State of the Vortex: 2023 wrap-up

by Snyde on Wed, Jan 3, 2024

On and on it spins.

As we step confidently toward the Vortex’s upcoming 6th anniversary, the roiling seas of music discourse have never been more frigid. Even the safe waters of the Vortex are awash in digression and disillusion. The Aussies are locked in a state of perpetual mental human centipede, the Ameros continue to foist their collective mental illness upon the world across yet another platform, and the Euros barely muster a peep on their most active days.

SotV wrap-up 2023

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State of the Vortex: Mid-year 2023

by Snyde on Thu, Jul 6, 2023

On and on it spins.

The musical stagnation of the 2020s is well documented around these parts. A quick look at the mainstream will tell you all you need to know, with no major developments since the hip hop boom of the 00s. Cultural footnotes such as dubstep, vaporwave, cloud rap and hyperpop certainly influenced the zeitgeist, but never gained a proper foothold. Thus, we stand at a point of complete cultural nihilism, doomed to repeat what has been popular or rebel against it, in ironic acknowledgment of its power.

SotV mid-year 2023

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State of the Vortex: 2022 wrap-up

by Snyde on Tue, Jan 10, 2023

On and on it spins.

2021 was pretty horrendous, musically. So bad in fact, that most of my music listening that year shifted away from the new releases and onto discovering past glories. That proved to be a much more rewarding experience than trawling through endless bandcamp pages searching for gold and going weeks and weeks without finding any. In 2022, I took yet another step further into my new role as a tourist, only listening to current albums that I truly had an interest in or had been brought up from the mire of the vortex.

SotV wrap-up 2022

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State of the Vortex: Mid-year 2022

by Snyde on Tue, Jul 5, 2022

On and on it spins.

We are 6 months into 2022 and things are looking dire. Worse than being infuriating or perplexing in any sort of amusing way, music in 2022 has been excruciatingly pedestrian. “Risk-taking” is a seemingly unheard-of term and bands that got big off the 2010s' resurgence in heavy music are now old enough to be completely out of ideas. You know the situation is perilous when even Alestorm can’t stoop to a new low, opting instead to recycle music they’ve released on their immediately preceding record.

SotV midyear 2022

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