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Music

Shut Up Old Men, These Are The Modern Day Musical Masters

We may not have magazine spreads blue-tacked to bedroom ceilings, but we do have our own icons, and our own musical virtuosos.
Ryan Bassil
London, GB

Image by Marta Parszeniew

Pessimistic old Youtube commenters are starting to bum me out. They lambaste the music of today for “being nothing like the [insert the decade of their adolescence here]” and then log on to the main cultural platform of contemporary culture to whinge about it. They’ll tell you that “Tupac didn’t die for this shit”, and “Odd Future’s got nothing on Tha Alkaholiks” and trawl through shredding videos just so they can claim that no one was ever ever as good at guitar as Joe Satriani. Yes, I know they’re only doing it to troll me, but guess what? It works.

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So instead of just taking a deep breath and getting on with my day, I’ve written this article to prove them wrong. We may not have magazine spreads blue-tacked to bedroom ceilings, but we do have our own icons, and our own musical virtuosos. We have masters of instruments, cultural change-agents, business moguls, and general badasses. Here is a list of them:

The Bassist: Thundercat

Stephen Bruner, known to the world as Thundercat, put out his second record, Apocalypse, this year. It's a consistently rich collection of off-piste compositions undertoned with varying shades of darkness, all driven by his maverick approach to the bass guitar. He’s updating the 1970s funk fusion of Herbie Hancock and Roy Ayers, bring his calloused fret fingers to the aid of everyone from Erkyah Badu to Snoop Dogg to punk veterans Suicidal Tendencies. His realisation of jazz music virtuosity combined with hardcore punk elements transforms the bass from a bit player to the star of the show.

Of course, most people who make a big deal of playing the bass make terrible music, full of thawacking slap solos and unecessary fiddly bits. But Thundercat is brilliantly melodic. “Oh Sheit it’s X!” is straight on the wedding playlist that I’m combining in my head and should be on yours too.

The Business Moguls: Christian and Kelly Clancy

Odd Future are the biggest hip-hop collective in the world. But without the Clancys, Tyler and Co could still be shuffling for change outside Fat Burger and slogging their music on Hype Beast forums. Christian Clancy, known to Golf Wang conglomerates as “Clancy”, started out in music in the late 90s. He was mentored by Paul Rosenburg, and headed up the marketing of a little known album called The Marshall Mathers LP. Kelly also interned in the same offices, and after they both worked with the most culturally resonating hip-hop artists of that era – 50 Cent, G-Unit, the Game – they dated, got married, and had a kid (here’s a video of her and Tyler).

In 2010, Clancy heard Tyler, The Creators “French” and it reignited his passion. “It was fascinating to see a group of kids that truly thought for themselves,” Christian said, in an interview with Buzzfeed. “They were everything I missed in the record business. It was 'fuck you' but it was confidence and it was self-contained and it was theirs and it was authentic and it was pain and a lot of fatherless kids.” They’ve since mentored every member of Odd Future, acting as on-tour parents, and helped to make music an event again. They didn’t build the talent, but they nurtured the house that it lives in. In return, Tyler’s made a quarter of a million off of socks, the group have their own network TV show, and last month, threw their own carnival complete with a skate park and Kanye West.

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The Guitarist: King Krule

Even though everyone is desperate for it to die, guitar music is still alive. Yes its Kings (Of Leon) are tired old blokes who keep making the same album for increasingly ungrateful subjects. But there are those insurrectionist outsiders still trying to make something urgent out of six strings. Their leader is King Krule. His debut record, released this year, was one of the most satisfying introductions by a British artist in years.

Of course, I’m not about to liken him to Hendrix, J Mascis, or Keith Richards, because he’s young and his music is of a completely different ilk. But in the same way that Mascis can aggressively hammer on the B string and evoke the feeling of walking out of a two-year relationship with your head held fucking high, King Krule can make jazz chords that sound like riding on the number 8 bus at 4am. It’s a sound scopic quality that many artists don’t have, and it’s what separates him from the thousand other divs who’ve bought a Telecaster and wouldn’t know where to begin when explaining how to play a C minor sixth chord. Last month, he played on both Letterman and Conan, Beyonce loves him (!!1!1!), and he’s basically achieved what every artist from The Kooks through to Drenge have dreamt about: breaking America without having to compromise on a thing.

The Drummer: Zach Hill

Death Grips put a dick on the front of their album cover and everyone thought that they were fucking cool anti-authoritarian figures who fucked corporations in the arse. A year later, they didn’t turn up to a show, and the same people then thought that they were arseholes who didn't look after their fans. People are weird.

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But regardless of all that bullshit, Zach Hill is an incredible drummer. He started out with Hella, a rock-band from Sacramento in California, in which he played the sort of drum patterns that have lead me to believe he has at least five arms. Since then he’s also played drums with Wavves, Marnie Stern, and on about a trillion other releases. I’m not really into drumming enough to know what it means more than sounding awesome, so I logged on to the internet to find out why Zach’s style is cooler than everyone elses. I learnt that “A unique aspect of Zach's style is his liberal use of unconventional sounding cymbals, often referred to as "trash" cymbals. His most commonly and characteristically used trash cymbal consists of broken cymbals (usually between 3 and 4) stacked on top of each other, mounted just to his right of his high tom”. So, sure, Rick Allen could play drums with only one hand, Keith Moon could bang-around on some skin and have people call it legendary, but Zach Hill can play broken cymbals in two different bands that both manage to sound like an apocalyptic conclusion to the world and still smack the shit out of any drummer doing their thing in 2013.

The Voice: Willis Earl Beal

Tom Waits didn’t work on his unusual voice, it's just what came out when he opened his mouth. That, and he ingested enough Marlboro Reds, cocaine, and liquor to kill a baby rhinoceros. Willis Earl Beal doesn’t sound anything like Tom Waits, but he’s got the same sort of gravelly soul that sounds like it’s owned by someone that doesn’t care if their trousers are covered in oil or their shirt is filled with holes as long as they’ve got enough hard liquour to have a good time.

Beal's music is raw, and aggressive, but with shades of entrapment and loneliness riding throughout. A while back, Willis Earl Beal was homeless. And not homeless in the sense that he couch-surfed through a carousel of friends with apartments that were paid for by their parents. He was literally homeless. Sleeping on the streets of Albuquerque, Willis worked a bunch of entry-level jobs and started to write and record CD-R’s, which he would leave in public locations alongside his illustrations. He later signed to XL, put out a record, and this year followed it up with the neo-soul fantasia sophomore release, Nobody Knows. It’s a record that cuts fierce, his voice able to carry the most stripped back tunes all the way into your head and right out of your eyes.

The Songwriter: Dev Hynes

Watch all of these and then tell me again how you don’t believe that Devonte Hynes is the most elasticated songwriter of our generation.

The Artist With a Miscalculated Sense of Self-Entitlement: Azealia Banks

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The Bridge Between Music and Fashion: M.I.A

Lots and lots of musicians are intrinsically tied to fashion. Madonna has been on the cover of Vogue more times than I’ve read it, Bowie probably keeps Kate Moss’s Ziggy Stardust cover in a wooden box under his bed and a whole bunch of music awards have a category for best dressed. Artists like Kanye West, A$AP Rocky and urm, the guy from One Night Only (Burberry model, holla!), have expressed a strong interest in fashion. Yeezy sold plain white t-shirts for $120 like only a fashion designer would. However, none of those artists embody both worlds and no one has straddled the line between the aural composition and A/W collection better than M.I.A. She’s studied at the advanced paint by numbers art school Central St Martins, her Uncle was “the first brown person to have a market stall on Petticoat Lane”, and she’s released her own collaboration with Versace. At the age of 38, Maya looks flawless in everything that she wears, and I wish that she was my friend. A couple of weeks ago, she helped i-D launch their new website, and if that doesn’t spell out an artist who truly embodies fashion, then I’ll go and excuse myself back to the changing rooms in BHS.

The Young Label Head: Solange Knowles

![](https://images.vice.com/noisey/content-images/contentimage/20947/Solange Knowles - Losing You (Video).jpg) At the age of 24 Sean Combs founded Bad Boy Records, put out one of the best hip hop releases of all time (Ready To Die) and appeared in almost every one of his artists' videos to show support. Twenty years later and Diddy isn’t doing much, other than pushing his own Revolt TV channel (and other things that make him rich). Diddy liked to push his own face alongside his artists, whereas Solange Knowles, 27, is slightly more behind the scenes. Last month she put out the first compilation record under her new imprint Saint Records. The release, which features a bunch of people from Jhene Aiko to Kelela, is basically a celebration of awesome, but over-looked R&B artists. It’s the blueprint which when multiplied with the beauteous smash of “Losing You” and Solange’s recently inked fashion deals, should blossom into a flourishing low-key palace.

The Pianist: Austin Peralta

RIP Follow Ryan on Twitter: @RyanBassil Read more like this: What Your Shitty Music Taste Says About You Don't Let Mumford & Sons Trick You Into Liking Them Please Kill All These Music Video Clichés in 2014