An admission: I've never seen one minute of "The O.C." Okay, maybe I tried to catch the one minute where the one skinny girl kissed the other skinny girl. But other than that, my experience with the show is made up entirely of promos glimpsed during commercial breaks of football games...okay, of "American Idol". Nothing I've seen from these 30-second flashes has put me off the common conclusion that the show is just Nu-"90210": teen drama taken to soap operatic exaggerations via an upper-bracket setting and emaciated people.
If that was all, "The O.C. " would be somewhere equivalent to "House" on my attentional scale, mere delay before hearing who's been voted home. But, of course, to the world Pitchfork inherits, "The O.C." has become much more, thanks to that scruffy haired character who doesn't look like Haley Joel Osment, and good old Death Cab for Cutie. Now mere mention of the show can induce a frantic feeling in slumped-shoulders zine-makers across the country, save for the segment that has (ironically? Double-reverse ironically? I'm too old to know any more) embraced the drama.
I don't think this allergic reaction has anything to do with the classic Sellout accusation, for surely we've all reached the post-modern point where we accept capitalism and don't begrudge our favorite bands for earning their fair ca$h money. No, I think "The O.C."'s boogeyman role has more to do with indie fans' perception of themselves than their worry for the eternal cred souls of the bands getting national exposure. That pang you're feeling when you hear the Walkmen on the show is the realization that indie lifestyle, in all of its anti-mainstream fervor, is just as commidifiable an identity as any high school hallway archetype, fit not only for the personality of an ensemble cast member but a whole slew of show-related merchandise...do they have "O.C." hoodies yet?
There's an uncomfortable fact about indie music underlying this realization as well, one that takes a lot of salty pride-swallowing to accept: Indie rock is just pop music, folks. Well, most of it is. It all makes so much sense in retrospect. I mean, obviously my 14-year-old fresh out of Vanilla Ice tapes self didn't fall in love with Crooked Rain Crooked Rain for Pavement's ability to innovate. It's 'cause they wrote pop songs, man, great pop songs, and even better for my age group, it was pop songs that nobody else was listening to! Well, okay, not as many people were listening to.
So every time "The O.C." releases one of their mix tapes (this is #4), it's like The Smoking Gun digging up an old crime report on the entire indie scene, blowing the cover on 1) its feelings of isolated superiority, and 2) its supposed disdain for pop music. Hell, even in my Zen-like well-adjusted state, I mentally flinched when I noticed that fully seven of the 12 tracks on this compilation were already somewhere in my digital archives, and that most are tracks that I myself would consider putting on a mix tape.
Unsurprisingly for a show that probably has a lot of montages of people walking alone on the beach and tearfully looking through shoeboxes full of old pictures and love letters and such, most of the tracks are from the glummer territories of indie rock. There's Pinback ("Fortress"), there's Sufjan ("To Be Alone With You"), and there's the Reindeer Section ("Cartwheels"), all whispery and acoustic-y. They're all fine songs, and the only thing unnerving about their inclusion is how well they segue from/into the radio-slick twee Dido-likes of Imogen Heap and Flunk. But if you hadn't already realized indie rock moved into an adult-contemporary phase a while back, you're in need of an alarm clock.
More spastic moments on the show (torrid beach volleyball matches? Jacuzzi fights?) are potentially scored by Futureheads ("Decent Days and Nights") or Modest Mouse (their dancepunk dalliance "The View"). A.C. Newman's "On the Table"-- like The Shins before him-- should serve as a nice gateway drug for teenagers to discover the record store, and one of Beck's new shambling country jams again make him look like the old guy at the frat party. Really, there's nothing terribly unpleasant here, save the sub-Maroon 5 act of someone called Bell X1 and a dreadful cover of "Champagne Supernova" from Matt Pond PA that adds nothing but string quartets and whininess to the godhead original.
So if this throwaway compilation has an underlying message, it's this: You're not special. That complex, detached, artfully depressed persona you've cultivated isn't unique; in fact, it's so easily simulated, the network that also brings you "Life on a Stick" can replicate it. But don't let it bring you down, it's only castles burning. Accelerate the inevitable: Embrace your lack of the unique, stop liking bands for their scarcity, enjoy the full spectrum of music, not just the portions with credibility directed prefixes. And don't forget to thank "The O.C." for saving you some time along the way.
I can remember the night “The O.C.” premiered August 5, 2003.
