Fun Stuff > BAND
What is Indie?
Vancroth:
I don't know. I sometimes say, "I listen to indie rock," when someone asks what I like, but in that I don't really care kind of way. I've found that it tends to go over better with people than actually listing names. I listen to other stuff, but that seems to be the safest response when with people I might like, but who only have a casual interest in music. What would be a more appropriate response? "I like lots of stuff" just seems like an even emptier response and does seem to carry a connotation of either a lack of interest or pretentiousness.
ruyi:
--- Quote from: zerodrone on 08 Dec 2007, 14:30 ---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.
--- End quote ---
i've heard people claim to be eclectic because they like michelle branch AND the wreckers. is that close enough? i mean, you're right, terms are relative, so isn't it kind of contradictory to be talking about 'the average music listener'? i would have guessed that the average music listener likely does listen to different genres, but whatever.
i would say most people would describe their own musical taste as eclectic. it's just perceptional bias. sorry, i hope you did not think i was seriously trying to criticize this. i still think it is a form of pretentiousness but it is one that i am guilty of as well and it is probably something intrinsic in human nature. anyone claiming to be above it would indeed be full of shit. everyone's happy about the music they listen to because they spent time and effort seeking it out. there's nothing wrong with that.
--- Quote from: zerodrone on 08 Dec 2007, 14:30 ---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.
--- End quote ---
isn't that a bit unfair of you then, criticizing me for something i'm intrinsically incapable of?
--- Quote from: zerodrone on 08 Dec 2007, 14:30 ---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.
--- End quote ---
hm. i did say the key was intent in using terms like eclectic, but perhaps i made a mistake in saying it is 'usually' one of pretentiousness. i should have just said 'sometimes'. but is one word really enough to make you feel like i was criticizing you personally?
--- Quote from: zerodrone on 08 Dec 2007, 14:30 ---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.
--- End quote ---
i guess i was just trying to say the same thing, that some people are douchebags, but not all? you are right though, i am pedantic. but that will just go away after i grow up in a few years.
Jackie Blue:
--- Quote from: tommydski on 08 Dec 2007, 15:57 ---If you read that old thread I linked earlier I was saying that a lot of people who like 'Indie' think it is very different from mainstream music. It's not, which is the point Ruyi was trying to make.
--- End quote ---
I'll take your word for it. To me it seemed much more that she was making the point that it's not eclectic to listen to both Metal Machine Music and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, or to listen to Fear of a Black Planet and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. In the former case, such "music" really doesn't use 4/4 time or chords or scales or other Western music conventions (and neither do many other types of bands, everything form Wolf Eyes to The Charalambides). In the latter case, it's not even about the music, it's about the mood and presentation. I don't think you can disregard lyrics and attitude when deciding if one artist is in any way similar to another.
When people ask me what kind of music I listen to, I just say "everything" and try to change the subject. I've found that in any situation where someone asks me "What kind of music do you listen to?" they're generally the kind of person that I have no interest in talking about music with anyhow.
Jackie Blue:
--- Quote from: ruyi on 08 Dec 2007, 16:58 ---i guess i was just trying to say the same thing, that some people are douchebags, but not all? you are right though, i am pedantic. but that will just go away after i grow up in a few years.
--- End quote ---
I think you're just too involved in over-analyzing the tastes of others, or the intent of their declaration of said taste, or whatever. I don't care what anybody else in the world listens to and would rather just talk about bands than their fans.
Which is why I tried to end this thread on page 1.
Unfortunately when I have time on my hands and beer in my system I am apt to get into these pointless debates.
Curse you, Internet. Curse you.
Patrick:
--- Quote from: ruyi on 08 Dec 2007, 00:15 ---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 ---
I think that since all the old ideas are already played out, some musicians decided "Okay screw this, we're going to do what WE want now using some less outdated ideas, and if people actually like it, then cool." And for a while now, the specific sounds of the forerunners of that artistic movement are being emulated and commercialized, and it apparently pisses people off.
You know what I think?
BLAH BLAH BLAH GUYS IT'S HAPPENED WITH EVERY SINGLE ARTISTIC MOVEMENT OR TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCE IN HISTORY. Something gets popular? Other people want to ride the gravy train. It's a mixture of good business practice and human nature. The Greeks use columns and people think it looks rad? Oh shit, here comes Rome saying "Sup guys, our most important buildings have columns now." Somebody invents the gun and they start winning wars and gaining new territory. Soon enough, everybody's got guns and it's a clusterfuck bloodbath. Somebody uses carbon fiber construction to make their race cars lighter, and they go faster and win more often? Soon enough, everybody's doing it.
tl;dr - Copypasta is how we humans work, we can stop caring and go home, there's nothing to see here.
P.S. - Don't try to argue with Roo, she's too damn good at it.
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