The Rise and Fall of the ‘Hipster Music’ Era, 2000-2014: VICE’s Definitive Timeline - VICE

In recent days, our timelines have broken out into a huge, sprawling fight about when the “hipster era” really was, who hipsters really were, and—by extension—what music they were actually listening to. It felt like an argument that was made for us to step into and settle. 

So, here it is: the definitive timeline of what hipsters were soundtracking their lives with between 2000 and 2014 (even if they’ll now tell you otherwise), beginning at the dawn of electroclash and terminating in Future Islands’ performance of “Seasons (Waiting on You)” on Letterman in the spring of that final year, which always felt like an elegy to something more than one funny little man’s on-off love affair. With 12 years’ hindsight, the footage now registers as a farewell to an entire era of hipster irony that in Samuel T. Herring found both its ultimate expression and final boss: a dancing American dressed all in black, grappling with sincerity and frightening people with his feelings while some synths buzz in the background.

As we said, this week has seen multiple sides engaging in a form of ideological warfare over who and what “hipsters” really were. At some point in the late 00s, for reasons we’ll attempt to pin down later, there was a bifurcation in the hipster chronology that resulted in a “dark timeline” running in parallel to its primary stream. Populating what we might call the “Stomp Clap Hey” timeline, these dismal abstractions—kitted out in lensless glasses, silly scarves, waxed ‘taches, and toques—displayed no real interest in progressive music or fashion (or, come to think of it, fun). As such they weren’t really “hipsters” at all, but retrograde copyists engaged in a twee and stoic reenactment of the hipsterisms they’d seen in ads and social media posts—perhaps on an iPhone, millions of which had been tossed into the world like unpinned grenades in 2007. By 2008, “hipsters” in places like New York City, LA, London, and Paris were utterly different from what a “hipster” was anywhere outside of the major cities.

We’ll explore this argument in an accompanying article to follow; for now, the crux is really this: While the hipster timeline is elastic and forgiving, no church is so broad that it can possibly welcome both FannyPack and Mumford & Sons into its flock.

An important disclaimer: These bands and their music aren’t necessarily things that we ever thought were, or should be considered, “hip,” they simply make up a chronology of what was widely accepted as such by the zeitgeist. (For better or for worse, the zeitgeist is yet to fully endorse Nurse With Wound, La Monte Young, Nisennenmondai, Death In June, Munly J. Munly, or any of the other acts lurking in the most arcane parts of your record collection.) We have tried to make sense of shifts in styles and tastes by injecting the timeline with key events in TV, cinema, tech, fashion, and the economy, though really, as with any attempt to make sense of the world as it was a quarter of a century ago, this is a doomed act of hazy guesswork. However, as figments of the past emerge through the mist, there are certain things that even with the passage of time seem undeniable: that the first 14 years of the century was a boomtime for silly new microgenres, that the relationship between music and synthetic drug consumption is perhaps underplayed in this era, and that—for a fleeting moment at least—Animal Collective really did feel like the biggest band on Earth. 

Oh: and 2009 was definitely, inarguably, when the hipster era peaked.

––––––PITCHFORK, NEWLY RELOCATED TO CHICAGO FROM MINNEAPOLIS, AWARDS RADIOHEAD’S CONTROVERSIALLY GUITAR-FREE ELECTRONICA ALBUM KID A 10.0 (“I HAD NEVER SEEN A SHOOTING STAR BEFORE”)

––––––ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES FESTIVAL (ATP) TAKES OVER A HOLIDAY CAMP IN THE UK FOR ITS FIRST WEEKEND-LONG EVENT (THE CONCEPT: GET WASTED WITH YOUR BEST FRIENDS IN A CHALET THEN GO SEE SOME OF THE BEST BANDS OF ALL TIME). MOGWAI CURATES THE LINEUP, WHICH FEATURES SONIC YOUTH, APHEX TWIN, AND SOMETHING CALLED “BOBBY GILLESPIE’S HAIR”

What Hipsters Were Listening to: Erol Alkan, Moldy Peaches, Broken Social Scene, The Shins, The Parkinsons, Har Mar Superstar, Destroyer, Ikara Colt, The Icarus Line, A.R.E. Weapons, The Strokes, Roots Manuva, Microphones, Liars, Neutral Milk Hotel (still)Dubious Microgenre(s) of the Year: The Scene With No NameSong That Was Huge: Fischerspooner, “Emerge” Song That Should’ve Been Huge: Golden Boy & Miss Kittin, “Rippin Kittin”

What Hipsters Were Listening to: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Unicorns, WHY?, !!!, Xiu Xiu, Lightning Bolt, Songs: Ohia, Deerhoof, Dizzee Rascal, HORSE the Band, The Books, British Sea Power, Blood Brothers, Help She Can’t Swim, Devendra BanhartDubious Microgenre(s) of the Year: Sasscore / NintendocoreSong That Was Huge: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Maps”Song That Should’ve Been Huge: !!!, “Me and Giuliani Down by the School Yard – A True Story”

What Hipsters Were Listening to: Death From Above 1979, Arcade Fire, Test Icicles, TV on the Radio, Arctic Monkeys, The Knife, Danger Mouse, Black Mountain / Pink Mountaintops, DIG!, CocoRosie, Phoenix, Feist, Ratatat, Joanna Newsom, Wolf Eyes, Black Dice, Animal CollectiveDubious Microgenre(s) of the Year: Freak FolkSong That Was Huge: The Walkmen, “The Rat”Song That Should’ve Been Huge: Pink Mountaintops, “Tourist in Your Town”

What Hipsters Were Listening to: Uffie, Simian Mobile Disco, Justice, DJ Medhi, Digitalism, Klaxons, The Gossip, MIA, Bit Shifter, J Dilla, Jay Reatard, Fucked Up, Los Campesinos!, Beirut, Kap Bambino, MSTRKRFT, Beach House, Band of Horses, John Maus, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Girl Talk, The Field, posthumous Arthur Russell B-sides Dubious Microgenre(s) of the Year: Nu-RaveSong That Was Huge: Justice vs Simian, “We Are Your Friends”Another Song That Was Huge That We Can’t Not Mention: The Gossip, “Standing in the Way of Control”

What Hipsters Were Listening to: No Age, Abe Vigoda [and the rest of Los Angeles’ The Smell scene], Deerhunter, Telepathe, Salem, Memory Cassette / Weird Tapes / Memory Tapes, Times New Viking, Nite Jewel, Flying Lotus, Vampire Weekend, James Ferraro, Steel Train, Girls, Chair Lift, Monotonix, Arch M, Lightspeed Champion, The Cool Kids, be your own PET, Pens, Hot Chip, Zomby, The BugDubious Microgenre(s) of the Year: Witch House / Shitgaze / Lo-Fi / Nu-GamelanSong That Was Huge: Santigold, “L.E.S Artistes” Song That Should’ve Been Huge: Arch M, “Cat Grave”

––––––ATP GOES GLOBAL, HOSTING ITS FIRST FESTIVAL IN NEW YORK—FEATURING MY BLOODY VALENTINE, MEAT PUPPETS, AND DINOSAUR JR.—AND CURATES STAGES AT PRIMAVERA SOUND (BARCELONA) AND PITCHFORK FESTIVAL (CHICAGO)

What Hipsters Were Listening to: HEALTH, Joy Orbison, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, Washed Out, Blank Dogs, Wavves, Best Coast, Lil B, Wild Nothing, Jay Electronica, Kurt Vile, Fuck Buttons, The xx, Real Estate, Teengirl Fantasy, HockeyDubious Microgenre(s) of the Year: Vaporwave / Chillwave / Glo Fi / BeachgazeSongs That Were Huge: Animal Collective, “My Girls” / Washed Out, “Feel It All Around” / Atlas Sound ft. Noah Lennox, “Walkabout” / The Juan Maclean, “Happy House”Song That Should’ve Been Huge: Oneohtrix Point Never, “Nobody Here”

What Hipsters Were Listening to: Sky Ferreira, Mac DeMarco, Kendrick Lamar, Fun., “I Love It” (Charli XCX arrives), Cloud Nothings, Japandroids, Tame Impala, The Men, everyone loves Bobby Womack for five minutes, Cigarettes After SexDubious Microgenre(s) of the Year: Bedroom PopSong That Was Huge: Grimes, “Oblivion”Song That Should’ve Been Huge: The Laurels, “Manic Saturday”

––––––THE GRAMMYS: “WHO IS BONNIE BEAR?”

––––––ATP ANNOUNCES ITS FINAL “END OF AN ERA” FESTIVALS, THE LAST RESIDENTIAL EVENTS IT WILL HOLD IN THE UK (IT ACTUALLY THROWS ONE MORE WEEKENDER, CURATED BY STEWART LEE IN 2016, WHICH GOES AHEAD DESPITE THE VENUE TELLING EVERYONE IT’S BEEN CANCELED). HOPE REMAINS THAT, IN SOME FORM OR ANOTHER, IT WILL CONTINUE BOOKING BANDS WELL INTO THE FUTURE, BUT IT GOES BUST THREE YEARS LATER, CANCELING A THREE-DAY EVENT AT A FORMER NATO BASE IN ICELAND

–––––“5 YEARS TIME” BY NOAH AND THE WHALE (FT. LAURA MARLING) RELEASES, STARTS WHISTLING ITS WAY TO 186.5 MILLION SPOTIFY PLAYS (AND COUNTING)