Trollheart

I think a lot of the time it comes down to resisting your "inner critic", that little guy inside you who says things like "You won't like this" or more importantly, and twice as wrong, "You shouldn't like this". It's the sort of inner warning that we (well, I) have that tells us this may not be cool, step away from the radio/ipod/TV/computer, let it go, let it go... okay it's gone now. Wow for a moment there you were in danger of being REALLY uncool! You know, like, you maybe came close to listening to a Westlife song! Never mind that it is actually a good song, you can't be seen to be listening to Westlife! For example...

It's why people might be surprised to hear someone like me, whose music taste is far from eclectic, can listen to an Andy Williams (God rest his soul) or Barry Manilow record as easily as Iron Maiden or Saratoga, or that I enjoy a nice classical symphony as much as an acoustic country song. My range is of course limited, and I admit and accept that, and there are genres I may never get into (who does, unless you're Jackhammer?) but I do like to try. Which is why I delved into the scary world of boybands in my journal and will think next year about looking into jazz.

But at the same time, this has to be balanced out. I wouldn't listen to some new music just to be cool, or seen as cool, and I sure as Hell wouldn't listen to something I hated, and knew I hated, just because someone else thought it was good. Similarly, I'm quite happy listening to what a lot of people might consider boring music --- AOR, Prog, some metal --- and it doesn't bother me that they think that way. I don't think "Oh I should be listening to the more hip music". That's not how I am. But I am ready to listen to new styles, within certain limits. If I see "punk" or "hardcore" or "screamo" shown as an album's genre I'm unlikely to go near it. To quote my avatar, I know what I hate.

As for where I find it? Surprisingly, most of the music I've discovered in the past few years has been through album-selling semi-legal websites. I check them for the new releases, hear a little and decide if I want to buy. Prior to this I got into some amazing (to me) bands via the now-defunct Allofmp3.com, who would have a link saying "If you liked that you might like this", and most times they were right.

To answer your main question, there's not much I would consider "not music" but I would click, to be fair, on few if any links in anyone's thread or journal. I prefer to find music myself, though I of course will take recs. Naturally, it's great to do it the other way round, ie turn someone on to a band you love and they don't know.

As for "range", well as I say I try to expand but I know my limits. I think the biggest and most important factor in the music I listen to is I have to like it. If I don't, then it doesn't matter how cool it is. I clicked a while back on some Sun Ra and I did not like it one bit, so now I know. Or maybe I don't: maybe I'll try again. But in general I know I don't like jazz, nevertheless I know little about it which is why the "Stranger in a strange land" feature for next year is looking more and more likely to be a dive into that world.

Hey, I can only drown, right?

Oh, and I think your dolphin is fuelled up and ready to go now...

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Urban Hat€monger ?

I do listen to as many types of music as I can, early blues, 60s female singers, grindcore, acid jazz, I could go on and on.

I don't really post here a great deal about half the stuff I do listen to simply because a lot of the time I don't know what I think of most of it. I have no idea what makes a jazz or soul record great other than someone else's opinion. I'm sure with repeated listening I'll work it out in time,

The thing I miss about rock music is just playing an album and listening to it in a totally unbiased way, and that's because I've spent about the last 30 years listening exclusively to rock music. I can't just pick up an album and judge it on it's own. I'll always judge it by what I've already heard.

Listening to other stuff allows me to do that. I can just go to some blog or download site and just keep looking till I find something that looks like it might be interesting.

so that's pretty much how I discover new stuff.

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Blarobbarg

I listen to stuff like that all the time, Big3... though I'm far more inclined to listen to jazz or blues from the same era over symphonic pop music.

And I find new music by listening to a band I like, listening to similar artists on Last.FM, listening to albums from an artist that gets my interest, and repeating. Or by just browsing this forum, I'm sure more than half of what I listen to, I listen to because of MB.

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TheBig3

Slayer's come up 3 times in recent conversations, and its time I ask that question I've been burning to discuss, regarding the people I have to psychoanalyze.

1. "Slayer /end of thread"

This was a post made on a Facebook Status. The status said "Ugh, its way to early fo ****ing Marron 5." It was presumably made at a coffee shop or while listening to Pandora. And its not out of character, the woman who posted it is is more into Janis Joplin and Joanie Mitchell.

The tradiational responses followed "Oh it must be Always O'clock." A laugh riot Facebookers are. But then, at the bottom of the list of responses sat "Slayer /end of thread."

Now as Facebook works, this was the last post because no one wnated to discuss it more. I'm not going to try and figure out if this post had something to do with it, but it could be - slayer seems to be a giant redflag is social conversations. Not because of what the band is, but because of how its invoked.

Slayer seems to be the universal antidote to things slayer fans don't like. OH Maroon 5? I prefer slayer. I'm playing Christmas music to celebrate the season? Oh really, I'm celebrating the season by playing "Dead Skin Mask." Hooray, Halloween is here! Halloween is here everyday when you listen to Slayer. Hey Kim, congrats on your Engagement. Yes, congrats Kim, I've bought for you a signed/framed poster of Slayer's 1991 tour as a gift for this monumental life change.

Slayer seems to be how disaffected people act in the world. Like some lucky rabbits foot clung to in the Valley of the Shadow of Life, Slayer provides an "everythings ****ty, brutal, and raw" in a world of Starbucks commericals, Hallmark Cards, and your grandmother pinching your cheeks.

Why is she pinching your cheeks? Doesn't she know you're an iPod away from becoming a Viking Demon on the Battle Fields of Hell?

2. "Well, lets compare the most recent Slayer album with Reign in Blood"

This comment came from a recent bar patron I started talking to about the new Batman Films. How did we get from Batman to Slayer? Because to a Slayer fan, everything is only 2 degrees removed. And to say degrees is a bit of a misnomber. Its more like one degree, because Slayer is everything. And you're always talking about things.

He was saying Bane (from the final of the new Batman films) was a terrbile character. Then I, trying to lighten the mood, said "well at worst, he's much better than the Bane from Batman & Robin."

(As an aside, you can always tell who's emotionally damaged by their response to a mood-lightener. My comment should have been a "no ****" thing we could all agree on, instead, this man who has something to prove says the following")

"Well you cheapen your own argument by saying that. I mean, thats like saying the New Slayer Album is better than the new Justin Beiber."

The irony here is so cosmic my heart almost collapses on itself. "What I'm trying to do is compare the newest slayer album with Reign in Blood."

You can imagine the rest. From there I told him I was fascinated with Bane's voice and cadence, his timbre and his accent. He told me I sounded like a wonky English Professor and went back to coloring his drawings in his moleskin, festooned in his loose-fitting hoodie in a bar built for the after ork crowd.

And I make the decription to point another attribute out about the Slayer crowd. Its not about having your aesthetic interests, its about evangelising. Why was this disgruntled misanthrope sitting among neckties and cocktail dresses, aggresively going after peopels interests; of those willing to give him a break and speak with him. Slayer it would seem ordained him to go forth and spread the anger.

3. As you can see, this one came from here. And if you click the link button in the quote, you can also see this has little to do with the thread to date. This was also this persons first post on the boards. His first post, and his first and only word in the thread was "slayer."

The thread had to be requested to be unlocked. Everyone to date was commenting on the "Rap is rubbish, but rap with metal is awesome." And frankly, the OP came from a Slipknot fan who's not that different than Slayer. But Slipknot lacks Slayer's longevity and iconic stature as the perrenial "Anti" that Slayer has occupied since somewhere back in the 1980's.

So there it is, Slayers music I enjoy. But the fan base has some obsessive and Freudian sexual fascination with the band that seems to not only occupy their rapt attention, but also plugs in, like a virus to a healthy cell; like the alien broodling to its host body, to fill and occupy the emotional voids these people can't handle.

Have trouble talking to women? Thats ok, you're just too brutal for them.

Can't find a decent job? Its not the piercings in your face, its that you were meant to slay the weak in this life, keep drawing in your basement. Some day it will happen.

Tired of not looking like a viking? Listen to more Slayer, it will make your beard grow faster and you're look more muscular in less time.

Long story short: **** Slayer. They're rotting your miserable brain.

Edit:

This no **** happened after I went to post something in the MPG.

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Janszoon

I'm a Slayer fan and I agree with a lot of what you've said here. I do, however, think some of "Slayer /thread" type of comments are more tongue-in-cheek than you're giving them credit for. Slayer's name has become cultural shorthand for "classic, face-melting metal" in much the same way that Philip Glass' name has become shorthand for "artsy music that the average Joe doesn't get". As a result, people often invoke it simply for effect.

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

Engine

Reign in Blood /journal

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Urban Hat€monger ?

I quite like the idea of using that in real life to win every argument.

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TheBig3

A rite of passage in any budding music snob's life is the deep ponderence of the "what does this even mean" element of genres.


But if genres mattered as little as snobs thought they did, we'd stop using them. And in the age of the Internet, sections in the store aren't as viable or potent as they had been in the past. But the genre argument still comes up in music fairly often, and like the common cold, has so many permutations that its sentiment is cropping up in new and exciting new comments like "They don't really sound like anyone else" or anything containing the word fusion not referring to jazz. And oddly enough, the genre war doesn't seem to crop up in movies, books, or art (paintings) nearly as often as it does in music.


My guess would be that most snobs would be far less aggressive if we just stripped out the genre and wrote in its place what all non-snobs read in the first place. Instead of punk, if we wrote "fast, talentless, and angry"I'm sure it would convey the point a little better. If the smooth jazz section instead said "over produced tripe made to drop granny panties" most people would shrug their way to a "more of less" agreement. And as I mentioned, the rest of the planet reads "jazz" and "punk" that way already. It isn't prescriptive, its directional. So why anyone gets pissy about it I'm not really sure.


But I bring all this up because my favorite subject - metal - seems to have taken the ball and run the other way down the field. I have a respect for metal that's difficult to define. Its artsy and technical, but not a pretentious pile of horse****. It can be dramatic, but its also fairly self-aware. And while I'd like to set a few of its fans on fire for being woefully out of touch with nearly everything around them, Metal doesn't give a rats ass what's popular - they know what they like and you have to give them that. They (as a concept here, don't ever think it) are who they are.


But what the hell is going on with its sub-genres?


If most snobs are screaming "It can't be placed in a box!" about their favorite music, then metal fans are looking for shackles. While all other genres are seemingly dissipating into a sea of noise, metal is moving toward an ever shrinking set of Russian dolls. Metal is how Zeno's Theory is applied practically to the natural world. But what's the purpose?


While I'm genuinely asking this question, I'd suspect its actually an attempt to achieve what the other genres are trying to pull off. By shaving things down to the core element of the genre, they're trying to differentiate between bands...but wouldn't the bands name do that just the same? And wouldn't this work worse than the diffusion of the other genres? And wouldn't both be improved if they stuck to the old monolithic genres to use as starting points?


I don't know. Long story short, I still don't get metal sometimes.

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Engine

This summary is absolutely perfect.

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TheBig3

Thanks for your comment. And thanks to the Mod that approved it.

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