Sasha Frere-Jones hat wieder einmal einen Artikel für den New Yorker verfaßt, der mir wichtig genug scheint, ihn jedermann zu empfehlen. Dabei handelt es sich um eine Reihe von Beobachtungen zur Mischung von "schwarzer" und "weißer" Musik als Grundlage des Rock 'n' Roll, Rhythmus und Groove, der vor allem den zeitgenössischen Indiebands abzugehen scheint. SFJ schreibt:

"Where is the impulse to reach out to an audience—to entertain? I can imagine James Brown writing dull material. I can even imagine the Meters wearing out their fans by playing a little too long. But I can’t imagine any of these musicians retreating inward and settling for the lassitude and monotony that so many indie acts seem to confuse with authenticity and significance."

Ziemlich auf den Punkt gebracht, scheint mir. Es gibt auch eine 15minütige MP3 wo der Verfasser weiter auf seine Meinungen eingeht, zu finden hier.
["[In the 1990s] I started noticing that there were a lot of indie acts that were playing... it almost felt like I was seeing people play deliberately badly, terrible out-of-tune singing, terrible drumming... all of which can be great! I mean, the early days of punk-rock were full of that, but also the energy level just went down... I started buying all these records were the energy level was SO mid. It was like years of mumbling."]