Why I Hate "The OC"

Mini-rant time. I really hate "the OC", but not for the usual reasons of it being a crappy teenage drama. I can forgive that. I was young and stupid once. I used to like "Beverly Hills 90210" during junior high and high school. I know the value of a little teen angst, hell I even grew sideburns to be more like Luke Perry. The reason I hate "the OC" is more subtle: the saturation of good indie bands. More and more recent Tiger Beat graduates are discovering lovely bands like the Walkmen, Death Cab for Cutie, Elefant, and Modest Mouse without ever having to pay their dues. Yes, dues. Now teeny-boppers can buy tracks from these bands on convenient mix cd's at Walmart. If you look at the reviews of the OC Mix 2 at Amazon and you'll see that these kiddos are spouting on about Interpol, Nada Surf, and Jeff Buckley. It doesn't really bother me that much that the bands have sold out to be on the show. I can understand they might want to make a few dollars after years of being starving artists. What bothers me is the easy access the pre-teens have to this stuff. Half the pleasure in indie music is having to dig up info on new bands by scouring through the web, press, and word of mouth. There's no effort in the discovery any more. That's why I propose a new law that in order to purchase the OC mix cd's, you must prove that you have adequate knowledge of the following bands:

• Echo and the Bunnymen
• Pavement
• The Cure
• Blur
• The Pixies
• name of influential band here

I may sound like a bitter asshole (because I am), but to really appreciate some of these new indie acts, it helps to know where the music came from.