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It's no longer a secret that I hold a deep disdain for most of the hipster music that runs across my desk. I try to give it a fair shot, but I just can't get into it. And a ton of it has come across my desk as of late, further igniting that fire of dislike while leaving me to wonder just what my problem is with that junk.

Rewind:

Hipster Garbage: The Indie Band Drinking Challenge, Round 1

So this is the second part to that illustrious blog you read yesterday about how I tortured my good friends into trying to drink away my hipster-music pain. Yep, I'm a certifiable asshole, in case you hadn't come to that conclusion on your own.

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Here's the deal. A lot of hipster garbage music lands on my desk. I want to try to like it, I really do. I listen to the streaming albums these artists send, and try not to giggle when they're dressed like bearded trees or sporting gender-bending granny clothing in a bid to look the part, but it's pretty absurd at this point. Despite the attempt by said bands at being so painfully different, it's becoming easy as hell to spot them.

These bands are also all beginning to sound like the next one; what used to be a distinctive use of layered vocals with a smattering of distortion has become pure, unadulterated junk. There's nothing original about it anymore -- every. Single. Hipster. Band is using the same technique. And not only are they using the same template for their albums, the majority of these albums are just not very good.

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Photo by Marco Torres

At least Val Kilmer was allegedly working on an upcoming Terrence Malick film at Fun Fun Fun Fest 2012.

So Ashton Kutcher allegedly got in a fight at the Stagecoach Music Festival. I know, it's a little mind-boggling, that whole idea. Ashton Kutcher was not only at a country-music festival, but reports say he somehow managed to stay true to his douche-roots and get into a fistfight with a security guard over a chick. I guess it can get more demoralizing than when he made an ass out of himself at the Country Music Awards. I'm borderline impressed with his abilities.

But this blog isn't focusing on good ol' Mr. Kutcher's constant fame-seeking.This is about all of the actor fame-seeking that's been taking over music festivals and stomping them into the ground.

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Ed. Note: This hot mess originally appeared on our Miami sister paper New Times's music blog Crossfade.

Photo by Jacob Katel

Welcome to Ravetopia.

Society got the best of ya? Go to Miami's Ultra Music Festival and leave the normal world behind.

Here, you can feel free to get half-naked, customize your brain and put some neon in your life. Deep inside the endless well of bass, you just might find yourself.

Here are 13 hardcore ravers who will teach you the ways of Ravetopia, in animated GIF.

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When I first heard about Macklemore, it was through the word of mouth surrounding the craze over his video for the song "Thrift Shop." Memes make stars these days, and the kitschy, comedic video and song about wearing clothes from Goodwill really struck a chord with my young, hipster peers.

I was finally forced to listen to the damn song, just to understand what everybody was freaking out about, and in doing so, I stumbled upon a terrible secret Macklemore and his partner in crime Ryan Lewis have been hiding from all my friends and erstwhile hipsters around the world: He's not really that good.

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I have to admit, I'm not the biggest My Bloody Valentine fan in the world. I thoroughly enjoy Loveless and their newest record, mbv, but they're not my favorite band.

I guess that's why I wasn't aware until the band released a statement about it that people are selling that new record for assloads of money on eBay.

The funny thing is, out of all those people selling those ridiculously priced copies of it, none of them actually has the record. Yes, before you get your hopes up, as the band said in that statement, all those auctions are fake.

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Legendary guitarist Johnny Marr is set to release his first ever solo record next month after years of being a sideman for other bands, some rather important. In anticipation, he's had some choice words to say that one would have expected more from his less level-headed ex-Smiths compatriot Morrissey. Specifically, Marr claimed in a recent interview with the UK's The Guardian that the Smiths invented indie-rock as we know it today.

While I won't argue with Mr. Marr on the Smiths' being massively influential on indie-rock, I do have to pipe up and say that he may be taking a bit too much credit by saying they "invented" the modern indie-rock sound, a conglomerate culled from a myriad of sources, from Phil Spector to Phil Collins.

Even some of the Smiths' contemporaries had just as big of an influence on the scene, and today I'd like to point out some of the biggest and best of those names to remind Marr that he's not the only pioneer of jangly guitars and haunting, pained vocal melodies.

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Note: Liz Tracy, Music Editor of our sister paper Broward-Palm Beach New Times, is aboard the S.S. Coachella cruise this week while Houston continues waiting around for winter.

Photo by Timothy Norris/LA Weekly

Jarvis Cocker at the Wiltern in L.A.

No one's really interested in reading about the actual performances taking place on this musical ship of contradictions, the S.S. Coachella, amirite? Instead, you want a spoonful of gossipy anecdotal sugar, straight from the decks of this funny ship.

As you might have seen, Pulp was the largest name at the top of the S.S. Coachella flyer. The band played almost two power hours on Sunday night, making cruisers swoon with Anglophilic adoration. But Jarvis Cocker -- the man whose name was being whispered all around the ship -- didn't sit in his room or hide out like James Murphy (the chupacabra of the boat, whom I have only spotted offstage).

No, Cocker made his way around the ship on Tuesday to watch other acts. He appeared to be wearing the same mud-colored suit he donned during Monday's performance. But it, well, suited him. His hair messy, sipping a drink, in oversized glasses, Jarvis appeared to be having a reserved sort of good time.

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After having grown up in a pop-music culture that every day grows more adept at rehashing, re-imagining and (let's be frank) flat-out stealing sounds from those who came before, today's indie bands are no strangers to aping their influences. And unlike post-punk and grunge before them, this class doesn't just name-check their idols, it goes full impersonation.

Indie workhorse M. Ward, when not collaborating with every single female singer-songwriter in hipsterdom, has made a career of reworking myriad songs from 1950 on. Not to be outdone,The Bird and The Bee recorded a love note to Hall and Oates that single-handedly got the "Maneater" soft-rock duo back into royalty checks.

That leaves us, the fans, with a somewhat homogeneous group of musicians who are capable of imitating a broad spectrum of their predecessors. The problem is they don't always pick well. For every Gayngs covering Godley and Creme's "Cry," complete with homage music video, there are five "ironic" Kenny Loggins covers.

Instead, it's probably best (for all involved) for us to pick the tracks to cover, lest you be awash in heartfelt Wham! updates. So without further ado, here are Rocks Off's Top 5 songs in need of hipster updates and our choices for who should take the helm.

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The bands on this list took this too seriously.

In case you hadn't noticed, the '80s are back. They have been for a few years, but it seems like with each passing year we get more and more new bands wearing their influences on their sleeve. That's putting it mildly. The influence is, in fact, so pervasive as to make these bands practically offensive carbon copies of the originals.

The best, like any generation, blend their influences into their sounds to present us with something new that merely reminds us of the old. After all, Led Zeppelin copied blues artists relentlessly, yet no one would question that they took that and did their own thing with it.

This is seemingly a lost art, however, in an atmosphere where many have figured out the exact specs of the instruments used by the original musicians so as to copy their sounds even more efficiently. So consider this your guide to who's acting as a Xerox machine this year.

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