Read more
A sweeping and in-depth history of the Brooklyn music scene over ten years in Bloomberg''s New York, from a writer and concert producer who had a front-row view of it all In the tradition of Just Kids and Our Band Could Be Your Life , Ronen Givony’s Us v. Them chronicles the generation of young artists who came to Brooklyn in the mid-2000s: a small but seismic scene that coalesced under a billionaire mayor, a series of forever wars, and a music industry in free fall. In tandem with the impresarios and unlicensed venues that lined the Williamsburg waterfront, combining elements of noise and pop, a few became unlikely superstars. Meanwhile, countless flared and vanished, reminders of an unusually fertile moment--the age of indie--that now means little more than a term of marketing. Through reporting, research, and interviews with musicians, industry insiders, and individuals from Pitchfork , Vice, Scion, and the Red Bull Music Academy, Us v. Them examines the rise and fall of indie music in a post-Napster landscape, marked by vast disruption in technology, politics, economics, journalism, and patronage. At once a social history and an eyewitness account of an improbable decade, Us v. Them gives a critical analysis of what indie music was, is, and will be again in New York City.
