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Originally Posted by Kuhb
I would give up on a fetishisation of 'the new', which in the case of bands like dds is actually 30+ years old postmodern juxtaposition with a lacquer of a novel superficiality (basically compress your synths and samples into the 'red', so it sounds impactful on phone and laptop speakers. Hello 90s loudness war. Hello Death Grips).
Be an unrepentant reactionary listener. Instead of listening for something novel, listen for things done well. Listen for the human in the art. The 20th century and its thrust of history and culture is over, but the human isn't. You might find these irrelevant old musicians wasting everyone's time with guitars and songwriting might have something of value after all.
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You make some strong points, even if there's a few things I'd take umbrage at (Death Grips are good, although their fanbase is likely the single most offputting one outside of the mainstream pop world). I'll accept that it's pretty funny to be talking about the now and the future for a vaporwave band, a genre so focused on imagined stylisation of the 80s (as well as being weirdly Orientalist), but it's hard to argue that it's not a significant scene in the modern world.
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of course there is value in the music of older artists - hell, some of the best shows I've been to are artists who've been on the nostalgia tour wave for a while. I'm thinking of the Breeders here; when I saw them last year they barely touched on their new material, and while that made for a fun show it would be a hollow argument if you were trying to sell them as a vital modern artist. And that's where my scepticism comes in - I'm a pessimist, I'm going to be surprised by any artist four decades into their career writing a new album that isn't just painting by numbers and a weak imitation of their old work. There's exceptions - the Cure's album from last year was excellent - but if I'm choosing between one artist's 12th album and another's 2nd, I'm going to go for the latter. And so these are the impulses we've got to balance out...