I Confess : What sucks most about your musical tastes and attitudes ?

The trouble is the flipside of that for a lot of house people seems to be the deathly dull purism and real ale soul/jazz/funkateer-ness of the "been there done that I NOW KNOW MYSELF FULLY" tedious worthiness crowd.

In the middle I guess would be Inaya Day.. who I can get along with fine.

-- DJ Mencap

no, there's tons!

and I'm not even going to start on emo/nu-compression-rock (i.e. whatever the hell kids punk about to lately).

But what I find with most older R'n'B and Soul is that the songs actually touch me and don't just contain empty paens to nothing at all. "He's Mistra Know It All", "Ain't No Sunshine", "What's Going On" to name but three which actually have well thought out lyrical content. And although my knowledge of Otis is pretty slim, as you say it is the manner of his singing which matters whereas many of the female (and male) R'n'B groups coming out are carbon-copying what has gone before with the emotion disappearing each time.

Most of the sins that I feel that I had when I was younger I think I've shed. I used to consider myself an elitist gladly, while listening to the metal/industrial hybrids of the '90s (KMFDM, Stabbing Westward, etc.), something that embarrasses me now when I go back to listen to those bands.
But what I'd feel most sucks now is that I always feel like I have a really superficial understanding of music, especially music theory as it relates to the music I like. I like a lot of skronk jazz or weird psych or even radio pop, but I frequently stumble on explaining why I like it. I also don't like that people around me still seem to think of me as a snob when I try really hard not to be. I think that I give things a fair listen (though I'll also confess that I rarely give music the type of deep alienated attention that I did when I was younger), and then either I like 'em or I don't, and I don't ever feel like I'm telling other people that they can't like something (though I will admit that when I write my column that I tend to be overly-dismissive some times), but it's rare that I actively hate something. Far more often I'm just bored by it. I've been told it's because I'm not a musician that I can't understand why Wilco is so great, but frankly, they (especially recently) just bore the hell out of me. I kinda wish that I got it and could get the same thrill that other people seem to, and that's a recurring longing. I remember feeling it when hearing about Notwists' Neon Golden. The album just bores me, and I'd like to be able to understand what other people get out of it, but I can't. And again, I've been told that this is because I don't play an instrument, so I don't understand how music is constructed. And I worry, because more and more music that I see lauded feels the same way for me: not bad, just unexciting. I get a thrill out of Christina's No Other Man, but the whole Paris Hilton album leaves me cold. I want to be able to hear it the way Lex does, but I can't seem to.

OTM. Yes, extreme Rockism is tedious, I don't count myself as Rockist because I listen to almost everything other than "commercial" pop and R'n'B, but a lot of the Poptimists do literally go around like a gestapo. The Lily Allen thread is absolutely incredible - I still don't know if some people were joking or not about her not being "real" and then banging on about Girls Aloud being "real". I mean, that's just Rockist ideology superimposed onto pop isn't it?

(I sort of agree about the carbon-copying but not to the point where I'd feel comfy making it a blanket statement, as I say I don't listen to that much r'n'b!)

"Macho" is the wrong word. I want to say something politically incorrect like "House is for girls and gays" to paraphrase matey-boy upthread.

I know that it's been through the consumerist mill and therefore I can take that into account in listening, therefore I don't have to treat it with any exaggerated respect that might get in the way of my loving it or taking part in it. I can get my claws in and tear it open and build myself a nest inside and make up my own ideas about what it means, and who for. All of that fuss and bother happened so that I could have a relationship with this one song! It's pretty beautiful, when you think about it.

Also, dudes, it just sounds better.

still not really sticking up for r'n'b with this tho'... main difference with nu-soul (I think that's what ILM calls it ;) ) stuff is it doesn't have the _steel_ in the production which I suspect also helps to dehumanize the lyrics for a lot of people.

The probable reason why more people don't confess to being lukewarm about contemporary R&B is fear of the racist card being played.

Also, dudes, it just sounds better.

haha this is so ridiculously otm and also the entire text of an entirely separate email discussion i've been having today!!!!

I disagree.

What matters is what the LISTENER gets out of the end product, regardless of what the artist put into it, and the process by which s/he did so.

haha, sophie h

When I listen to "Good Vibrations" I don't think about Mike Love flicking wet towels at the back of Brian's head, nor of the state of Brian's mind at the time.

When I listen to "Be My Baby" I don't think about its singer being kept a prisoner in her own home by the guy who produced the record.

You impose your own interpretation of what these records mean as combinations of sounds, as unions of words and music, so subjectively it doesn't matter how much blood was spilt in their making.

I'm not sure it matters to me anymore that I don't like much new club dance music tho this was bothering me for some time.

Doglatin's posts still kinda depress me tho.

I disagree.

Me too. Absolutely without question.

you do both. it depends on the context in which you hear the record. if you hear eg 'stars are blind' on the radio without knowing who is singing it, obv you will hear it is a good/bad record and this reaction will be 100% divorced from your sense of who paris hilton is. but that's NOT the way we hear most records - with most of them, even if we're not coming at it with the pre-listening baggage of what we think of paris hilton as a celebrity, we will be coming at it with some...expectation which has nothing to do with the actual sound. this could be "last time i heard this artist hey sounded like this" or "last time i read about this artist she was splitting up with her boyfriend" or "what i've heard about this album makes me excited to hear it" or...any amount of information which is already in our brains about anything to do with the product.

but surely when you see Brian perform Smile you're influenced by knowing what went before?

If Syd Barrett had decided to release a record 5 year ago wouldn't you approach it with more than "I wonder if Syd's new record's any good" in your head.

When you reviewed Aerial didn't you have "12 years in the making" in your head as you played it for the first time?

totally true.

If I'm aware of what went into a record I can't ignore that when I hear the record.

By 'these records' do you mean those two specific records, or records of their type which in your opinion are Great, or all records?

I don't think about the artist story behind each record (I have real problems with relating songs to a person's private life), that's not what I meant, I'm sorry I was confusing. It's just that I don't find the process which goes into producing a manufactured-pop record any more distracting than the process than goes into a different record; knowledge of the existence of both affects my listening, and I know it, and I'm fine with that. In fact I often find it less distracting with manufactured pop, because it's overt, it's not a shimmer at the corner of your eye that disappears and reappears when you turn your head.

xposts i know fandango! it's weird and wrong and confusing, but to me it doesn't appear backwards!

Anyway, I am actually, honestly, very happy indeed with my musical tastes and attitudes: I don't think there's anything that sucks about them.

this is why I make it a point not to read interviews before I hear someone's music for the first time. I don't need to know anything about them or how the record was made in order to find out whether I like it or not. it's better to approach new art with a completely open mind if at all possible.

same here! there isn't anything i won't listen to. i love listening. i am always constantly amazed and surprised by stuff at the ripe old age of 37 going on 38. i am open to anything. i will end up liking m.ward and wilco someday. actually, i don't have anything against m.ward either. just not very exciting to me. i poke fun at the guys at the record store cuz they are always listening to those dreary guys. iron&wine, buckner, ward, ad infintum. they have their place! like when i'm record shopping.

(Sorry).

Re: current discussion. I think one of the problems with being a massive music fan is that it can be hard to step away from the picture and listen to music on its own merits. The first single I ever bought when I was 9 years old was Pat'n'Mick's "Shake Your Party Down" (or something). I didn't know it was a cover version. I didn't know who Pat Sharp was other than he presented "Fun House" on CITV. I had no idea who Mick Brown was either. I just liked the songs. Since then I've become increasingly addicted to music. I have also learnt a bunch of instruments and music programs. I know how much effort it is to try and form a band and write decent songs that don't suck and therefore my respect for the creative and musical processes increases. It was only, for instance, that someone pointed out to me the exact scope of Brian Wilson's genius that I began appreciating the Beach Boys and learning about the different thought processes and conflicts going on on each album. Previous to that I'd seen them as a cheesy worthless 60's boyband with a couple of silly tunes about surfing.

Also, not listening to "pop" does NOT = listening to fucking emo, are you 9?!

so authenticity comes in the middle of the night, while you're sleeping, and you wake up finding its sticky traces in the sheets?