May 062008
You find yourself with a fine “normal” person – be it at a family dinner, a work event, or what have you – who discovers that you’re a knowledgeable and passionate music fan. That person wants to talk turkey with you, excitedly asking what you think of Dave Matthews Band‘s latest CD or whether you’ve got tickets for the upcoming Eagles reunion tour. You swallow hard, take a deep breath, and begin to respond to their questions regarding your tastes in music. With what do you lead? Which bands and albums do you talk about loving first, so that they can make some sense of what you’re into? Where do you draw the line in your record collection, what records are off-limits for discussion with a “normal” person?
I don’t talk music with normal people often. When I started my new job, some people heard that music was my main interest. Unfortunately this meant I got invited to go to the ballet and to some kind of big band thing. It’s hard to make the case gracefully that you have very broad musical interests, but not THAT kind of music.
If asked, I usually start off by saying that my favorite artist is Bob Dylan. Depending on the reaction, I’ll go further or retreat.
Reacting to someone else’s musical taste is far more treacherous. Someone once asked me who my favorite singer was, and I said it was Charlie Rich. She responded, “Oh we like the same thing — mine is Joni Mitchell.” I don’t hate Joni Mitchell, but I was speechless just the same.
I try to take what I think of as the dbuskirk route. In most cases, I enjoy listening to people talking about bands they like and why. I may try to make a connection to my own preferences, but in general the less I have to talk about music, the better, I find. Yes, I’ve gotten that cynical.
I don’t think music acts as the great conversation starter anymore. If I meet a DMB or Eagles fan, chances are there’s something else we can talk about, like a favorite TV show or something. I’d argue TV has become the great conversation starter.
Also, Mr. Mod, are you still encountering Dave Matthews fans? I generally don’t. I have no scientific proof, but I bet he’s headed into Phil Collins territory: the formerly massively successful artist that few people will cop to liking anymore. It won’t be long before you have to contend with music bonding with Death Cab for Cutie fans.
Finally one more question for you all: What’s worse, making friends with someone with terrible taste, or meeting a total asshole who has the same taste as you.
I should point out that this element is not part of the classy dbuskirk strategy.
Meeting a total asshole with the same tastes as me would be a little too much like meeting myself.
I think the first is worse, but the latter may be more common, judging from the jerkoffs you see in a music club when you go see a band you like.
I can say from experience that when you have a more than casual interest in someone and they answer “Journey” to the question “what kind of music do you like?” it makes you think twice before proceeding.
The latter. I have my fair share of friends with questionable-to-lousy taste in music, but also enough who have good taste to maintain some balance. Plus, there are always a few reliable good bands in every genre who even people with awful taste will like well enough that you can reach some kind of accord for however long you’re going to be in a music-listening situation with them.
Total assholes who have the same taste as you can quickly help ruin something you like, if just by always showing up somewhere to be a drag on what was meant to be enjoyable. Or by spouting off on a band you like to the point that you start to worry that you’re like this to other people. I’m curious if Oats has a specific favorite artist in mind with an abnormally high asshole per capita count, or maybe just a particular asshole fan who has sabotaged an artist.
Of course, saying all this, just last week I did have a low moment that fell into the former category. I was out someplace with a very good friend of mine who happened to mention loudly (at least it seemed that way to me at the time) his enjoyment of a particularly bad, Dave Matthews-ian act, and I was briefly mortified by the idea that anyone in earshot would lump me in as a fan. I almost never have that kind of reaction, so I felt pretty lousy about it right away, but it happened. Also, I may be a total asshole.
You know, I have friends who don’t spend all their time listening to music. But even in those cases, what little music they listen to has to be decent or else I start to feel really irked. A little bit of classical in the background, fine. Like “Should I Stay or Should I Go” but not the rest of the Clash, fine. Present day female singer songwriters, okay, we can work with it. But, say, sleazy second-rate contemporary pop r ‘n’ b, and I’m out of there fast.
I hardly know anyone that listens to what I listen to. My friends that I’ve knon forever that used to listen to rock n roll with me either listen to the same stuff we grew up with, or country. Not real country, that Journey with cowboy hats stuff. So we talk about other stuff.
Some of my inlaws are former musicians, and one of them was here for a few days and he was singing some hip hop rump shaker none of us had ever heard by a guy named Florida. He said they played it all the time, and my only response was that he could push the button and listen to something else. I do work with a guy that listens to a lot of music I like, but we hardly ever see each other.
I agree with BigSteve – it’s hard to tell someone you love music, but not their music. Then again, I’m a snob and tend to wrinkle my nose at music I find particualarly distasteful. Someone I know wanted me to go see Steven Seagall at the House of Blues with him. He’s still a friend, but I have no memory of how I weaseled out of that without flat out laughing at him. I was in some kind of trance or something.
In answer to your fine question from above, Oats, the latter: meeting the asshole with the same tastes as one’s self is worse.
Yeah, I would prefer other assholes to be as different from me as possible, too. It’s a source of great enjoyment to make fun of friend’s tastes provided it is done in the proper spirit.
I fish around a bit to see if there is some common ground. If we don’t have anything in common musically, but they have a real, active interest in music that isn’t necessarily to my taste, I’m still up for finding out what they listen to. If they don’t seem to have an active interest in music (usually indicated by the phrase “Oh, I like all kinds of music”), I just let things drop.
Figuring out if there is common ground is a trick in and of itself because I no longer have any sense of perspective. I’m amazed at people who aren’t interested in digging below the surface, such as people who like Mustang Sally because it was in that movie but have no further interest in Wilson Picket (or Stax or southern soul or Atlantic r&b, etc). Or people who grew up listening to Led Zeppelin, the Stones, the Doors, Clapton the Allman Brothers, etc, but it never occurs to them to check out Willie Dixon or Howlin Wolf or Elmore James.
The only “friends” I have who like music are online (other bloggers, people in forum, i.e., you folks). My in-person friends talk about sports mostly. I think they all still like the same music we listened to in high school with maybe a little modern country thrown in, but it never really comes up. I assume they all think my website is just weird.
It’s only an issue if you can’t just agree to have different taste or level of interest, without having them try to apply some presumed “objective” reasoning. I’ve had arguments revolving around the artist’s motives, technical proficiency, melody, harmony, social value, and popularity as judgments. At this point, if I face that again, I’d just revert back to my everyman form, hide my calloused fingertips, and disavow all “expertise”. Enough of explaining why U2’s record sales don’t matter to me, why doing charity concerts don’t make the songs better, why playing five notes where one will do is counterproductive to my enjoyment, or why someone can sing a little flat and hit the spot anyway. Hey, I’m just a guy with opinions. Of COURSE they’re better than yours, but it would be arrogant to call attention to that.
I don’t run into this trouble too often. Many of my good friends are friends because of the shared interest in certain types of music or certain musicians. That’s often the starting point for the friendship and it goes from there. And I have to figure there’s a positive correlation between one’s taste in music and other things, so shared musical interests is often as good a basis as any for a more far-reaching friendship.
And I usually don’t have any trouble with other people who like very different kinds of music. Maybe it’s because I do sincerely like a wide variety of music. I’m conversant enough to discuss most any kind of music on a more than superficial level.
More troublesome to me are the people who just don’t care about music at all. I don’t understand that. I can’t imagine a life without music so these people are the same as aliens to me. It’s unlikely we’ll have any common ground. And, of course, they look at me as if I came from Saturn when they see thousands of CDs. I’ll take someone who loves Journey 100 times out of 100 to someone who doesn’t like music at all.
Going off on a tangent. Townsman PaulS, I was led to your website recently via a T Rex list I’m on. Someone there mentioned The Rosewood Thieves as being very Bolanish and I googled them. Recognizing the url from your postings I went to your site first. In a recent thread I said I was a sucker when reviews mentioned a similarity to T Rex and have been burned often. This band, though, sounds pretty darn good based on the mp3s on your site and on their myspace page. The band has Philly roots, any other townsmen familiar with them?
My friends with more “pedestrian” tastes (none of my friends are normal) tend avoid talking music with me for fear I am some snob and would just dismiss their tastes. I am far from an elitist. While I wonder why people get off on some stuff I call crap, if that music gives the same kind of joy I get out of what I listen too, I can’t argue.
I like to hear what they like and what they like about it. I’ve got an open ear to music and won’t dismiss anything. I often take the time to perhaps turn them on to some stuff they hasn’t been exposed to their ears. Usually their taste are so “pedestrian” because of lack of exposure to other sounds. They usually are quite grateful and pleased that I took the time to do so.
As previously stated by others, I have more issues with people who don’t feel ANY passion towards music. It is hard for me to find common ground.
The answer of “I like everything” is far more perplexing than any particular artist that I just don’t like. Do they just like the way sound waves emanate from a speaker and vibrate their eardrums?
I struggle with how to answer the question myself. Mentioning someone obscure ends the conversation and conveys nothing to a neophyte, and saying I like the Beatles is no better than saying I enjoy oxygen.
Mwall- There’s no danger of ever meeting an asshole who has the complete works of Bob Dylan and Judas Priest so I trust you will never meet your doppelganger.
It is really weird to run into people that don’t like music at all. I don’t know why anyone would be like that. I need music to keep myself sane. Maybe not sane, but it helps me keep things in perspective.
I don’t mind being a snob when I get introduced to the “other” music guy at a gathering that claims no good music has come out since they left high school or college. I’ve already heard The Beatles and I know who Led Zeppelin is, and while I’m glad people are still interested in older music (I don’t think anyone when I was growing up knew who The Yardbirds were), I don’t understand how or when looking for something new music wise seems to disappear from people. Why would anyone assume that no one that’s picked up a guitar since Stevie Ray Vaughan died has had anything to add? Maybe I have a genetic defect?
Thanks, chickenfrank. I’ve tried, in my musical taste, to be a very unique asshole, and I appreciate your acknowledgment.
2K wrote “I don’t understand how or when looking for something new music wise seems to disappear from people. Why would anyone assume that no one that’s picked up a guitar since Stevie Ray Vaughan died has had anything to add?”
I don’t do too much looking for new music anymore where new is post-SRV. I’m still constantly looking for (and finding) new music but it’s usually by looking backward, whether it’s old C&W or northern soul or jazz or…
I seem to have a lot more success finding stuff I like that way than by checking out the latest indie buzz.
In the thirties, when Schoenberg was living in Spain, a friend of his said, “I’ve set up a concert of your works next week at [the local concert hall].” Schoenberg said, “You what?! What were you thinking? I have to play tennis with these people.” I try to take what has been called here the “Buskirkian” approach. I can get enthused over their enthusiasm, if there is any. I have enough of the Zelig factor in me for that.
But once, years ago, one of the pressmen in the printing place I worked at borrowed a tape of Coltrane from me. And he came in later to return the favor. Thank God at that time Kenny G was still largely unknown. I didn’t betray utter condescension, which only a few years later would have been impossible to conceal. I was able to keep very neutral. I did suggest my preferences by some trite remark, without busting on the stuff he loaned me.
I was once getting a ride with an older cousin I don’t really know from a wedding to the reception in Jersey. She knew I played music, and asked about it innocuously. Then she told me how she loved music passionately. And proceeded to wax extatic over Barry Manilow. I know. That’s how *I* felt, too! In her car, in a suit, needing a drink, and suddenly that feeling of realizing you’re at the edge of a cliff. Giddy vertigo. I tried to not write little paragraphs for humorous short stories in my head, or be too Margaret Meade superior-snotty, but it was an absolute head rush. It litterally fucked with my head to have someone discuss Barry Manilow without irony or displeasure.
Out here in the hinterlands, you still meet people who will cop to Dave Matthews. And I have practiced reserving judgment, so as not to offend.
As for all the comments about “still listening to what we were listening to back in high school” and such. Number one, anyone on this list, whether they are living in the past or no, puts an unusually high value on active listening, relative to the population at large. And number two, music is for many, if not most, a vestigial part of the mating ritual. Most people’s tastes calcify at the point where they are no longer trying to get laid. (With new people.) WPEN changed formats when the people who were getting laid to Dick Haymes or Vic Damone were no longer an economic force. Now it’s the people who were scoring to the Ronettes who are que-ing up for Preparation H. Keep the sponsor, change the songs! And certainly, I don’t mean to suggest that anyone thinks this way consciously. But when you hear those songs that had to do with persuing *that* 19 year-old girl when you were 19, it packs a certain oomph that many folks are willing to ascribe to the music alone. Yet I will never feel that way about the song you couldn’t escape from when *I* was a senior in high school. Even if you did get laid, and manage erectile function while hearing Chuck Mangione’s “Feels So Goos,” it’s got to leave all kinds of psychic scarring.
I don’t know, there’s something to be said for that approach. Even the worst music would be better than no music. I mean, I like food, but it doesn’t matter all that much to me what I eat. I like a high quality restaurant meal, but I’m also fine with a cheese sandwich and mashed potato. This makes no sense to a foodie, but that’s how it is.
Sometimes I feel like we drive ourselves to distraction condemning music we think we don’t like.
Actually, “Feels So Goos” I wouldn’t mind hearing.
There’s nothing wrong with liking everything, but it really means you don’t like anything much. Musicians have to make choices with their craft and if you don’t favor one choice over another, then it can’t matter a whole lot.
Shouldn’t the songs I loved growing up when I was successfully failing to get laid be like an old wound rather than an old friend?
Great answers on this, Townspeople. I appreciate your laying it on the line as you have, especially knowing just how many “normal” people might be reading our comments.
I’m sure most if not all of us who check in here on a regular basis experience life through sound more than the average person. Just tonight at dinner with some work friends something came up that I immediately related to a song. To have jumped into the conversation with the analogy to the song that came to mind would have taken too much effort and made too little sense to my casual music-loving friends. Instead I rethought my approach to the conversation and used a tv analogy. Funny that someone earlier mentioned tv as being the social glue these days.
As someone pointed out, saying that I like The Beatles to explain what music I like is like saying I breathe oxygen. I typically say, when asked by a “normal” person what music I like, something to the effect of, “Well, ’60s music like the Beatles and the Stones, and punk rock, like the Clash and Elvis Costello.” They’ll understand the ’60s part of the equation, and they’ll probably know at least a bad song by both Costello and the Clash that, coupled with my use of the term “punk rock,” they’ll get the idea that I’m not an Easy Listening fan at heart. Typical best-case scenario: they come back at me with an “Oh, so you must like Joe Jackson.” At that point I gracefully bow out with a, “I like some of his songs.”
The “I like all kinds of music” thing is a sign of very bad things. For me, that typically signifies that the person likes music made by people willing to overplay the role of making music: bald fusion guys with ponytails and colorful silk shirts who make porn faces while playing triplets; muscle-bound, 12th-rate Pearl Jam/Red Hot Chilli Peppers-type bands who whip their long, layered hair around; earnest, coffee-table AAA folkies who make Soap Opera faces of love and longing while constructing bland songs around finger-picking exercises… It’s the musical equivalent of digging stock peroxide porn solely because it IS porn. Steven Perry and Neil Schon grant you permission to explore your stunted musicality.
People who don’t even like or care about music are honest, if nothing else. As weird as they may seem to us, I can better deal with them because there are sensations that have little to no effect on me. Some people love dogs, for instance. I don’t dislike them, but I could care less about them. I like some more than others, but my life would not suffer if I never saw another dog.
“Shouldn’t the songs I loved growing up when I was successfully failing to get laid be like an old wound rather than an old friend?”
Well, Chicken, as one who failed, but only ever spectacularly, I can say that it in my mind it was certainly no fault of my fine musical selections, which continued to be the lynch pin of a vibrant Walter Mitty-esque imaginary sex life throughout that brutally educational period of my life.
As for old wounds, there are not many more common human passtimes than picking at these old scabs, and what finer way than with a serenade of the exact song – even the exact verse – that was playing the moment you saw that she understood fully that you were interested in her “that way” and that, from her expression, you might not even rate the “value our friendship” blurb that was the starting point of so very few friendships of even the most cursory sort.
That said, it would possibly have been helpful if certain records had come with some kind of an advisory label to tell you that initiating any type of carnal event while listen to this music is at best highly unlikely. In my youthful idiocy, I knew not.
I knew two guys in my dorm in college who had no music-playing device in their room. Not even a clock radio. I felt about these guys the way Mr. Mod feels about dogs. “Meh.” I could not fathom it. it’s like living in a house with no colors or images in it. Come to think, they didn’t have much of anything on the walls either. Maybe they were a terrorist cell or something. Told to just go home and sit on the bed until duty calls.
Mr. Mod. I’m with you on the “I like everything” people. I myself have said that I have found value in almost every genre of music except marching bands. It’s very nearly true. I will often, though, throw out some terms and see what I get. I like your weighted gambit of punk rock, Elvis, Clash.
Just today I met a guy in a coffee shop who mentioned he used to play drums. Without further fishing, I mentioned Tony Williams’ ride cymbal sound on Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage” album. And didn’t this fellow, in Emmaus, PA, come back with a youtube reference of a Tony Williams drum solo from the sixties he had seen! I was pleased. It turns out he’s from Altoona, PA, also not a hotbed of hip.
I don’t think there is any genre that I’m not somewhat a fan of, so usually I can scare up some conversation with musical journeymen. If not, they’re usually just as glad to tell me about their infatuation with Flim and The B.B.s or whatever.
Too bad it often turns to TV; there I’m lost, except for a few cable shows I catch on DVD.
-db
(glad to hear I have a classy strategy named after me…)
I should clarify: When I referred to the “I like all kinds of music” people, I wasn’t thinking of fans of the bald fusion guys with ponytails and colorful silk shirts, etc, because even those people have some sort of active interest in music no matter how misguided I may think their energies are. I was referring to the passive listeners who just take whatever is served up to them. I find them perplexing because it seems so important to me (and they must think the same about me when they try to talk sports with me).
And really, why is it so important to me? My wife, who has a very active interest in music and who is infinitely patient with me, will occasionally throw up her hands and say “But what does it matter, Schrievie (sic)?” to which I can only reply “It just does.”
Disclosure: I’ve used the phrase to describe myself but have followed up by qualifying it by specific example or by categories (50’s country, blues and jazz, 60’s R&B, 70’s punk).
Al, I look backwards as well as forwards. I miss out on tons of stuff because I was doing something else, and then I find out about it and it years have gone by. I also get interested in the roots of the bands I like, which leads down some weird roads and the occasional thirty dollar OOP cd. Just keeping up with the latest Indie trends doesn’t do it, either.
General, that’s an interesting philosophy on why people quit looking for something else. I ask that question all the time, and in all seriousness, the answer is usually, “because new music sucks.” They’re right, but old music sucks, too. I think there’s more to it, and one day I’m gonna figure it all out.
I can’t understand the “I like everything” people, either. I think musicians need to like more music than a fanboy like me, but I think that kind of goes with the territory. Musicians listen to music a lot differently than I do, but I don’t need any new ideas or techniques. I think of it like a big Venn diagram where my circle isn’t full and I haven’t found out all the circles that connect to mine yet, but there are definitely circles that will never connect. I’m one of those people that usually picks a side. Neutrality is kinda dull.
Think of all the time we spend listening to, thinking about, pursuing and acquiring music. You can’t expect most people to do that. It might make more sense to expect it of other people if our methods were the only way to get at music, but music is everywhere. I think it’s perfectly understandable that lots of people have other things on their minds and just take music as it comes. They’re different from me, but I don’t think they deserve the negativity Mr Mode unloaded on them in his most recent post. Is being no more than a casual sports fan “a sign of very bad things”?
One thing I do think is weird is when people hear that you like music and dive into a discussion of the current crop of American Idols. I never know how to react, and they never know what to make of my indifference.
I’m finding this discussion interesting. How I would respond to the question “Why does it matter?” would be that music, if it’s playing, is part of the immediate environment we’re living in and the physical sensations that environment brings us. Annoying music isn’t exactly the same as being forced to smell someone’s moldy socks, because smell may be more intimate than sound, but I still think that’s a good answer: “Why can’t I play this music?” “Well, why can’t I leave my dirty socks on the couch?”
I have some questions regarding the “I like everything” aspect of this thread.
First, this phrase is being used two ways. It’s viewed negatively when used by people who aren’t necessarily music people (in the way RTHers are) and it really seems to mean “I don’t care much about any kind of music”.
The other way it has been used here is the way I used it when I said I like a wide variety of music. I know others on RTH do also. I dare say I like all kinds of music but it seems that that is less true of others here. (Of course, I like all kinds of good music and in any genre most everything is not good music but there’s always something good.)
My question to any and all is: Are there really entire genres of music where you’ve never heard a single thing you like? And where you don’t think it’s possible to hear anything you like/think is good? That’s the sense I’m getting from some responses.
Speak up – what types of music do you dislike in their entirety?
Hey, AI — I dunno, man, that seems like a silly question. I bet even Hitler had good oral hygiene. I don’t think anything *totally* sucks.
I agree with mwall about the audio aspect of “Why does it matter”. But when my wife says it to me, it’s usually in response to me saying something like, “Holy Crap, did you know that Ray Cooper played tamborine on that song?”
forgive me if this has already been covered somewhere above. just jumping in to vent.
the absolute WORST is the wannabe who has “just enough rope” with which to hang himself.
I say “himself” because i’ve never met a woman who matches this description. they’re usually much humbler than the type of guy I have in mind: the normal dude who fancies himself an afficionado of “weeeeeerd” music (which it turns out isn’t really all that weird at all…like Tull). His tastes are all over the place, out of whack, and gets the terminology or chronology wrong (the B-52s are “prog rock” or R.E.M. were originally a punk band). It’s even worse if said fellow is a nice person and the two of you are surrounded by people who know even less.
The type of guy I’m thinking of never goes to see live shows, adn as it turns out, has very “normal person” reactions to music that is even close to the border between weird and normal (i.e. “what was that stuff you taped for me? guided by what? was there something wrong with that recording?”).
the guy i’m talking about has dave matthews, phish, and bruce hornsby in his record collection, but only has grateful dead studio albums. this guy thinks that the only thing captain beefheart did is on a zappa album. the only song he knows by the butthole surfers is “SATAN SATAN…”. That was on their first album, right?
the guy i’m talking about will ook you in the eye and *seriously* recommend that you check out Led Zeppelin, because they have songs that are *way* better than what you hear on the radio, but he likes that stuff, too.
but really, this guy is OUT THERE, man!!!
i know, i know….i’m sounding more and more like comic book guy every day….
through venting.
as you were…and thanks.
Many years ago, a dude I worked with heard I liked “weird, undergroundy music” and stopped by my office to tell me about this great new band he’d heard that he felt sure I’d like. The band, of course, was Hootie and the Blowfish.
And *there’s* an idea for a thread, by the way: bands who you *know* just suck because of their incredibly retarded name. Conversely, there are many bands that *don’t* suck despite theirs. The “Rolling Stones” come to mind.
BigSteve wrote:
When I unloaded on people who tell me they like “all kinds of music,” I was not unloading on people who have other things on their minds beside music. To me, those people you describe fall more into the category of people who sincerely are not interested in music. I thought I showed that group of people a lot of compassion.
I stand by my thoughts on those who like “all kinds of music” in the same way they like “Broadway shows.” I know what I said wasn’t that nice, but we’re having a frank discussion about the dynamic of bonding over music with “normal” people. Doesn’t the poor taste of the thread itself call for an unusual degree of honesty?
Al wrote:
Is it enough that there are genres that fail to deliver the goods 99% of the time? I’m thinking of ’80s hair farmer music (although that might be 100% lousy, in my book), opera, and power ballads.
I don’t know if there’s an entire genre I can’t stand, because it seems like eventually I come across someone that blows me away and becomes the exception. I don’t much like bluegrass, and I’ve tried to like jazz. I wish I liked jazz, because it looks like fun to collect and there’s whole undergroundishness about it that I should find appealing.
That’s one reason I’m looking forward to Hear Factor. I’m going to have to do things differently with that.
The only genre I can think of that I can’t get anything out of is the modern Broadway musical. I like a good Richard Rodgers song as much as the next guy, maybe more, but these newer shows, the kind parodied in the South Park movie, give me the willies. I can find more to like in hair metal.
Is “American Idol Music” its own genre? Seriously.
Just to throw this out there, I used to know someone who did use “I like all kinds of music” as a stock opening line, but that was very specifically because she was a black woman who was primarily into indie rock. She used it as an instant deflection of “Yes, I am black. NO, that doesn’t mean I listen to R&B.”
Try explaining what kind of music your OWN band plays to a normal person! If you’re accurate, you’ll be too obscure. If you’re broad (“oh, kind of heavier Beatle-esque pop”) be prepared for some major looks of disappointment when the normals actually hear you.
i haven’t talked to anyone about music since i met all of you. no one else knows what the hell i’m talking about.
sometimes you don’t either.
Thank You Rock Town Hall!!!
Glad we can be of service, Shawnkilroy! We’ve got to run into each other in person one of these days.
Hmm. It purely depends on politeness and how deep the conversation goes. Music taste is so unique to each person that I’ve learnt it’s pointless. I just nod politely, feign interest, then steer the conversation on to something else.
Even today, a mate had taken a pile of my old audio tapes i was going to throw out. He’s into heavy music like Metallica, which never has enough melody for my liking – intervals are all 2nd and 3rds.
He commented that he liked the Crowded House ‘Woodface’ album, then said there was another one ‘Together Alone’, but it sucks and ‘only has one good song on it’. I’d argue the superiority of the latter over the former any day of the week, but why get that deep in a conversation with people where music is only background noise in their life, not something they consider too deeply?
Ha chickenfrank – i know exactly what you mean there.
“…why get that deep in a conversation with people where music is only background noise in their life, not something they consider too deeply?”
That’s funny, by definition music that is popular with a mass audience is inherently going to appeal strongly to people who aren’t major music fans. Does this music appeal to them because it is so ingenious or does it appeal to them because it has dumbed-down, simplified concepts?
“That’s funny, by definition music that is popular with a mass audience is inherently going to appeal strongly to people who aren’t major music fans.”
Exactly. That’s why I believe it’s impossible for a left-of-field band with ‘quirky’ qualities to ever follow up a huge hit with the same numbers – once the press, exposure and sales get up some steamrolling speed, non-listeners are dragged along for a purchase.
This includes older people who are trying to look hip by buying something ‘current’, people who buy it because all their friends buy it, and people who believe that if everyone else likes it, that it must be good.
These people are *never* going to come back for the follow up album, because they didn’t buy it for the music to begin with. The press will see this as a failure and the implication will be that the album isn’t as good as the previous one.
This creates the run-on effect of the rest of the more casual consumers who stayed to purchase the follow up to now perceive it as subpar, thus guaranteeing more of them won’t come back for the third album.
To stay popular, you basically need to deliver minute variations of the exact same thing, time after time. You need to be Madonna, singing ‘get into the groove’ in 1985, ‘you’ve got to just let your body move to the music’ in 1990, ‘don’t stop keep moving keep grooving’ in 1994, ‘music makes the people come together’ in 2000 etc and need to play to a mass audience who is dumb enough to confuse a change of hairstyle with an artistic ‘reinvention’.
“Does this music appeal to them because it is so ingenious or does it appeal to them because it has dumbed-down, simplified concepts?”
It has to feature over-amplified emotions, and sound dramatically important, whilst being lyrically vague enough that people
can put themselves into the song and think it’s ‘soooo true’ and ‘about meeee’.
This is basically done by being vague enough for the lyrical intention to be easy misunderstood or ignored. U2 are masters at writing an important sounding song that’s really about nothing in particular, hence a wide audience who put themselves into the song.
I think what i’m getting at is the song itself doesn’t have to actually be dumb, but has to have the potential to be able to be viewed in a dumb, superficial way.
A good example would be a song from my childhood, ‘Arkansas Grass’, that was a big hit in the early 70’s here. Everyone thought it was about pot, but it’s quite clearly an Anti-Vietnam song.