Fun Stuff > BAND
What is Indie?
Jackie Blue:
--- Quote from: ruyi on 08 Dec 2007, 00:15 ---how much of the music you listen to only uses the 12-tone scale? how much of it is in 4/4 time? how much of it relies on the same chord progressions? how much of it is based on electronic manipulation, be it synthesizing or amplification? western/u.s. musical ideas may be the most dominant/popular/whatever in terms of social capital, but that hardly stops it from being homogenous.
--- End quote ---
This is a far more neck-punchingly pretentious paragraph than someone saying they have eclectic musical taste because they like Willie Nelson, Public Enemy and the Sun City Girls.
Seriously, this thread. God.
Jackie Blue:
I call total and complete bullshit, tommy.
Just because Western music in general follows some conventions doesn't mean that there isn't a range and that one can't be eclectic within that range.
Apply this to literature. Literature generally follows conventions of grammar, spelling, tense and perspective. All literature written or translated into English uses the same 26 letters and almost never uses made-up words. All of it. But how could it be anything less than eclectic to enjoy both Terry Pratchett and J.D. Salinger?
Also, I have never heard anyone claim to be "eclectic" because they like "Franz Ferdinand AND the Flaming Lips".
Finally, terms are relative. In comparison to the average music listener, it is definitely abberant to the norm to listen to more than a few genres which are, at least on the surface, worlds apart. Do The Pipettes and Bardo Pond generally follow the same Western musical conventions? Oh, sure, whatever, I guess so. Do they sound anything alike? No. No, they do not.
This whole argument is stemming from some ridiculously cooler-than-cool refusal to be perceived as attempting to be cool. Which is bullshit that people should outgrow by the age of 21, or at least 25. I don't know how old you guys are, but I outgrew all that shit a long time ago.
My musical taste is eclectic. Fuck you if you think I'm trying to be "cool" by saying that. I'm just trying to be precise.
Jackie Blue:
I'm saying that I've seen this argument a million times. People who say "Oh, no matter how different the music you listen to is, you're still not eclectic because most of it still uses notes and chords". And I'm saying that offering up that argument is, as you said, a kind of meta-pretension which boils down to one person saying to another:
I'm so cool that I can prove you aren't.
There are people who think it's cool and impressive to listen to "varied" music. There are some on this forum.
But there are also some people who say they listen to "all kinds of music", or who say "my tastes are eclectic", or who say "I listen to pretty much everything, as long as it's good" with no agenda other than to convey:
It would take me thirty minutes to give you a list of bands I like which would properly express how absolutely schizophrenic my musical taste is.
I don't think it's particularly interesting or cool that I like bands which are on the opposite of the musical spectrum which most people acknowledge. I just think it's true.
I'm not going to say that there aren't douchebags who say things like "I listen to so many jazz artists, I can't even name you any" in an attempt to be cool. There sure are. But to tar everyone who says "I listen to a wide range of music" with the epithet "pretentious" or to say they're being inaccurate because "Oh, well, all that music falls within the range that the human ear can decode, so clearly it's not really all that different" are equally kind of pedantically hipper-than-thou.
Jackie Blue:
--- Quote from: tommydski on 08 Dec 2007, 15:10 ---Edit - Also, I can't see anyone in this thread saying that your taste in music isn't 'eclectic'. I don't know what you listen to so maybe it is. I don't really see why you are defending yourself against personal accusations that haven't actually been made.
--- End quote ---
But there have been people saying that "nobody" has eclectic musical taste, and since I am somebody, I am included in the set of people being referred to as being unable to claim an eclectic musical taste.
Jackie Blue:
You mean you actually understand why you like the music you do?
That must be weird. I can't ever explain why I like what I do.
I disregard the "indie/mainstream" thing entirely, see long Melancholy Rhino article on page 1.
The only people I know who say "I listen to indie rock" are like 38 and mean "I listen to 80s-90s lo-fi alternative and can't even spell Neutral Milk Hotel".
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