Explain why you think Summer Camp and Hurt are Postmodern or not.

Postmodernism, Postmodernism is something that many struggle to get their heads, a way of life that people fail to understand, it’s a theory that is often defined as being a rejection of Modernism, obviously, a unforeseen breaking of barriers, as well as a mixing of different cultures. Postmodernism can be seen be commonly seen in films and television products, but also in music.

Music is often stereotyped, your image, culture and social group often sets the standard of what genres you listen to, or in the eyes of people, what you music you ‘should’ listen to. Now, Postmodernism rejects this theory, different genres can be mixed, e.g. Hip Hop and Soul, look at ‘Watch the Throne’ for instance.

There are many bands that are now able to create music that they are not stereotyped with, all through Postmodernism. Look at Summer Camp, an English Two-Piece band from England. If somebody threw some headphones, and played one of their songs to you, you’d most probably think to yourself, “Your typical Indie band”, whereas if somebody played you the video to ‘Round for Moon’, it’s a whole new ball game. Before they’d released any actual images of themselves, Summer Camp still did a lot of marketing. This is a superb example of how you can use to Postmodernism to mess with peoples minds. For their album artworks and videos, Summer Camp used footage and images that were representative of American culture during the 1980’s, therefore you’d get the impression that they were a band from the states who grew up during the 1980’s, and few fans of television shows such as Different Strokes, and The Breakfast Club.

A critic of Postmodernism would say that Postmodernists are self indulgent and only care for themselves, doing things for their own enjoyment. Which is why I believe Summer Camp shows many signs of Postmodernism, they release a mysterious image of themselves, purely because if not aren’t offended if people think of being people who they are not.

Hurts, another British band, a band who have won NME Awards (Anti-pop awards), and got automatically categorised into being a indie, when front man Theo Hutchencraft was quoted as saying “This award is a victory for pop music”, after their triumph at the NME Awards. Which in my opinion is a great example of Postmodernism, they have broken boundaries of ‘pop’ and mainstream music, and made them accepted by organisations that aren’t as commercialised.

Hurts are more times than not selected into a ‘indie’ genre, but the music they create is actually a continuation of the Synth Pop era that took the UK by storm in the 1980’s, and was very pop friendly. This follows Jonathon Kramer’s theory that Postmodern music is a continuation of break, which is exactly what Hurts do, as they have revived synth pop music in a respectable manner.

Looking at all of Kramer’s theory on music, that is not the only theory that Hurts follow. He said audiences are both niche and mainstream. Bingo, that, without doubt applies to Hurt, their style of play adopts of mainstream audience, through the music they play, but their artistic essence is something that captures and attracts a very niche market.

They also follow bricolage, they have given this music a new meaning, although they obviously sound more modern compared to predecessors, they still follow suit in their musical play. Though Hurts don’t distribute the same meanings in their songs as bands such as Pet Shop Boys and Soft Cell did.

I firmly believe in my valid opinion, and I’m in no doubt that Hurts, though not traditionally, still hold Postmodern values, due to their mixing in cultures, and in the way that they create mainstream, but it attracts a niche market.

Finally, what does the future hold for Postmodern music? I couldn’t possibly say, for a genre such as Hip Hop, I believe that Postmodernism vibes will continue to run, it’s in their culture, and sampling is often vital to tracks, also in dance music, Postmodern music will most probably live on for a long time, the ‘success’ of it is something that I doubt, because the music created often fails to reach a big market, and therefore doesn’t gain much critique. However, in an alternative/indie music scene, something which I follow, I believe Hurts are a very unique band, which you rarely see nowadays, also Summer Camp, they made themselves stand out from a very overpopulated crowd of generic indie, using Postmodernism very well. However, apart from this, I don’t think that Postmodernism will have a particularly ‘successful’ future in the genre. This is mainly because many indie bands follow a strict culture, many a band who go on stage with a guitar in hand will, such as The Courteeners will show they’ve been influenced by The Stone Roses, and The Smiths, literally.

That’s just how they like it, though.