When a "genre fanatic" reaches the end of their genre

Stuff I've been thinking about because of the Peaking Lights thread but also some comments that ex IDM boys made on the Analords thread.

I guess mine own position is this: having spent a lot of my life deeply invested with the shoegaze / drone / spacerock continuum. But I've reached the point where I just don't want to listen to any new examples of it - or if I do, they sound deeply unsatisfying. Like I can't help but compare them unfavourably to sone record that came out in 1995. I'm never *lost* in the music any more, I'm always comparing it to some internal map, and the territory no longer seems as good as the map.

I don't want to turn into one of those old trumps who just complains "genre X isn't as good as it was in the old days." I wish ppl like that should just move on and admit it's them that's changed rather than the music.

But what's the alternative? I have too obsessive and categorising a brain to become a "I just listen to what's on the radio" music non-fan. I enjoy the chase, the learning, the research. But I am also really enjoying being a genre tourist, as it were. The freedom to BE lost again, to hear new music in a genre I don't know well and *not* hear it like a genre purist who would tell me "oh that's just like a Drexciya track from 1995!"

So 2 questions really: 1) have you ever reached "the end" with your favourite genre? 2) I'm not drawing value judgements about being a genre tourist, but do enjoy being an expert or a tourist more?

Apologies for bus typing and clumsy construction.

I do not know what "trumps" was supposed to be before my phone mangled it. Grumps, maybe?

1) I don't really have a favourite genre. I suppose I listen to more "indie" than anything else, but that's really such an amorphous undefinable blob... I do tend to stick to the edges of it though and any time I venture into the mainstrean there is that deja vu jolt of "people are still making this music in 2012?". Tried the new Beach House yesterday and it was like being a ghost banished back to the listening posts in Borders in 1997. It was pleasant enough but where's the excitement in it?

2) I admire people who know their stuff inside out - I'm always amazed by the knowledge of some of the folks on this board - and there are days when I aspire to that myself, but I somehow lack the dedication and get easily distracted by shiny new things all the damn time. Maybe I would have more genre loyalty if my social life was based more around music, but that's not a tie I have anymore.

1) have you ever reached "the end" with your favourite genre? 2) I'm not drawing value judgements about being a genre tourist, but do enjoy being an expert or a tourist more?

1) My two big genres are jazz and metal, and both are constantly being revitalized by new blood, so I'm being pleasantly surprised almost daily in the case of metal, and weekly in the case of jazz.

2) I enjoy being a tourist in other genres, especially ones for which I'm decidedly not the target audience. K-pop, for example, or norteño. I find a couple of kick-ass records I like a lot, listen to them until I'm bored, and either search out more or go find a new shiny thing. It's more of a distraction from the metal and jazz that make up my primary listening than anything else, even while being extremely enjoyable on its own terms.

I thought I had reached the end with Krautrock long ago, but the Listening Club thread on ILM introduced me to good stuff I hadn't even heard of, let alone heard... also a lot of barrel scraping scheisse of course. Stupid genre though.

I've never been a genre expert/fanatic but I do have phases of getting deeply into things and I eventually reach this stage every time. This is a good thread idea, I do think about it a lot and it gets even more confusing if it's a genre you've got into completely retrospectively, you can end up doubting yourself in a "Do I just like this song more than that one because I heard it first?" sort of way.

I know a couple of people who have rotated in an out of various genres and genre expertise and wound up on old soul and reggae, both of which have relatively finite bounds, conveniently.

WCC, I would seriously start looking for music in other genres that has analogs to what you like in shoegaze. Like i dunno if you fuck with Dälek (shoegaze rap) or Jesu (shoegaze metal), but those might provide some cool jumping off points

Like, I think the reason I like Chicago footwork so much is that it reminds me of 80s rap, which no one makes correctly anymore

Looking for the things I liked in shoegaze didn't lead me to rap or metal, it lead me into dance music and weird electronic dub! It's a fun journey and I'm discovering I like different things than maybe what I thought I liked about music.

Why don't you let it lead you into rap or metal tho?

btw, I looked just now for that CD in that newspaper shop, no go I'm afraid.

Because I've learned to trust where my ears take me, not where other people think my ears should be going.

Haha, NickB - I have the exact same reaction to modern indie and Beach House, though I do get lucky now and then and fall for a band like The High Highs or Toy.

My favorite genre is post-punk, also somewhat ill-defined, and also one whose edges are as interesting as its canon. I'm definitely far down the barrel-scraping path with stuff like the Messthetics compilations or bands like Taming The Outback. I still rediscover or dive deeper into bands I passed on previously (this years it's Pere Ubu) but I, too, love the thrill of learning and researching new artists and genres. Rockabilly has been scratching my itch this year and I keep revisiting jazz - got a Billie Holiday box this year and just listened to a Charlie Parker box from the library. But I'll never feel the same about other genre's because post-punk hit me in my teenage years and my receptivity and emotional openness will never be the same as it was in those years. I know the rest of my life will be filled with music from all over the place, though, as I'm driven to search things out. So give me my musical backpack and I'm off to tour the rest of the world.

it's been nice talking to you, WCC!

analyse and delete all calcified reflexes, become expert tourist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-ze1uMtFVE

"Calcified reflexes" indeed. It's hard to listen to something different without pulling up comparisons from my favorite genre. But that's why I keep trying to stretch my boundaries.

I'm a pathetic dilettante and I love it. I've never mined any one genre deeply, barely ever even mined one artist deeply. I just like to skim the Nick-flavoured cream off the top of every genre that remotely matches my taste.

I don't know if it's a 'genre' really but Fahey pretty much ruined music for me, it's hard to want to listen to anything else, and with 30 albums of his, it's like, why bother with anything else? You know, it *is* a genre... but none of the imitators hold up, a lot of the new school of American Primitive stuff is missing that certain something that Fahey has in spades.

That's how I feel about James Brown - no one else touches him in the world of funk for me and I'm happy with what I've got.

I was a massive Hendrix fanatic age 17, but got burned out on his stuff after a couple of years. My (strange) fascination with Bowie has lasted a lot longer, nearly 20 years now. But Hendrix isn't confine-able to one genre and Bowie certainly isn't. But I haven't really been a 'only listen to ONE genre of music exclusively' kind of person.

IMO it is pretty easy to find new genres of music to listen to. And I'm not one of those guys who likes everything--no interest in digging deep into punk or metal or anything like that (i don't like listening to abrasive music much anymore--make of that what you will.) But, you know, I still don't feel like i've 'finished' any genres I enjoy. I have a lot of country rock and rural psych records, but still almost every week I find something new to enjoy and by new I mean old and new to me--there are just miles of private press local country rock bands out there, and some of them are pretty good! Likewise, though I have a lot lot lot lot of pre-war string bands on LP comps, starting collect 78s has opened up new worlds to me--and new listening habits too.

I think that if your ears are open and your mind is open then you should be able to find a lot of things to enjoy.
I never thought I'd get very deep into a cappella ballad singing or piano trio cocktail jazz, but here we are.

Hmmm, I'm not sure if I asked any of the questions in this thread in the right way, but oh well.

There are calcified reflexes, and then there are deep seated preferences. And though I think that I can train myself to appreciate new things, or find things I appreciate in new and unexpected places, there are some deep seated listening preferences that are never going to change.

I wonder how much of my long attachment to the dronerock/shoegaze thing was that it was a tribal thing, or a source of identity. Not even that it was a social thing, because it was many years until I actually found myself part of a scene - and oddly, I think discontent with that scene was one of the things that kicked me out of the rut and sent me off in search of something else. (Not the people, but the scene, and the direction the music/bands in it was going.) But it was very much a "this is the kind of person I am, I am a dirty dronerock girl!" identity thing.

I mean, musically, I have *always* gone off on these weird wandering obsessions where suddenly I would get completely obsessed with, I dunno, Turkish Prog or English folksongs and listen to nothing but, for about 6 months, until I'd exhausted it, and then circle back to familiar listening. (Much to the annoyance of friends, housemates, bandmates - one poor mate back in the 90s who was all "argh are you really going to listen to Bhangra for the next 3 months now?") It's a kind of a binge phenomenon, like, uh 誤訳侮辱 described. (No idea if that will copy/paste like that.) I guess that's where I like being lost, being without a map, stumbling from one thing to another almost by accident, and enjoying the sensation of not knowing what the references are. I do worry that that becomes a bad kind of tourism, and maybe even appropriation in some way - maybe more like fetishisation/exoticisation. This sense that it's not OK to treat an entire culture like a shiny geegaw to obsess over for a few months and move on without gaining any real understanding? (Though it's not a whole culture, it's a particular sound that I can't get enough of - maybe it's bad to treat culture as something secondary to a shiny geegaw sound.)

But I guess that the music that I circle back to has shifted - that it actually hasn't really been shoegaze or dronerock for a long time. The things that I want (phased-out textures, female voices singing in close harmony) don't really exist in shoegaze any more. That I'm way more likely to find them on anything from a Dawn Richard record to an Austra record because everything I liked about shoegaze has gone and I'm sure as hell not going to find it in Jesu or Dalek. Which is fine.

I guess my issue is that thing in the really big long paragraph in the centre. Is it kind of wrong and bad to act like a musical backpacker? Or am I just viewing this completely the wrong way, and the cultural experience is actually good, because even in the most dilettante of approaches, you'll still get exposed to ideas and experiences that will open your mind?

Is it kind of wrong and bad to act like a musical backpacker?

not wrong at all

I may expand upon this later, but IMO there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a musical backpacker. I think the irritation with that mode of music consumption/processing occurs when the backpacker believes the small sphere in which s/he is dabbling represents the whole sum of the musical niche they are exploring.

Basically, dilettantism is fine as long as you aren't denying you're a dilettante.

imo caring too much about shit like this is a major killjoy. the cultural appropriation debate is relatively new to me & i don't know much about it but, i don't think "dronerock" counts as a culture?

This is now x-posted as I started trying to clarify what I meant before reading DJP's reply.

(Is it stupid to even worry about these questions? But I tell you, when I'm binging on dub, as I have been doing, I am occasionally struck by the sense that I am somehow trespassing on someone's... I dunno, holy space. That so much of this music is associated with a particular religion, and I stumble in with my desire for bone-shaking, mind-altering basslines and expansive echo, that I am encroaching on something which is important to the people who made it, that I know nothing about.

But that's another topic entirely, about whether it's necessarily to understand a religion, or even just respect it, in order to appreciate music which may have been inspired by it. In fact, having grown up around the church, and being deeply seeped in liturgical music from an early age - it's not necessary to have any knowledge of christianity at all, in order to enjoy a hymn or a classically composed mass - though I guess it does help, simply in a way of understanding how a well composed mass really is like stage-set music to create certain moods for certain parts of the service, and that's why certain parts of the mass will be contemplative, or triumphant. But it's not *necessary*. But then again, christianity in our culture is in no way marginalised, so listening to a mass is in no way eavesdropping or impinging on the culture of an oppressed people. Which I do feel sometimes, when I'm listening to dub.)

This is always a weird thing that I get, when I listen to music with a hugely spiritual dimensions, that belongs to a spirituality other than that I was raised in.

And a double-edged sword, because, being raised as the daughter of a priest, and being around music with a hugely spiritual dimension so much, I do find myself both drawn to and responding to music with an overtly spiritual element, because it's comforting and familiar to me - but also feeling very uncomfortable about disrespecting other people's spiritual traditions by bumbling blindly into them.

Yeah, see, I don't care about people's spiritual traditions, at all. Music is just music, organized sound, and if it sounds good I listen and if it doesn't, I don't.

I know as soon as I say a thing like "spiritual tradition" then I'm going to get answers like that.

But I do think that other people's cultural traditions are something that should be respected, not exploited, not cheapened. I can't explain it better than that, so I'm not going to try.

Also probably beyond the remit of this thread.

More people think like you than think like me.

One of my most spiritual musical experiences is seeing gospel performances at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. I'm not exactly "bumbling blindly," but I know fairly little about the music -- primarily local church ensembles, not star names, from quartets to mass choirs, singing in a tent for (often beer-swilling and dancing) tourists. This goes on next to, for example, a Jimmy Buffett show, and I have no idea if the performers feel that their religious traditions are being exploited; I would doubt it, or they wouldn't continue to do them. But I have never felt uncomfortable, and in fact often feel quite the opposite, about engaging with the music on my own terms.

Appreciation, for your reasons, is not cheapening.

Yeah, this is the thing with performances, e.g. of gospel. That if people felt it was exploitative rather than celebratory, they would choose not to participate.

But then I wonder, the way that a lot of rockers tend to use "a gospel choir" and just stick one on a record as indicative of "this song is deep and soulful, maaaan" - that makes me, as a listener, uncomfortable, even if the performers were OK with it. But this is a discussion we've had on ILM before.

x-post

Eh, I should probably stop worrying about how legitimate my reasons are. I mean, one of the reasons I've been listening to so much dub is that the music does this thing to my brain - the combination of repetition and being mostly instrumental, and certain deep bass frequencies - that puts a certain part of my mind into a kind of trance state. Really repetitive techno and dronerock, when done right, also do the same thing. When that part of my brain is shut down or distracted, then, maths, programming, systematising, all that kind of stuff becomes super easy. So I'm not even listening to it as spiritual music, I'm just using it as a mental tool to shut down the noisy chattering distracting part of my mind.

I dunno. Anyway, this is all a complete digression and not really what I wanted to talk about at all.

It's just that pleasure is always a little better with a bit of guilt.

I don't seem to have really run into this problem, there's just SO MUCH music. Like, I don't think there will ever be a point where I will have heard every dub record, or every country record from the 50s-60s. shit, I'm still hearing golden age rap stuff that I missed the first time around. I guess I don't listen to indie rock much anymore but it's not because I heard it all, it's because I just got bored with what indie rock turned into.

one of my favorite genres (we'll call it modern new orleans brass band music) consists of less than ~75 records total, and that's being generous. it's kind of great that a good new record in that genre is an annual event if you're lucky.

I am occasionally struck by the sense that I am somehow trespassing on someone's... I dunno, holy space.

i think this is true to a greater or lesser extent for all genres, and it's ok. unless you really grow up within a certain musical culture, then your interest in something is always going to start as exotic dabbling before it turns into immersed expertise or deep participation. and if it doesn't, that's ok too.

No, I meant holy literally. As in sacred. As in, songs that have a great deal more in common, thematically and lyrically, with hymns than they do with pop songs. (But I have no intention whatsoever to start studying or practising Rastafari in order to better understand dub reggae!)

eh yeah I don't worry about that. I "get" rastafarianism in general and only understand maybe half of the lyrics on reggae records, works for me

ah sure. although i guess i don't make a huge distinction between music that's literally religious vs deeply attached to a secular culture/subculture.

2) I enjoy being a tourist in other genres, especially ones for which I'm decidedly not the target audience. K-pop, for example, or norteño. I find a couple of kick-ass records I like a lot, listen to them until I'm bored, and either search out more or go find a new shiny thing. It's more of a distraction from the metal and jazz that make up my primary listening than anything else, even while being extremely enjoyable on its own terms.

This describes my listening in 2012 pretty well. I'm pretty happy listening only to Impulse! / Blue Note-era jazz (especially things recorded by Rudy Van Gelder), Dead bootlegs, and the entire recorded works of Peter Hammill and Coil. As of right now, today, this is usually all I want to listen to. But its fun to read about something on ILX or elsewhere (most recent discovery this way: Todd Terje) and hear the cream of the crop, so to speak. I also read things like The Wire with a highlighter pen and am always working on an ever-growing lost of things to 'investigate.' But yeah, even though there are a finite number of recordings of the four things I listed above (though there's enough to keep you quite busy for some time), I enjoy listening to all of that stuff, specifically, a LOT because, to me, those things reward repeat listens in ways that a lot of other things don't. Does that make sense?

Ideally you could listen to a jazz quintet album five separate times just to hear what everyone is doing throughout the album, and come away with a different perspective / appreciation each time. Have you ever listened to Iron Maiden and ONLY listened to Steve Harris? If not, you should. It's a whole different Maiden!

And when I ever feel burned out on the stuff I really love, I pop in over here or open an issue of The Wire and do some listening.

i once made a friend laugh and laugh when i said to them, in all sincerity, "95% of jazz records are very good"

It's true! At least if you cap it at, say, 1975 or so.

I sometimes wonder if knowing the narrative / pedigree of a genre or piece of music is just a way to talk to other fans.

Not having that map, not knowing the narrative makes it harder to talk to other fans. Does it make it harder to explore though?

Or maybe I shouldnt trust Spotify's algorithms so much.

p.s. There is a club in Croydon called Algo Rhythms. I kinda wanna go, but I'm scared of anything with a "ladies night"

half the joy of discovering new music is talking about it. I guess that might be a problem with ILM (and its rolling genre thread format) or with me, I don't know. Maybe the conversation has moved on. Maybe I'm out of touch. I only like things when they stop being fashionable so I can hear my own thoughts about them instead of other people's. But by that point everything has already been said.

have become less of a dilettante over time and more concentrated in certain areas but at same time this seems to have opened things up rather than restricted them...as for talking i'm not sure, certain stuff like house music i guess there's a framework for talking to people, finding out about certain records - other stuff like lautareasca or whatever i don't know anyone who has any interest. knowing the narrative/pedigree kinda interesting but can sorta feel like an internal pressure to be hearing 'the correct examples' so i try and ditch that feeling and just take it as it comes

I can hear my own thoughts about them instead of other people's. But by that point everything has already been said.

conflicted about this - i find it hard to 'hear' something for myself or form my own opinion if everyone is talking about it, esp as its pretty likely i won't necessarily have much of an opinion as mots things i dont really. but then most of the stuff i like no one really says much about it....I also don't really have all that much to say anyway!

going back to the pedigree thing, I dislike the feeling of definitiveness, sorta implies an end-of-the-road feeling, partly why i don't really like the polls threads that much. i like a nebulous feeling

Interesting points that will be good to think about, coal.

The massive poll threads are kind of just the latest ILM fad like we had a POX of POV and sandwich play-offs. Feels enjoyable to have one once a year as a kind of "ILM loved these singles" so you have country pop and black metal sitting next to one another. But like anything, it starts to feel limiting.

I guess that "everything's already talked about it" feeling is always gonna happen when you have 1 group of people who get everything 3 months in advance. It feels like they get to set the narrative, and you're screwed if you hear something 3 months too late and everyone's already made up their mind about it, like that makes you RONG.

I guess ILM has become a more passive experience for me, that I wander about on Spotify and then dig up this 5 year old thread and read people's reactions. But it feels a bit like reading an encyclopaedia rather than a conversation

Or I should go get a tumblr and just talk to myself properly.

the stuff 'everyone is talking about' tends to be stuff in not super interested in, but will give a shot just to see what it is, I prefer not to do so though

Really I don't even like knowing who a record is by before hearing it...even knowing just that means I can't hear it for itself

Most of the time I have the opposite problem tho...wanting to know what something is and having trouble get it identified

I suppose that's one thing to be said for Spotify algorithms. I often don't know *why* it's served something up to me, but at least I know what it is. I used to find that infuriating trying to find new music off mixtapes and DJ sets, etc.

I'm kind of intrigued by anonymity in music when people truly manage to achieve it. It's probably shallow as hell that I like to go on last.fm and look at a picture of what the artist looks like. Not that that tells you much beyond basic demographics because the bios are really terrible. But it seems like it's an actual achievement when you go on there and no one has been able to dig up a picture, so it really is a mystery, and not a "ooh, let's create an aura of ~mystique~ mystery" but this artist has really fallen through the cracks. But fetishising that can be as distracting and pointless as fetishising artists having a certain haircut or dress sense.

I dunno. I can never shake the feeling that haircuts and dress sense are important in performers. Not the only thing, but important.

I suppose the other problem is, I'm always wanting discussion that is something like "I like X, it is amazing because of this, this, and this, please recommend me other stuff which captures some of that beauty."

And people just recommend things based on the perceived *genre* of X, which has been classified according to different criteria than the things that made me respond to the music in the first place.

It's unhelpful. I'm bored and slightly lonely and I'm gonna go listen to Petter EPs instead of moaning.

I don't have a 'thing' about anonymity or facelessness and find that a bit silly and contrived ..it's more that the way I tend to hear new (to me) records is without knowledge of the artist (unfortunately a high % of these I never find out what they are!) - I like hearing things without knowing first but I'd like to find out more than I do so I can buy the record, too many recent favs I'll never find a copy as I don't know what it is

I don't wish to dismiss image or anything, I realize I may be coming across somewhat austere...thinking about this a bit more I love photography and records but would never want to see any of the photography I like on a record sleeve, maybe they're separate in my head

Ha, it's funny because twice in the past few months, I've seen an album cover which had art I really responded to in a kind of "OMG that's beautiful" way and was happy to find out that I liked the artist as well because the music sounded ~just like~ the cover.

http://www.brainfeedersite.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/ARDOUR-COVER-500.jpg

and

http://consequenceofsound.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Young-Magic-Melt.jpg

I feel so predictable when I respond to things like that.

I guess I'd do better to find new music based on the "noteworthy covers" thread than any genre therads.

20s - 40s I prefer no sleeve
50s - 70s I like a sleeve
80s - today I prefer no sleeve

Didn't think of it like that til just now but there it is

I like a sleeve to tell me what to expect.

Sleevelessness is its own aesthetic and creates its own expectations, but generally what it tells me is "faceless mid-00s MNML, stay away stay away!!!!"

I pick wines by their labels and beer bottles by their names, too. I know this outrages some people but it's as reliable as any other metric.

It doesn't work for band names, though.

i like the cover to tell me what to expect too! for me, the middle of a record says this as much as a sleeve tho

here are my ideal sleeves

20s-40s
http://78.46.76.238/pix/20100723/170517586711.jpg
50s-70s
http://www.orbitrecords.com/product/IMG_0861_edited.jpg
80s-today
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_INAvB2Q1j0w/TL4igzWtl_I/AAAAAAAAA6U/IHFzjTw3ZlM/s1600/R-41319-1274307874.jpeg

actually for the 80s-today gots to go with harmonie park, love their lil tree design

http://redeyerecords.co.uk/imagery/89020-1.jpg

Some of my favourite bands in the world have had the worst names ever.

I fully expect that the best band in the history of music would be called something like Extractor Fan or Household Appliance.

But name-choice is usually a one-time accident, while most bands put more attention into their covers. Not always though.

This is what a cover should tell me:

http://images.junostatic.com/full/CS1304723-02A-BIG.jpg

^^^^but that does look a lot like the mural on my bedroom wall.

i like to see the name and all the titles of the songs on the front so if there is a sleeve it should have that ideally

I don't think there has been a band called Extractor Fan.

I'm *so* having that.

(This is why I'm never allowed to pick band names.)

These days I listen to everything on MP3 so all that information is in the tags, coal! I've got a tiny 2 inch square to look at the art in.

One band names themselves after a random track by Talking Heads

another after a random repetition of a word in a Scritti Politti record.

Who would you bet on?

i also like records to have the phone number in the middle bit of the record

Thom Yorke's ponytail?

x-post that's the label's phone number or the pressing plant?

i don't mind! i'm not going to call it, either will do

Actually I'm not entirely sure there hasn't been a band called Extractor Fan. We might have seen them at the Arts Cafe in, like, 1999, supporting Appliance and Fridge?

Me, I find records are better with a 718 area code than a 212.

Pyrolator is pretty close.

About 2 months ago I bought a few "All Seeing I" 12" singles off "Discogs"

the seller contacted me saying one of them had writing on the label was that OK?

I said fine (They were only £2 each or thereabouts)

Turns out it's Parrot's phone number(s)...

What genre has the worst artist names?

Post-rock had to be pretty far up there. All the Canadian bands were called things like "And We Will Grow Wings And Fly Up In The Sky Like Insect Gods..." and the British bands were called, like Washingup Rack.

I remember the day I fell out of love with IDM. I was at a Planet-Mu night circa 2003. Someone I knew had given me some s4r00ms (bad move). The music did nothing but confuse me and make me anxious. The fans irritated the fuck out of me. Up until then I'd run an online IDM community with a view to turning it into a proper record label, but it was about this time that the community started to fold in on itself. Interest in the genre was well on the wane. But it was that Planet-Mu night that stuck the final nail in the coffin. I still love my old Warp albums, but that night put a genre that I'd initially found daring and edgy, way into context.

http://images.45cat.com/roy-harper-when-an-old-cricketer-leaves-the-crease-harvest.jpg