It becoming like flu season now. Indie bar-band The Hold Steady have released a new album, Stay Positive, and critics have unanimously given it high, high marks. Don’t believe me? Check out the album’s Metacritic page, or this summary of the album’s reviews. With extended pieces on the band appearing in places like Salon.com and New York Magazine, it’s clear that they’ve become a rock band worthy of coverage by publications that generally do not give one lousy shit about rock bands.
All of this I find quite compelling, because I completely and totally despise this band.
I’ll be honest. I saw them play Philly in 2005, found it enjoyable enough in a beery, noisy way, and headed to the merch table to buy a copy of their breakthrough Separation Sunday. About a month later, I’d had enough of their tuneless jock-rock twaddle, their boring, overrated fixation with hard-drinking Catholic kids and, especially, frontman Craig Finn’s singular inability to stop bleating out the same arrhythmic note throughout the entire album.
Also, many of my best friends worship this band, so there’s that.
One more thing: Since those experiences, I’ve managed to wholly avoid any subsequent Hold Steady music (a testament, perhaps, to the fragmentation of American society). Please spare me any “Oh, you just haven’t heard the right album, Oats” posts. This band doesn’t need any more fans. Which brings me to the real crux of this post.
Why won’t rock critics give this band a bad review? Yes, I’m basically asking the same question Mr. Mod posed regarding Peter Gabriel, even if I was one of the most vocal opponents of his central thesis that time. Let me explain.
Now, I’m not hurting for someone to agree with me. This is the ’00s, after all, where the hate flows like fine wine, thanks to the internet. I’ve seen it on message boards and comments sections. I know I am not alone in my Hold Steady distaste.
You might find a bit of tempered praise, perhaps even disappointment in reviews of Stay Positive. But even these reviews denote a deep affection for the band. Matador Records co-head Gerard Cosloy famously derided the band as “later-period Soul Asylum fronted by Charles Nelson Reilly,” which is awesome, though a little unfair to CNR. Cosloy is something of a tastemaker, but still not a rock critic. What the hell’s going on here?
The rock press generally lives to hype ’em up and knock ’em down. Also, rock critics love to take sides. My boys Wilco have engendered deep divisions in rock-crit circles for years now, even with an album as easy-going as Sky Blue Sky. Why are The Hold Steady given free passes from these standard, perhaps even necessary, rock-press rites of passage? (See, guys? Like in Catholicism!) And how can this possibly be good for rock ‘n’ roll? Looks like The Cool Patrol is alive and well, and doing its to best kill any joy a curmudgeon like me might be able to salvage in these dark times.
I don’t know how anything The Hold Steady does wouldn’t be good for rock n’ roll, until they hit the wall where it’s all the same. Right now they sound tight like The E Street Band, but they aren’t 75 and singing about whatever angst 75 year olds have. I won’t tell you you “gotta listen to the right stuff,” because to be truthful, I think Separation Sunday is awesome. Maybe I like it because I grew up Catholic, but went to public schools and lived in a pretty safe, happy little town. I love that Finn mentions skipping out on CCD and getting trashed, because I did that, I guess. Plus, the guy has a nice turn of phrase like, She crashed into the Easter Mass with her hair done up in broken glass. She was limping left on broken heels, When she said father can I tell your congregation how a resurrection really feels?
That’s just cool. The fact that the band is a super tight wall of sound is just a bonus. So yeah, someone probably oughta bitch about them, so it may as well be you and Gerard Cosloy (who probably was spurned by them – I mean, he’s got a generally good roster, but Belle and Sebastian and Cat Power?). But isn’t a relatively unknown rock band getting a reasonably good review from writers with obvious deep affection for the band good for rock n’ roll? I think it is.
If the bits I’ve heard so far are representative, this may be that album. The songs I’ve heard are smacking hard of retread.
I’m not hearing anything in the Hold Steady that the Weakerthans haven’t been doing better, either lyrically or musically.
What I’ve liked about this band when I’ve seen them on Late Night shows and heard songs on the radio is the fact that they ROCK in ways bands rarely rock these days. They’re a little like Mott the Hoople, at their best.
What I quickly tired of is the Springsteen stuff and the keyboardist who looks like Mink DeVille (he just creeps me out). That Finn guy spits out a lot of words, like The Boss. I usually don’t go for too many words in a song.
I wonder if The Cool Patrol’s undying love for these guys is a way of their maintaining some actual rock cred. And is there a touch of irony behind loving an indie band that’s like Southside Johnny Revisited? How many Air albums can a hipster laud without needing to get behind at least one guitar-rock band?
I’ve never knowingly heard this band’s music. I figured, as a longtime Springsteen fan, I might like it. But everything I’ve ever read about the band, and they do get written about a lot, makes it seem like the whole thing is about alcohol. I’m not a teetotaler, but I don’t find alcohol a very interesting subject for songs, and I’m not impressed by how much an artist can drink.
As regards the reviews, I do find it strange that critics who would find it hard to write a kind word about Springsteen drool all over the Hold Steady.
I do like the singer’s Look though.
Definitely. I sometimes suspect that despite the anti-rockist movement, nothing much changed: Rock critics still like to basically hear their worldview refracted back at them by a bunch of boozy non-lookers. All well and good, but I feel like The Hold Steady pander to their audience, serving them the same old, same old. Where’s the Hold Steady album that dares to piss off their fans? I predict this band will fall into the same ghetto as latter-day Richard Thompson, making finely crafted, well-received albums that are completely indistinguishable from one another that the same group of people buy over and over again. And again, there’s nothing wrong with that. But as a result I don’t think they deserve to be treated as standard-bearers.
Of course, I’m barely talking about the music, maaannnn, now. I’m still really curious about the embargo on critics writing anything mean about them. Do you fall into a black hole if you pitch a story like that to someone? HVB and Saturnismine — have you heard these guys? What do you think?
Amen, brother. Too bad they didn’t write a few albums about Catholicism; maybe U.S. indie fans would finally pay attention to them.
I too don’t want to have anything to do with this band. I heard a few snippets of songs and decided they were not for me.
We went to see Art Brut on the tour they did opening for them and we left after their set before the Hold Steady played a note.
That said I’ve heard Finn interviewed and he seems like a nice enough guy. But I just don’t like his band.
I don’t. Yes the early to mid ’70s Springsteen influence is all over their music, but the key to their music is that it’s like a punk rock version of ’70s bar-rock ala Springsteen, Southside Johnny and even Mink DeVille. I’m not the first person who think that they’re like a mix between Husker Du and Springsteen, but I don’t think there’s a better way to describe them. For all of their obvious classic-rock moves and flourishes, this band would be impossible without Husker Du, The Replacements and Jawbreaker. I’m a huge fan of all of those bands, so I immediately got The Hold Steady. And personally, I think the last 2 albums are better than Separation Sunday. I like that one, but the songs on the last 2 albums are shorter and catchier, Finn spits out fewer words on them though he still gets in a lot of good lines and yeah the new one sounds almost exactly like the one before it. So what, though? As long as they keep making records I like, I’ll keep listening.
Oats and thegreat48 may be onto something, though. They’ll definitely have to switch things up at some point to stay interesting.
Plus, as someone who grew up loving the same hardcore punk that they obviously grew up on, I love that they have shout-outs to Profane Existence (an anarcho-punk record store and label based in Minneapolis), Youth of Today and 7 Seconds.
Purely by accident, I saw them play on Letterman last night. I failed to detect anything Husker Du-ish about them except in the Look category. Replacements maybe, but the Replacements’ music was more classic rock than punk, except for a brief period.
Like BigSteve, the Husker Du comparison threw me for a loop. I just went back and listened to a few of their songs. If I’m not looking at videos and seeing a heavy-set frontman I’m not getting the slightest sense of Husker Du influence. Oh, there was that quote I read from the Finn guy, “Seeing Bob Mould on stage with Husker Du in 1986 inspired me to continue eating a lot and not doing much physical activity beside the occasional beer league game of softball.”