Post a controversial music opinion

ah i see everyone is in here steamrolling chumps instead of posting in the tracks rollout

what's the object over the last few days in this thread austin

enh, i mean it's music for teenage girls so what do i know?

really don't see how this is 'obviously derisive'? derisive would be just saying 'I don't like this ergo it sucks', I read 'it's music for teenage girls so what do i know?' as implying that music for teen girls is as valid as music for any other demographic?

Doesn't help that it's a false statement. Swift's appeal is very broad

for starters these artists do not make "music for teenage girls"
secondly, it is obviously derisive if you recognize that singling out the age and gender of the audience results in a dismissal of the music as "a grift"
it's very obviously derisive imo

I read 'it's music for teenage girls so what do i know?' as implying that music for teen girls is as valid as music for any other demographic?

That's very interesting, because no one in the history of written English has ever written "[art form] is for [audience that does not include me]" and meant it in a non-derisive manner. So it's very interesting that you have never before encountered this rhetorical trope, or parsed its not-too-carefully-hidden meaning.

there is OBVIOUSLY no such thing as "music for girls" come the fuck on

"It's music for teenage girls so who cares" is the derisive version of that statement.
Austin has already been convicted of misdeeds so anything he writes is going to be given the most uncharitable interpretation possible.

there's no such thing as music for teenage girls and Austin is acting the bollix for reaction which is why he's being interpreted as if that's what he's doing

what I want to know is why he is doing it

"no one in the history of written English has ever written "[art form] is for [audience that does not include me]" and meant it in a non-derisive manner."

I have

New Kids on the Block was music for teenage girls cmon now

go fuck yourself

I'm sure I have too it doesn't mean such a baldly lazy provocative effort for kicks doesn't deserve well...kicks

if you listen to something and truly think "this music isn't made for me", then probably the next thought you should have is "therefore the world probably doesn't need my opinion on it either"

i shoulda held onto the rap thing until next week. no way to compete here.

hey Granny what's a "girl" iyo?

Moodles otm

if you listen to something and truly think "this music isn't made for me", then probably the next thought you should have is "therefore the world probably doesn't need my opinion on it either"

This is very true! And you could at least ask questions like "Is this music doing what it has set out to do? Is it pleasing to its intended audience? Is it successful on its own terms?" But to claim that people who like music you don't like are being tricked, that somehow you are the only one who sees/hears the real truth...that's some clownshoes bullshit.

Hey Rob who fucking cares

clownshoes bullshit otm
this is embarrassing
we can do better

if you listen to something and truly think "this music isn't made for me", then probably the next thought you should have is "therefore the world probably doesn't need my opinion on it either"

well yeah, but I kind of thought this was the subtext of Austin's comment, anyway.

see, that thought should come first before posting a lot of bullshit

imo it’s pretty clear this is less about opinions, controversial or otherwise, and just about conversational engagement

It’s good to know that you can dismiss the work of female artists as being trivial, for children, even (female children ofc, the male ones are busy shitting up ilm) and refuse any interpretation of this as misogynistic. Huh.

It's puzzling to me that as respected and experienced a critic as Greil Marcus uses the "grifter"/sham formulation when talking about music he doesn't like.

New Kids on the Block was music for teenage girls cmon now

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, February 1, 2022 12:24 PM (fourteen minutes ago)

Alright, I was getting heated and posting incoherently. For me there's a difference between "music for teenage girls" and music marketers targeting a specific age+gender demographic, which is why NKOTB was hugely popular at my elementary school (i.e., not teenagers and no gender specificity). I fundamentally disagree with the idea that you can make music "for" a gender, meaning that people of other genders cannot understand it or enjoy it or etc. Obviously music labels can market it that way or the music press can build a narrative that it's for that demo, but I perceived Austin as saying there's something inherently feminine and juvenile about Swift's music, which I find to be bullshit.

xp

it boils down to this narcissistic perception that my opinion is the only correct one, therefore anyone who disagrees was somehow scammed into false consciousness

in other words, people couldn't possibly just like a thing, they had to be tricked

there's also a long history of the gendered dismissal among boys who like music. and the much longer history of femininity itself being an insult. you can't just say 'but i'm immune to all that' lol. the universe isn't an etch-a-sketch that gets erased for you. dudes who do this always cry 'aint i a person' after they're called out on using the derogatory language that they don't ever have to be affected by. this is pretty basic. ll otm, people can and need to do better.

xps I'm not really that familiar with Swift, but I thought that teenage girls + women who were teenage girls when they became TS stans were kind of the core of her fanbase? (along with music journalists, maybe?) and that she made her name with songs about being an adolescent girl, this idea of a young woman not far beyond girlhood speaking to other girls/young women was a key part of her art? (which is not to say that people outside that demo can't appreciate it or connect with it or whatever) so I guess you could paraphrase that as there being 'something inherently feminine and juvenile' in TS's music, but that's not necessarily a bad thing/makes it less worthy.

isn't pretty much all pop music (broadly defined, including rock and metal etc) is basically 'music for/of adolescents' anyway?

She's 32 years old.

damn all the goalposts just moved to the next city over xp

The Biggie opinion is pretty wild to me, does his voice seem dull on “Gimme the Loot”? That’s a good controversial opinion!

xxxp afaict Stevie Wonder's entire career is about being a 12 year old boy

Taylor's ~ the same age Joni Mitchell was when she made Court, Summer Lawns, Hejira...

i just got here, is this the agreeable opinions thread?

Wow, this thread is going into weird territory. fwiw I'm a 50-year-old white guy; decently fond of lots of music that could be easily denigrated as "music for teenage girls" if that was even a remotely valid thing. I mean,

But. How many of you actually know any teenage girls? I don't claim any particular insight or authority in this but as a parent of a teenaged AFAB human I do know a nonzero number of actual (not theoretical) teenage girls.

As far as I can discern, they are mostly not listening to recorded music by major-label artists. They hear plenty of music, but not always on purpose. Buying records and listening to the radio are not really their prime way of interacting with music. Music may enter their world through some other channel (TV, video games, movies, social media) but the teenagers I know are rarely just, like, sitting down and listening to music for its own sake. The ones I know about may dig some streamed low-fi as background for studying, or some theme songs from anime or some songs from musicals, or some stuff they have encountered on TikTok. Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish and K-Pop barely appear on the fuzzy edges of their radar screen. My circle of acquaintance may not be representative but this is what I have observed.

In my experience these are extremely good humans living in a deeply weird timeline. Their relationship with music is different from how I consumed music in circa 1982, but that's okay! Because the way I consumed music in 1982 was totally different from how my parents consumed music in circa 1962. Ditto my grandparents in circa 1942. All of this is as it should be.

That's about right, though "They hear plenty of music, but not always on purpose" describes most of us in every demographic since, like, 2006.

i shoulda held onto the rap thing until next week. no way to compete here.

lol for real

btw I am still lolling re: Austin, but now it's at how badly he is playing himself and total inability to make the allegedly nonsexist point that is in his head appear in his posts

Can’t even be mad about a man logging on to tell us his special teenage girl insight over those of us who have been actual teenage girls, I didn’t think it was possible to keep plumbing new depths but ilx never disappoints

Tbf to Austin he’s bailed a while ago, and now we’re dealing with the reflexive urge to defend from teenage girl understanders and people with no knowledge of Taylor Swift’s music

Most of my controps are probably only controps here on ILX. To the general record-buying public they would seem like critical orthodoxy.

Ringo Starr was a crap drummer.
Yoko Ono is a terrible artist and was the main factor in the break-up of the Beatles.
Pink Floyd only became good after Syd left.

all three demonstrably untrue

All pretty much the exact opposite

all RONG

sorry idk if I believe that i just wanted to join in

my 9-year-old daughter is currently smack dab in the middle of Taylor Swift acting as her gateway into being into pop music that isn't part of a Disney soundtrack. It's my first exposure to her album tracks having just absorbed her hits in the ether, I'm enjoying it.

I have no intention or desire to defend Austin's statements. But just to parse them a little: I think it's fair to say that some music is made with a target audience in mind that may be defined demographically - certainly by age and sometimes by gender and/or sexuality. And without a doubt a lot of music is marketed that way. But once the product is out there being consumed and appreciated - in as far as it is any good - all bets are off regarding who the music is "for." Aside from the general trollishness and latent misogyny, I think that lazy word is what made Austin's statements particularly inflammatory

Pink Floyd only became good after Ringo broke up the Beatles

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