What ticks you off?

[koosie]

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.)

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....

[Cassini90125]

Originally Posted by koosie

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?

It's a subjective call, "right" or "wrong" being defined by whether the listener finds the vibrations in question pleasant. In my view, the vibrations emanating from the apartment above me are wrong, both because it sounds like crap and because the people listening to it are inconsiderate who don't have the common decency to keep it to themselves.

[koosie]

Oh I sympathise but it's really got nothing to do with the relative worth of the music in question, has it? Surely that's just context. If whatever music your neighbours plays was the music that gently accompanies the magic love-pixies who live under the floorboards and left presents for you every morning, you might come to like it a bit. As it is, it is the soundtrack to scumbags and will sound to you much worse than I could probably imagine.

I expect if Frank Glazer was playing Gnossienne No.1 by Erik Satie in my bedroom at 4.00AM in the morning I'd probably tell him to shut that bloody racket up despite the fact it's a deeply beautiful peice of music. I'd also ask how he got the piano up the stairs.

[Cassini90125]

The type of music doesn't matter; the fact that it's being forced on me is what fracks me off. Whether it's the unpleasant-sounding rubbish they favor or the best of the Rolling Stones makes no difference; I want it stopped, period.

[jekylljuice]

Originally Posted by Cassini90125

The type of music doesn't matter; the fact that it's being forced on me is what fracks me off. Whether it's the unpleasant-sounding rubbish they favor or the best of the Rolling Stones makes no difference; I want it stopped, period.

Which, I guess, is part of my problem with my brother specifically...he's happy to sneer at other people's tastes in music, but he's never had any qualms with forcing them to listen to all that indie and alternative stuff which he favours, regardless of whether they actually care for it or not. I might feel a little less resentful toward indie music in general if I hadn’t been subjected to that rather irritating double standard so many times (though I doubt that it would really be my thing either way). Since I am not obnoxious or overbearing (I believe) in my own personal tastes (and since I usually listen to them via headphones anyway, so I'm the only one who hears it), I reckon I should be allowed to enjoy them without coming under fire.

Anyways, thank you for answering my question, koosie. For the record, Oasis was one of the bands which he used to routinely compare my music unfavourably to. I don’t know if he still likes them, though. I think that you hit the nail on the head with that whole rebel thing. I'm certainly not suggesting that the music in itself has no merit, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was this notion that they're being rebellious and rejecting the mainstream which enables certain fans of indie music to behave so smugly about it. Isn't it more rebellious just to be true to the music that you like, regardless of what anyone else might think? In some cases, that may well be contemporary indie rock music, but in my case...generally, no.

[fosters home fan]

MORONIC DRAMA QUEENS.


*bashes head against brick wall*

[some guy you dont know]

my geometry class. sometimes i wonder how i wound up in that class. all most anyone does is scream and act like a bunch of 3-year olds with enhanced language and fighting skills.

also nothing ever gets done in there. we'd probably already be at least a little farther into the book if it weren't for all the disruptions.

... anyhow, i guess ill just take advanced algebra 2 next year instead of comp. maybe i wont deal with any of the people in there that way.

[Cassini90125]

I feel bad for you, dude. I loved geometry; in my junior year it was both my favorite subject and my best subject. I even read the textbook just for the fun of it, that's how much I enjoyed it.

[some guy you dont know]

ugh, my laptop. the mouse broke off and i spent like an hour trying to fix it. got it fixed, but still. only the newest of my problems. i really need to replace this thing.

[jekylljuice]

Originally Posted by some guy you dont know

my geometry class. sometimes i wonder how i wound up in that class. all most anyone does is scream and act like a bunch of 3-year olds with enhanced language and fighting skills.

also nothing ever gets done in there. we'd probably already be at least a little farther into the book if it weren't for all the disruptions.

... anyhow, i guess ill just take advanced algebra 2 next year instead of comp. maybe i wont deal with any of the people in there that way.

My sympathies - that sounds an awful lot like these general studies classes I took back in sixth form. Having to take them in the first place seemed a little questionable, if not pointless, since most universities wouldn't acknowledge it as a proper qualification, but I didn't have a choice in the matter. I probably wouldn't have minded if the classes themselves hadn't been so arduous, due to the disruptive behaviour of a lot of the students, which meant that I got very little out of them overall. Fortunately, so long as you had a reasonable knowledge of current world issues and affairs, you would get by okay come exam time, and so I did.