Silversun Pickups

It only makes sense that Silversun Pickups hit it big at the end of the aughts. The Los Angeles band, after all, is a faceless, hollow rehash of just about every overhyped trend of the past ten years, from garage rock to post-punk to indie rock. Toeing the center line,...

By Jason Heller

July 22, 2010

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It only makes sense that Silversun Pickups hit it big at the end of the aughts. The Los Angeles band, after all, is a faceless, hollow rehash of just about every overhyped trend of the past ten years, from garage rock to post-punk to indie rock. Toeing the center line, of course, has often paid off for careerist enterprises like Silversun — a band whose carefully cultivated rawness and defanged angst are flaunted shamelessly on its most recent full-length, Swoon. Not that the bandmembers should feel any shame: They're raking in the bucks and may even be having fun. And since there's an inevitable '90s revival on its way any day now, Silversun's debt to Smashing Pumpkins — which outweighs the zealous Billy Corgan-ism of fellow L.A. sensation the Airborne Toxic Event — may set the group up for even more success in the next ten years. But that's cool. Every decade needs a little sonic wallpaper.

Jason Heller is a staff writer at Westword. He's the author of the book Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded (Melville House/Penguin Random House), and has contributed to the New Yorker, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and NPR.org. His work has won a Hugo Award and a Colorado Press Association Award.

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