sprawling Sufi quickly devolves into more experimental but no less interesting and listenable territory. As a front-to-back listen, no album I’ve heard better fits the natural progression of a weed high.

Recommended scenario: Anywhere where good speakers can be found
Recommended strain pairing: Lavender Goo
Others: Cosmogramma by Flying Lotus, The Golden Age Of Apocalypse by Thundercat, Cerulean by Baths

Pink Floyd – Piper At The Gates Of Dawn

Many of us have heard Floyd’s 1970s work to death, but even major fans often sleep on the band’s early work with Syd Barrett. 1967’s Piper is the most batshit-weird album of the band’s career, succeeding through replacing the elaborate studio effects favored by The Beatles with simple but effective tricks like odd percussion and impressionistic, animalistic backing vocals.

Recommended scenario: headphones, smoking alone
Recommended strain pairing: Sour Diesel
Others: Sung Tongs by Animal Collective, The Smile Sessions by The Beach Boys, every other Pink Floyd album

Tame Impala – Innerspeaker

Tame Impala mastermind Kevin Parker wears his social anxiety on his sleeves. A lot of stoners clam up when they’re high, and Parker’s music connects the maelstrom of thoughts inside his head with his outward shyness. But Innerspeaker isn’t depressing; rather, its phased-out, classic rock-indebted tunes are often more conducive to a good high than acting social.

Recommended scenario: The artist would prefer you listen alone, though fine for small groups and intimate settings
Recommended strain pairing: Blueberry Kush
Others: Revolver by the Beatles, Electric Ladyland by Jimi Hendrix, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips

Follow Daniel Bromfield on Twitter @bromf3

Indie music is where alternative rock was two decades ago – once a vibrant and exciting scene, now an aesthetic that’s been watered-down into a pop-industry product.  A few years ago, corporate “indie” was pretty innocuous – just a mess of beards, banjos and brown-hued album covers. But now the labels are growing power-hungry, everyone’s decided they want to sound like James Blunt, and things are going down the toilet.  Here are a few of the worst “indie” bands on the market right now.

(Note: these are my personal opinions and do not reflect on the entire Emerald)

1. Alt-J. We’ve had a James Blunt-wannabe sing over dubstep before; his name was Alex “Too Close” Clare, and he’s not half as revolutionary as college kids seem to think Alt-J is.  It’s a sad time for music if this can pass for originality, and even sadder if anyone actually thinks they’re doing anything for sexuality in music; Joe Newman sings about sex about as eloquently as Steve Carell’s character in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

2. The Lumineers. I’d reserve this space for Mumford & Sons if I loathed them as much as what they’ve wrought, i.e. the popularity of this band. If you didn’t know singer Wesley Schultz wears a fedora, you could probably guess by his half-hearted folk approximations, which will sound instantly familiar to anyone who’s watched anyone play guitar at a party to get laid. He’s definitely in my top three people whose acoustic guitar I’d love to smash, John Belushi-style.

3. Passenger. Singer-songwriter Michael David Rosenberg has allegedly been around for a decade, but he’s just getting big now; unfortunately, it shows.  His disgustingly smoky voice is still stuck in an era where “You’re Beautiful” plays on the radio every five minutes, but his music suggests someone whispered “folk is big” in his ear sometime in the last couple years.

4. Echosmith. The ultimate band for the Pandora-listening generation, Echosmith is a “you may also like” for just about every major-league indie band in existence, from the xx to Arcade Fire to Young the Giant. The band members are four siblings, but you’d never guess it–they barely even sound human.  The fact that their father co-wrote most of their songs seems slightly sketchy. Are the Sierotas set to be the indie pop’s Jacksons?  I sure hope not.

5. Grouplove. Indie pop’s idea of grouplove is a lot more benign than dance music’s, which mainly involves taking drugs until you love everyone. With indie pop, it’s all about singing along to the “whoa-ohs” with everyone else in the crowd. Shit, that’s almost worse.

Honorable mentions:

– Birdy, one-woman indie-folk cover band and future Branson, Missouri attraction.

– Of Monsters And Men, an Icelandic band who sound desperate to get off the island and move to, like, Virginia or something.

– Timber Timbre, who need to learn that singing about trees hasn’t been sexy since Snoop Dogg ruled the charts.

– Imagine Dragons and that song “It’s Time,” which can just go to hell.

– And the OGs of “whoa-ohs” themselves (“whoa-OGs?”), Arcade Fire. 

Sorry, everyone.