Bon Iver’s Listening Party Proves Melbourne Has Become A Parody Of Itself
Melbourne's thrown up a lot of bad stuff but this is definitely the worst.
No one in Australia really takes Melbourne seriously. Sure, we let the locals celebrate their “most liveable” city awards, but the main reason we put up with them is to have some kind of reference point that highlights just how great every other city in Australia (particularly Sydney) is.
In a way Melbourne is a lot like Bon Iver: everyone’s favourite, boring white dude indie rock band who were only good on Kanye West’s ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’. And even then only because they reminded you how bloody incredible all the other featured artists were. When you think about that album, what springs to mind? Nicki Minaj (Sydney), Rick Ross (Brisbane), Kid Cudi (Adelaide). Definitely not Bon Iver (Melbourne, obviously).
So what happens when you actually bring Melbourne and Bon Iver together? The absolute worst parody of contemporary ‘laneway culture’ (aka Melbourne culture) ever created.
Yesterday Bon Iver dropped this post on Instagram:
It was clearly an attempt to be cryptic, but since everyone knew there was a new album coming out it was fairly obvious this was going to be a listening party or showcase of some sort. So 6:30 rolls around and Melbourne’s keenest Bon Iver fans wander down to Fitzroy (where else), to be greeted with a small stereo, sitting on a table in a narrow alleyway. What was in the stereo?
A cassette playing the new Bon Iver album, ’22, A Million’.
Yep that’s right, just when you thought neither Bon Iver nor Melbourne could get any more cliche, we get a listening party, in an alley, on a tiny stereo, playing a fucking cassette.
Peak fkn Melbourne. Bunch of kids listening to new Bon Iver.
In a laneway.
On cassette. pic.twitter.com/whxQmH08bZ— Jeremy Story Carter (@jstorycarter) September 29, 2016
Look at them all. There haven’t been that many white people crammed into a tight space since that ridiculous cafe started serving blue algae lattes. I honestly couldn’t think of a worst place to listen to new music than a cold alleyway with the tunes pumping out of a cassette.
The cassette was invented in 1962. Since then we have put people on the moon. We’ve invented the internet. There’s a reason we don’t use cassettes: they sound awful. The whole point of an exercise in uber-pretentiousness like this is get people like me so worked up we write rage-induced take-downs of it, inadvertently drawing attention to the key fact: There’s a new Bon Iver album.
I guess it worked, but hey, at least I got to make fun of Melbourne.