Post Random Music-Related Thoughts You Have

[liebzz]

Currently listening to Richard Stuverud’s Hummingbirds. I am enjoying it. In some parts, it really reminds me a lot of the work he’s done over the years with Jeff Ament.

[Ms Harmless]

"Fantano Reads Wack Bars for 10 Minutes"

I don't think this dude has any self awareness, it's embarrassing

[doug rr]

who is going to make pigs in popular music?

[Chris_H_2]

I really like Carly Rae Jepsen.

[Jorge]

Were you always this much of a pophead?

[Chris_H_2]

Were you always this much of a pophead?

really good question. i probably started about 6-7 years ago. my son (now 14) really got into music, and gravitated toward bands like the national, sigur ros, radiohead, etc. my daughter (now 12) would always complain that she hated his music in the car. so i told her if she wanted something different, she'd be responsible for bringing it to the table. and i suggested she start with taylor swift's 1989, because that was a safe bet. and i also played her st. vincent, which seemed liked a good compromise/cross over.

the more i listened to some of the stuff that was in that genre, the more i liked it. and then my daughter starting with the tiktok (which we have since taken away), and she started listening to more and more of the stuff.

i was never really closedminded about poppy stuff, but i did gravitate toward more of the brooding "rock" stuff. now all of the poppier stuff that we listen to is all women.

[Ms Harmless]

there's definitely more than a little misogyny in the fact that "bubble gum pop" like that is so often considered shallow or, at best, a "guilty pleasure"; there's arguably more honing and craft in a lot of it than 1000 post-rock copycats

[tragabigzanda]

[Ms Harmless]

fandoms for those bands were and are filled with girls and women, making them "guilty pleasures" for many boys and men, unless they can rise above the pack and publicly not give a fuck

[tragabigzanda]

[VinylGuy]

Sometimes i realized how good those songs are when i listen to other artist cover them...for example the Suzanne Son cover of Bye Bye in Red Rocket is amazing, and it shows how good the original might be, but i just cant listen to the original.

[wease]

Lol what. NKOTB, *NSYNC, One Direction…

New Edition, Jackson 5…

[Ms Harmless]

incidentally, I once read an excellent quote that said (I'm paraphrasing) that The Beatles may not be "the best pop group ever", but they arrived at a time when women were finally allowed to publicly and unabashedly find a group of men sexy on their own terms, really for the first time; revolutionary, and the "boyband" movement was born

[wease]

I dislike calling groups like New Kids, NSync and the like “boy bands”. They’re not bands. Band members play instruments. None of these guys play any instruments except for The Jackson 5.

[Chris_H_2]

I love that comment about the beatles.

to me, it still pretty sad, but not altogether surprising, how many guys so quickly dismiss anything that they perceive to be "pop," or "top 40," or whatever for no reason other than the perception that it's not machismo or manly to listen to a certain category of music. frankly, it's weird. music is art, but to some, performance art is categorically different than other kids of art. why, i don't know. music is not objective, just like a painting or sculpture. and to me, whatever pleases the ear is what i'll listen to, just like i'd gravitate towards certain architecture or a drawing. so whether that music involves a female, or different sounds, or whatever, i won't dismiss it out of the box. but a lot of people will based on nothing more than societal notions of acceptability. fuck that. if it's good, it's good, regardless if it's pop. that is all.

[Ms Harmless]

I dislike calling groups like New Kids, NSync and the like “boy bands”. They’re not bands. Band members play instruments. None of these guys play any instruments except for The Jackson 5.

"they don't play their own instruments / write their own songs" is a trope that is part of what I'm talking about

many of the swing jazz greats only sang, didn't play instruments and didn't write the songs they made famous; were they not musicians?

[Ms Harmless]

I love that comment about the beatles.

to me, it still pretty sad, but not altogether surprising, how many guys so quickly dismiss anything that they perceive to be "pop," or "top 40," or whatever for no reason other than the perception that it's not machismo or manly to listen to a certain category of music. frankly, it's weird. music is art, but to some, performance art is categorically different than other kids of art. why, i don't know. music is not objective, just like a painting or sculpture. and to me, whatever pleases the ear is what i'll listen to, just like i'd gravitate towards certain architecture or a drawing. so whether that music involves a female, or different sounds, or whatever, i won't dismiss it out of the box. but a lot of people will based on nothing more than societal notions of acceptability. fuck that. if it's good, it's good, regardless if it's pop. that is all.

absolutely

[wease]

I dislike calling groups like New Kids, NSync and the like “boy bands”. They’re not bands. Band members play instruments. None of these guys play any instruments except for The Jackson 5.

"they don't play their own instruments / write their own songs" is a trope that is part of what I'm talking about

many of the swing jazz greats only sang, didn't play instruments and didn't write the songs they made famous; were they not musicians?

I never said anything about them writing songs or being musicians. I said they weren’t a BAND. They’re a group of singers. Who cares if they write their own tunes? And of course singers are musicians. But groups of singers are not bands. You totally missed my point.

[Kevin Davis]

I love that comment about the beatles.

to me, it still pretty sad, but not altogether surprising, how many guys so quickly dismiss anything that they perceive to be "pop," or "top 40," or whatever for no reason other than the perception that it's not machismo or manly to listen to a certain category of music. frankly, it's weird. music is art, but to some, performance art is categorically different than other kids of art. why, i don't know. music is not objective, just like a painting or sculpture. and to me, whatever pleases the ear is what i'll listen to, just like i'd gravitate towards certain architecture or a drawing. so whether that music involves a female, or different sounds, or whatever, i won't dismiss it out of the box. but a lot of people will based on nothing more than societal notions of acceptability. fuck that. if it's good, it's good, regardless if it's pop. that is all.

absolutely

Admittedly I have no idea, because my kids are pretty much only interested in music from the video games they like, but I wonder how much of this is unique to folks who grew up in the rock generation, where misguided principles of authenticity are prized above all else. I'd be curious if this is still a prevailing mindset among folks 20 or so years younger than the core demographic here.

I mean, there will probably always people who have built-in aversions to things that are blatantly commercial, but as people's avenues for experiencing music become more eclectic (i.e. it's not just people watching the same MTV programming anymore, or listening to the same radio stations), I wonder if some of those widespread biases will start (or already have started) to break down a bit.

[Ms Harmless]

I dislike calling groups like New Kids, NSync and the like “boy bands”. They’re not bands. Band members play instruments. None of these guys play any instruments except for The Jackson 5.

"they don't play their own instruments / write their own songs" is a trope that is part of what I'm talking about

many of the swing jazz greats only sang, didn't play instruments and didn't write the songs they made famous; were they not musicians?

I never said anything about them writing songs or being musicians. I said they weren’t a BAND. They’re a group of singers. Who cares if they write their own tunes? And of course singers are musicians. But groups of singers are not bands. You totally missed my point.

you said they weren't a band because they weren't musicians, hence they cannot make up a "band"

"boyband" is a colloquialism that more often describes a certain aesthetic or audience than playing instruments; but hey, you can call what you want whatever you want; Foo Fighters will remain a group and Backstreet Boys will remain a band (as well as a group of horses)