Quote:
Originally Posted by jekylljuice
Music purists...or, more accurately, music purists who look down upon you if your musical preferences do not accord with their own, or if you admit to liking a band or form of music which they’ve written off as unworthy. Basically, I don’t care if your tastes in music are very focussed and specific – I mean, why should I? It’s your prerogative entirely. But it annoys me so much when people behave as if the music they favour is THE definitive kind, and I hate being sneered at or treated as if my own tastes are somehow inferior just because I like a wide variety of music and will happily own up to liking music or artists which aren’t considered cool or fashionable in certain circles.
Case in point, when I was talking to my brother the other day, he asked me what he could get me for Christmas, and I told him, the New Kids on the Block greatest hits CD which came out earlier this year. And man, did he scoff at me. I should have seen it coming, really. Fair enough if he doesn’t like them, but he doesn’t need to be so arrogant about it. Maybe I am being a bit ungrateful here - I’m sure that he’s still going to buy me the CD, after all. But he does do this to me A LOT, and it probably wouldn’t bother me so much if he himself wasn’t into all these contemporary rock bands which I personally find rather dreary and uninvolving (and yet which he routinely forced me to listen to regardless when we were growing up together, whilst turning his nose up at anything which I liked). They clearly do mean something to him, however, so I happily respect that. Too bad that I don’t receive that same degree of respect in return. I’m not going to claim that NKOTB’s music is any kind of high art exactly (and nor would I make that claim about any of those indie or “alternative” bands which my brother listens to) but it’s fun, catchy music which I genuinely enjoy, and I believe that those arguments are as valid as anything which he could come up in defence of the stuff he likes. I have very eclectic tastes in music – different kinds of music appeal to me for different reasons...but at the end of the day, if you don’t listen to music because you enjoy it, then what is the point?
(Oh, and while we’re at it, maybe someone would care to explain to me just what it is that makes all this so-called “alternative” rock so alternative anyway? Personally, I’ve never been able to see what it is that’s supposed to differentiate it from regular rock. Clearly I’m showing my ignorance here, maybe somebody will help me out.)
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There's a Half-Man Half-Biscuit song called 'Irk the purists' which has a laugh at this subject. Now I'd run screaming from the room if I heard NKOTB again but I certainly couldn't dismiss them as inferior in any way as I'd be then like the people I used to know who didn't like any music in 4/4 time (because it's
so predictable) and that would encompass probably up to 99% of the music ever mentioned on this forum. Besides you like some great music that's definately to my tastes. LOL I could play you things that might not even recognise as music at all but I like it all the same. Isn't it really just vibrations in the air affecting the emotions in your head? How can there be a right or wrong in that?
As for the 'alternative' thing, well obviously that's completely arbitrary and let's face facts, guitar music is still a dominant form of this era and will be in future ages all lumped together as a single genre from Southern blues to punk rock from Coldplay to Country just as we have a collective term for the music of several hundred years in the past: Classical, which most people either like or don't.
It kind of made more sense when it was 'indie' rock meaning 'independent label' referring to the company who recorded and distributed the music but such was the degree of success that many such 'Indie labels' had in the late 80s and 90s that their distribution was comparable to the multi-nationals and were just as ruthless in targetting their most profitable market sectors. The best example of this was the arrogant, bloated giant
Oasis from the archetypal indie label Creation Records. Also the multi-nationals themselves have long created their own 'indie' labels to grab those purchasers who still think they're rebels. Really that's what it's all about. Who doesn't like to think they're a rebel?
OK what ticks me off is procrastination and I stand completely guilty. Ok, work I'm coming....