Maligned Genres aka "I like everything except..."

It’s the worst. I’d guess the US equivalent of the largely ex public school, slumming it all summer on the festival circuit electro-swing types is the tech bro / VC types that have supposedly infiltrated Burning Man?

Country & Western was huge in Scotland up until the 90s.

Same in Ireland too I believe. I mean, when you think about it, it makes sense given the origins of country music. There's a lot of (or there used to be a lot of) homegrown Irish and Scottish country artists, which definitely does not seem to be a thing in England.

The TV show Hamish MacBeth used to use bluegrass music.

still big particularly on the west coast of scotland. glasgow even has it's own grand ole opry - http://www.glasgowsgrandoleopry.co.uk/

I finally got around to skimming through an electro swing mix, and it is indeed extremely corny music. It's hard for me to imagine that it's gone far beyond fad status but maybe there are tons of electro swing true believers.

this lot seem quite popular - https://www.caravanpalace.com

they will of course one day end up in the hague, on trial for crimes against music.

Country was an important thing in Wales as well. And as far as I can tell a lot of the English North.

Country was virtually non-existent in Brookline, Massachusetts, as far as I can remember.

We had tons of country in Colorado, but in high school in particular there was a huge "us vs. them" divide between those who loved country (and emulated or aped the cowboy look) and those who did not.

my second ever big concert was a garth brooks / martina mcbride arena show. i was 12. it was very entertaining.

(this was reno nv and most of the radio stations in town were country, so it was everywhere)

We used to call 'em shit-kickers.

goat ropers.

what they do!

in Indiana the punk-hating rednecks were called "grits"

Couple things I've thought about since starting this thread:

1. Often when people think of a genre they're not especially familiar or fond of, they'll think of an imaginary low common denominator within that style. So if I tell a friend I like "indie music", they'll imagine some sort of midway point between Oasis and the Kooks - a muddy, mid-tempo dirge of guitars played by po-faced white boys singing variably cheery or dreary songs about the weather - they won't think of Big Thief or Parquet Courts or Golden Teacher etc.
When I tell another friend I like techno, they'll either imagine some faceless DJ playing an endlessly repetitive booming noise, or think of something that isn't techno at all, say "Encore Une Fois" by Sash!
When I say I like Country, they might think of linedancing music or some mid-80s AOR country rock or "That Don't Impress Me Much" by Shania Twain.

2. There are styles out there where artistry is ulterior to the general fun and theatre of the thing. Think about the endless Donk nights that are springing up all over the place. DJs with joke names like Dairylea Donkers, Count Donkula, Oxford English Donktionary (I made that last one up).
These are enormously popular with people who just want to dress in garish clothes and listen to daft, fast music. You're there to have fun and bounce around to nightcore and hard house versions of pop songs. It's not meant to be taken seriously.
And I think that's more-or-less the idea with things like Electro-Swing - it serves more as a "functional" soundtrack, possibly for people who aren't really serious music fans but just enjoy costume dress-up and play-acting. Again, it's hard for me to imagine someone being really deeply into electro-swing, but maybe they are?

i don't know, some of the most interesting and creative music ever made has been "functional" or "workmanlike", and artistes with lofty airs make dreary shit all the time. i don't think this is a useful distinction in the way you're applying it.

Yeah, but it's not functional in the same way as, say early Chicago footwork. It really is the soundtrack for people who probably don't care about the music to get dolled up and go for a campy night out to. Whether it's good or interesting or not is beside the point - I'm not defending it

they won't think of Big Thief or Parquet Courts or Golden Teacher etc.

i guess it comes down to what is indie? but to me there is literally zero indie-ness to someone like Golden Teacher. in fact i'd describe them as in opposition to indie

okay, Golden Teacher is strongly pushing it

I was trying to think of a British indie band I like from recent years and coming up thumbs

sorry to be so pedantic. i do get the point you were making though.

As someone whose musical taste was heavily influenced by my two older sisters and their milieu of friends, when I witnessed music snobbery, it was nearly always from fellow dudes my age who would dismiss any genre that had too high a % of women fans. Hell, it would even serve as justification for hating songs by bands they otherwise liked.

As mentioned in this thread, a similar snobbery was closely echoed towards genres/artists who appealed to too many redneck-leaning bro-types. However, the dude-heavy music consensus, in my eyes anyway, seemed more dismissive towards the preferences of women than those of the bros - it was a convenient method for seemingly "progressive" guys to launder their misogyny and homophobia via pop culture preferences. It's great that such attitudes are now viewed as antiquated and outre, however I fear that we men we'll just find more gamergates and other areas of society to express those toxic, retrograde ideas.

Yeah, there are a lot of hard/soft divides in genres that tend to end up with music women prefer being dismissed by male fans—hair metal vs. thrash, crossover rap vs. boom bap, countrypolitan vs. honky tonk, etc.

...which always struck me as really odd when I was young, because (as a straight dude) I vastly much rather go to a show that had women at it than a sausagefest.

Bands that take a popularizing turn at some point in their careers (Genesis being the ur-example) have been known to reflect on this. "Dude, there are GIRLS in the audience! Awesome!"

That's a verbatim Tony Banks quote!

Indeed. Recently on Reddit there was a goofy fantasy thread about whether you'd rather have been in Rush or Led Zeppelin, and someone (not me) said "Zeppelin, because they had girls at their shows."

i'd rather be in rush and not be haunted by the things i did in zeppelin

Ums: Well, yeah, I completely agree that aesthetically unforgivable shit is preferable to ethically unforgivable shit. Just trying to address the immediate topic at hand.

Fortunately none of us has to actually choose. We can carry on with our lives and strive to be better.

Returning to the Nu-metal and popularity discussion upthread:

It was the popular skater boys in middle school who were into Korn, Limp Bizkit, etc. I was deeply into punk, hardcore, and crusty stuff, and they just couldn’t understand why I didn’t like the bands that they liked. What it seemed like then, and which I have more tolerance for now, is that the pain and anger expressed by Davis and etc seemed canned to me, it felt like pre-packaged rebellion (akin the Warped Tour stuff, which I also mostly hated), and I just couldn’t get over how falsely it rang. The angst of Submission Hold or Capitalist Casualties was more my thing, I guess.

Now, I don’t mind a lot of nu-metal, but don’t really listen to it at all outside of when the Zoomers play it at their after-school shifts at the climbing gym where I go.

I should also say that an older friend— a former ilxor whose dn on here was “eppy” back in the day— was the one who turned me away from crust and hardcore. He made me a tape in 1999 that just changed everything, so cheers to that.

Also, I should say, they also didn’t understand why I didn’t like nu-metal because I was actually clearly a fag, whereas they were just wearing lipstick and nail polish to freak out their parents and the jocks. Unlike this latter population tho, they didn’t call me a fag, and were actually nice to me.

the only kid in my high school class who i'm aware was into Slipknot (though not nu-metal more broadly) was kinda pocket-protector nerdy, he played me "It's not unusual" on laserdisc or something the one time i went to his house. might have been his dad's Tom Jones collection, idk. he was mostly into showing off the tech.

all the nu-metal fans i knew growing up lived in the burbs, otherwise they were not a monolith. the ones who skateboarded were more likely to be into 3rd wave punk i guess (can't recall a city kid who was into that stuff either). the person i know who was most deeply into nu-metal was a much younger kid who my buddy in LI used to babysit, and is now the drummer is his HC band, so there ya go.

10 years ago i ran into an "ostensibly untroubled and popular" girl from my hs at a coffee shop and we exchanged info, which led to her emailing me about how painful her experience of high school had been. some of it was relatable to me, but she also felt a lot of social pressures that i was oblivious to or untroubled by. sorry to go all breakfast club on you, ilx. but i came away from that exchange feeling like, as hellish as hs had been, a lot of kids who i'd perceived as coasting had it much worse.

i think Slipknot had a lot to offer the tech geek kid in my hs- outwardly, a way to sidestep an identity he felt uneasy with, and to endorse more violent expressions of rage than he might have been uncomfortable making overtly. inwardly, i have no doubt that the hostility and angst was relatable to him.

Obvs Fred Again being the grandson of the former owner of the Daily Mail tips the scales for whatever scene he falls in but I’m more referring the the wealth disparity of the fan base ;)

― Agnes, Agatha, Germaine and Jack (Willl), Friday, May 19, 2023 6:39 AM (five months ago)

Fred Again is great name for the Nu Metal revival. Congrats.

― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Friday, May 19, 2023 7:23 AM (five months ago)

He did an album with Eno, which I think was mentioned on the Eno thread.

Based on his Wikipedia page, he’s known Eno since he was a teen. Industry plant!

he is massive, ie festival headlining cross generational massive in the uk.

Well he is apparently playing 5 sold-out nights here in L.A. (starting tonite).

Oh, sorry, those are just the remaining nights of an 8-night residency(!)

Boy you lot really hate this electro-swing genre that I’ve never heard of.

Fred Again is massive, and while his stuff isn't awful there's nothing about it which inherently seems to explain his huge crossover popularity

it's almost like posh kids get a hidden leg up in their endeavours

rightly said

the blissful life of never having heard electro-swing.... but one day... one day you'll be in a cafe and an electro-swing cover of Waiting Room will start playing, and you'll drop into hell like your man in Get Out, and never recover

Fred Again is inoffensive but I can see the appeal. Yes, his music seems to rely on the same formula and is on the simple side, but he really knows his gear, and if you see videos of him performing live - specially the boiler room set and his live studio videos he made during lockdown - it’s easy to see why he’s so popular, the precision in which he uses his sample pads in particular is mindblowing.

the blissful life of never having heard electro-swing.... but one day... one day you'll be in a cafe and an electro-swing cover of Waiting Room will start playing, and you'll drop into hell like your man in Get Out, and never recover

― Hmmmmm (jamiesummerz)

...the genesis song?