reconciling love for dear friends with atrocious ideas/opinions about music

do you ever find it's hard to do this? music is one of the most important things in the world to me, and sometimes i catch myself thinking horrible mean things about my friends with less enlightened views on it. things like

"the fact lady gaga writes all her own songs automatically makes her better than britney spears"
"you like the sex pistols? they aren't even a real band, they were formed by malcolm mclaren."
"all contemporary black music is bad"

the people saying these things are intelligent, sweet people who are otherwise erudite and thoughtful, but bring up music and they're liable to say some of the most revolting shit within seconds. i'm probably the nerdiest of all my friends when it comes to music, and have probably spent more time thinking, reading, and listening to it than any of them. i'm obviously not an expert, but i feel as if if this were any subject other than music we could have a reasonable discussion about it and they might come to understand that what they're saying is crap. but the fact that it's music makes it hard for them to get past "SUBJECTIVE, BRO." also the lack of any recognized authority on the subject leaves everyone thinking that whatever the fuck they come up with is a right answer.

this isn't a big deal really, but it happens pretty regularly with a couple specific friends of mine that i otherwise respect and admire. i try to shake the feeling that they're idiots for saying such things, but it sticks nonetheless and i hate that it's tainting my opinion of them because they're wonderful people.

I think they could couch all three of those views in some kind of nuanced way where they were saying essentially the same thing but then you'd have to sit there stewing even more.

I have friends, co-workers who don't understand a lot of things about art, not just music specifically.

Isn't it possible to just be interested in what they do think, or what they do like, and why? Obviously that kind of attitude will get seriously tested by a statement like "all contemporary black music is bad," but I feel like it's usually possible to coax people to tell you what they think about music in a way that might be interesting. (Hopefully without coming off all anthropological or condescending about it.)

the first two are derived from political notions about authorship etc so not simply subjective and shall kindly assume that the other is nonpolitical, have you tried arguing the larger claims without reference to the disputed names? and how thorough is their knowledge of 'contemporary black music'?

honestly the best thing to do is tell them confidently that they don't know what they're talking about and move on to the things that you both enjoy. getting hung up on this is a pointless, and in some ways terribly selfish, position.

The ugliness comes from the reductive quality of their dismissals, so wouldn't arguing the larger issues sidestep the actual part of their views that is ugly?

the reductive quality of their dismissals comes from a reservoir of wider prejudices?

Someone's liking authorship of a certain mode over another isn't a particularly heinous prejudice.

no it isn't, fairly mild in the firnament of prejudice i suppose

Yeah, I really can't see what's so problematic about the first two.

With the third, I'm pretty sure my conversational approach (apart from just changing the subject), would be like:

(a) Do you like "black music" from the past? What do you like and why?
(b) What do you think changed that makes it bad now?
(c) You might enjoy some of these many artists that whatever you just said doesn't apply to.

And then ideally you have just been a great pal and exposed them to music they might enjoy that might force them to rethink the statement that bothered you!

(Not that I agree with the first two, obviously, just saying they're pretty common and harmless opinions that don't really need to be struck down among normal people. In those cases I can't think of any better response than the obvious ones -- you know, "that's actually not super-important to me" or "actually I do like this for these reasons")

The ugliness comes from the reductive quality of their dismissals, so wouldn't arguing the larger issues sidestep the actual part of their views that is ugly?

― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, March 23, 2010 7:38 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the more i think about it the more it seems this is more about my immaturity than anyone else's. i don't know if enlarging the argument would be helpful, since these are half-formed thoughts or impressions in the minds of people who aren't that invested in and don't lend particular importance to the subject. people just have a weird entitlement to their opinions on music that make it stick in a unique way. like for example i know almost nothing about international politics, and although i have opinions on international politics i am aware that a) they are pretty dumb, and b) given that i know so little, i should be humble in my expression of them. talking about music isn't just exchanging ideas, people feel the music they listen to is part of what they are and part of what makes them cool or interesting, and they say certain things in a certain way as a result.

What about friends who just like really heinous shit like Marillion and Oasis? How do you reconcile with them, huh?

Some drum'n'bass track comes on random

Friend 1: You have to be on drugs to like this music
Friend 2: Yup.
Me: [quiet fuming]

"all contemporary black music is bad"

This opinion isn't a lot less nuanced than a lot of ILMers' views on contemporary Country.

lol except you're comparing "country" and ALL BLACK MUSIC

I never talk about music with most of my friends. That's why I'm on ILM.

x-post Hence the qualifiers.

"you like the sex pistols? they aren't even a real band, they were formed by malcolm mclaren."

faust was put together by a producer. and malcolm mclaren was fuggin awesome. best part about the pistols. except pil.

Some drum'n'bass track comes on random

Friend 1: You have to be on drugs to like this music
Friend 2: Yup.
Me: [smiles slyly]

Culture got you down?

http://www.esquire.com/features/chuck-klostermans-america/ESQ0105-JAN_AMERICA_rev

what's 'black' music? excuse my ignorance, please.

doesn't matter,it sucks anyways.

"all contemporary black music is bad"

It's hard to imagine a conversation among intelligent, sweet, erudite, and thoughtful people where this line, in this wording, comes up.

I could see "I don't like current rap and R&B".

I tried repping taylor swift to some friends the other week and got shot down pretty soundly :o{

Reconciling love for ILMors with atrocious ideas/opinions about etc etc

taylor swift irl is a totally losing proposition

Maybe they meant "bad" is in "good". "All contemporary black music is bad, man."

I never talk about music with most of my friends. That's why I'm on ILM.

this

taylor swift irl is a totally losing proposition

― J0rdan S.

QFT

you guys are taylor swift martyrs

it's a difficult life, but someone has to defend Taylor Swift from Band of Horses fans

have you told them that she writes her own songs?

i think she's supposed to have a beard before i'm allowed to like her music

She waxes.

She is a miracle of delightfulness.

one can only hope that she'll go Ben Bridwell for LP3, allowing me to listen to her music once again

Katy Perry has a beard, though

http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/shelleyvision/css/Russell-Brand-031108.jpg

i hope her boyfriend doesn't mind it

yeah i find it difficult discussing music with my friends, mostly because of what samosa noted above: that music, no matter how nerdy you are about it, often defines a part of you and when it comes to discussing it, you'll jump at the chance to be involved. my problem is that often my friends seek out my opinion, because they know i'm a music nerd, but when that opinion doesn't jive with what they're thinking, they get upset.

when you agree you have good taste, when you disagree you're a music snob

although I never seem to get offended by the "snob" label. I kind of want to be a snob, maybe

I never talk about music with most of my friends. That's why I'm on ILM.

all my opinions about music are pretty atrocious because i am everybody's friend :)

It's not hard for me not to care about it. I mean I LOVE 70's Genesis w/ Peter Gabriel and I listened to a good friend of mine talk about how much it sucked in comparison to Collins-fronted Genesis (which is RONG on so many levels), and then listen to another friend say that 70's Genesis didn't sound like Genesis (lol what).

I started to argue then realized neither were the types of people who bought 50-60 albums a month like I do and mostly only liked pop stuff (note: that's not a pop-bashing statement, but pointing out that I listen to pop among other genres where that's all they listen to).

ok more like 20-30 albums a month

if you bought 50 albums a month at $10 a piece, that'd be $6,000 a year on records

congratulation

does anyone know where i can find the fourth BSS thread?

"the fact lady gaga writes all her own songs automatically makes her better than britney spears"
"you like the sex pistols? they aren't even a real band, they were formed by malcolm mclaren."

these are obnoxious, but not worth getting upset over

"all contemporary black music is bad"

this guy deserves a punch

This past weekend, on the most gorgeous first day of spring in recent memory, after having just stood in a 10-minute long line at Rita's for her, my wife comes out with "Ugh, I hate reggae!"

It's part of a continuing trend of comments about the music in my car that really needs to stop if she wants me to be her chauffeur every weekend.

"But I'm a guest in your car!"

"no."

I never talk about music with most of my friends. That's why I'm on ILM.

this

add me to this particular chain of thought.

People do not value ABBA

irl

They certainly do in lolEurope.

I have a similar problem with my gf right now. She hates art b/c she thinks it's just something people do to look different/important/smarter than everyone and yet she still wants to go to art galleries to see "old pretty pictures". I've been slowly getting her to open her mind up to the general idea of interpretation and looking for meaning in things and so far it's working, only now she wants to stick me with the burden of "explaining" every fucking painting we see.

http://server40136.uk2net.com/~wpower/images/product_images/9780141190068.jpg

Yeah, the only people who I've ever met stateside who openly and freely admitted to being ABBA fans were the immigrant proprietors of an Irish pub. They were all gray-haired, 40-something toughguys.

Yeah, my gf doesn't quite have the Sontag-ian approach. It's more of a "I don't get art. What's the point? It's totally useless."

It's part of a continuing trend of comments about the music in my car that really needs to stop if she wants me to be her chauffeur every weekend.

"But I'm a guest in your car!"

"no."

ppl have this all backwards btw--i always want to be like when YOU are driving ME someplace we can listen to whatever the fuck you want

nb not referring to my gf but ppl in general seem to think that they deserve additional privileges beyond the fact that i'm driving them someplace

I really upset my g/f once when she overheard me saying that I "hate Dave Matthews Band" to a friend. Up until then I'd been "Well, he's not really my style, but whatever" with her.

"all contemporary black music is bad"

this guy deserves a punch

― The Reverend, Wednesday, March 24, 2010 1:58 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark

this one was coupled with a complaint about how black music "used to be so good." like, i get that he probably just means "contemporary black music i've been exposed to ie rap and r&b" but still this is retarded. another friend of mine who actually listens to hip hop differentiates between "good rap" (backpacker rap, 90's canon etc) and "entertaining rap" (basically all southern rap besides outkast).