Ok, so I’ve got nothing I want to post, in terms of music, at the moment. And all sorts of rants and ideas rattling around in my head instead. If I hurry and finish this before 3 a.m. when I know I go a bit crazy I think we’ll be o.k.!
Over on Matthew’s blog we’ve been discussing/arguing about taste… musical taste. It all started out innocently enough with Himself musing over the focus of his music gaze, has it become more tunnel-visioned than it used to be due to listening to so much obscure music. For lots of reasons, a major one being my own knee-jerk reaction to any hint (whether intended or not!) of disdain for popular music and/or the “average joe,” we all got rather off topic and fancy footed around the question of whether popular music and average taste reflected a lesser quality of engagement or appreciation of music in general. (That’s my own analysis of the conversation over there, and only for the purposes of jumping off from that point on, here. No, I don’t want to beat a dead horse!)
So what does determine music taste? How does your taste change? Does everyone’s taste change as they mature? I think these are fair questions, even interesting ones. I can give you a sort of social analysis of what some believe … or I can be less boring and just tell you how it happened for me. Well, that’s an easy decision, isn’t it? And I think my story will reflect which theory I subscribe to in the end.
I grew up with big band music actually, with Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Duke Ellington, and Tommy Dorsey. My dad was a fan of 1940s and 50s music, having lived through it, and even though I came along in the sixties we still played the records on Saturdays. Alongside that were Nat King Cole, Lena Horne, Doris Day, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. The other side of the coin, musically, was old style Country and Western. You know, the good stuff like Conway Twitty, Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, and of course, the god of gods in our record collection, Johnny Cash. It really wasn’t until I was 13 or 14 that I paid much attention to the radio and popular music other than some folk and some funk from the time that my older siblings were obsessed with.
But when I hit 14 my world sort of exploded in many ways and music was a huge part of that. I began to read some pretty heavy political theory (I’ve always been a reader, read anything I could get my hands on) and I began picking out the music I wanted to hear and using my teensy allowance to purchase it. So, it being 1978, the first album I bought (vinyl, of course) was Sgt. Pepper. What? You thought I’d say the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever? Well, yeah, I bought that too, but later on. No, at that point I was a huge Beatles fan and I decided that Sgt. Pepper was to be my first album of theirs because it had “A Day In The Life” and that was the. best. song. ever. I was obsessed with the sixties and totally gutted that I had been born twenty years too late and 3,000 miles away. There’s nothing like 14 year old angst, coupled with a political awakening, really. The second album I bought was Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols, but that one I had to save up for and I hid it from mom and dad.
So, I filled my head with every Beatles song ever recorded, with all of the early Rolling Stones, the Faces, the Yardbirds, the Who, Simon and Garfunkle, etc. It all went quite well with what was easily found on the radio at the time: The Allman Brothers, Thin Lizzy, Meatloaf, Steve Miller Band, Jimmy Buffet. I didn’t go searching for much other than the older music of the Beatles’ era, the rest I just let drift into my ears as I lay in bed at night with the radio on real low, hoping my parents wouldn’t discover me still awake on a school night. And the only way to really seek out older music that wasn’t played on the classic rock or oldies station was to scour record stores. For that you needed a ride, I didn’t grow up in a big city. So I was at the mercy of my best friend who had an older sister with an 8-track player in her VW Beetle, those were heady days!
At my school there were four groups of kids: Jocks, Preps, Stoners/Freaks and Blacks. Yes, we were that segregated, I’m sorry to report. Furthermore, those groups were largely determined by how much money your family had and where you lived/what kind of house you had. Jocks were the only ones who could really cross class lines, if you were sporty you could really gain popularity even if you were from a poor family. Preps were the nerds, the brainaics and they were, to a man, the upper middle class kids. Blacks were a whole category onto themselves, it’s sad to look back and realize just how strict those lines were. And Stoners/Freaks were of course, the poor kids… we weren’t all just addicts, some were surfers, some were lower middle class but associated with the blacks, some were kids who didn’t really do drugs at all but were just the social rejects. But we were largely from working-class families and existed in a rapidly gentrifying community where housing prices were soaring and country clubs were being built for every big sub-division they could make, as fast as they made it.
Your music taste in school was hugely determined by your status group. I don’t think this was unique to my school. The basic breakdown was: Jocks = hard, southern rock and eventually turning to disco as it became “white” with the popularity of Saturday Night Fever; Preps = light rock like Barry Manilow and light country like Barbara Mandrell; Blacks = disco and funk; and Stoners/Freaks = classic rock, southern rock and gradually New Wave and punk. I definitely remember the first punk song I ever heard on television, staying up late for Saturday Night Live, it was The Clash performing “Straight To Hell” and “Should I Stay or Should I Go” in the fall of 1982. But we had punk music on the AM radio earlier than that, the Sex Pistols making it over a few years before.
It wasn’t just the music you listened to, you know this already… it was how you dressed, the style you chose, and that all coincided with the style of the bands you loved. All those Jocks dressed like a toned down version of the disco girls and guys with tight pants and shiny, colorful shirts. Preps were the originators of the “alligator shirt” collar up, tucked in tight to their freshly pressed jeans, or mimicking the boxy jacket and baggy pants of Billy Joel or Barry Manilow. And us Stoner/Freaks had our low rider, bell-bottom jeans and concert t-shirts and eventually pegged leg jeans and torn t-shirts with spiked hair and safety pins, always safety pins. It was obvious who we were copying. Music ruled the dress code, it marked you for what you were and what you knew you were destined to be.
New Wave hit. Another British invasion swept over the airwaves and the television. MTV definitely altered my universe. Yeah, I saw that first transmission and my heart was racing with the excitement of a whole channel for my age group. My Anglophilia which was legitimately hatched by the Beatles only continued to grow and it seemed that everyone around me began to share it. I soon found a radio station on the AM dial that transmitted late at night from somewhere ridiculously far away like Boston (I was in the Southeast, US) and I stayed up til all hours of the night listening to Joe Jackson ”Sunday Papers” and Elvis Costello and the Jam. I began to talk about bands that no one at school had any knowledge of (the Buzzcocks, the Misfits “Who Killed Marilyn?” Siouxsie and the Banshees) and my underlying oddness was only magnified. They were madly into the Outlaws or Supertramp and here I was slipping off to the side somewhere else. The obsession with music really began here I think.
Of course there’s more to the story, I went off to work, to college very briefly (found Billy Bragg and U2 there) and then to work again and I continued to follow some UK music as well as the post-punk American bands. I met up with a bass player for a bit and he turned me on to the Talking Heads and more Rolling Stones and loads of other bands that I don’t even remember now. And mostly he taught me how to listen to music, I mean how to listen to the different parts of a song, each on their own and compare them to other songs. Is the bass line in “Satisfaction” as good as the bass line in “Burning Down The House?” (no, the answer was no, but that didn’t define the song completely either). So my little obsession with music took on a more analytical turn and we went to some gigs and I listened to endless chatter about music (which I loved, don’t get me wrong). And after we parted I kept collecting music and thinking about it, not just what I heard on the radio, but honestly… yes mostly the radio. I gave up vinyl in the mid-80s, I moved around too much to justify carting it with me. But my friends were a huge influence on my music taste and luckily they had good taste, they had been to college and were into the Smiths ”There is a Light That Never Goes Out” (Oh and Happy Birthday today, Morrissey!) and Depeche Mode.
The moral of my little story: I didn’t become a music obsessive overnight, I didn’t become a music obsessive over the “right” kind of music. I collected Yes albums “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” Bon Jovi albums, Journey albums, alongside the “cool” music that I’m proud to still enjoy. But I also didn’t really collect much. I never had much time or money to do all that. I owned 30 or so cassettes when I met my wife 16 years ago. I had been working full time for years at that point, paying rent, putting gas in the car, eating pretty decent. I hadn’t gone to a gig in ages, ticket prices were ridiculously high for popular music. CDs were just coming out and were also pricey and I listened to the radio most of the time, in my car and at work. But I still considered myself more interested in music than my friends. It wasn’t until I accumulated enough extra trappings of wealth that I really began hoarding music. And once I had access to and knowledge to operate my own computer in the privacy of my own home (not a thing I grew up with at all) all of that hoarding became even easier.
I still like popular music even though this blog features quite a bit of obscure, indie, folk artists. I really enjoy having all sorts of genres here, it’s truly a reflection of what I listen to. And I count myself very fortunate to be sent music of all sorts. But I also don’t think that limiting myself to pop or mainstream music would mean I had a lesser appreciation for “good” music. What you like is what you like on one hand – there’s no need to value one type over the other, but on the other hand are all the forces in your life that have helped form your likes and dislikes and those forces do very much judge which types of music are “good” and should matter. Music taste is always about making a judgment call. That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it. What’s yours?
buy Joe Jackson’s Look Sharp!
buy the Smiths The Queen is Dead
buy Yes The Best of Yes
buy the Misfits Box Set
I like what I like, and I make no apologies for that.
(Except, maybe, a little in the case of Shampoo.)
Shampoo?? You’ve sullied these pages with Shampoo? hahah I loved that band too! Good job, sir! xoxo
When I was 14 or so my favorite band was Loverboy. Then I heard “Pride” by U2 and something literally broke inside. It was like a slap in the face. Ever since then my musical taste has been about trying to find things that affect me in that same way. I can still enjoy classic rock and some of the music on the charts, but it’s rare that such songs really move me. Don’t know why, but it’s true.
Oh C&B, Loverboy is still a good band, they can’t help that Bono blew them away, he blew all of us away back then. So are you admitting that you’re a song-rush junkie now?
I like some “popular” music, but I’m also incredibly disappointed by what most folks listen to and consider good. It’s incredibly disheartening to play “London Calling” for a group of high schoolers and have them tell you, “This is crap, do you have any Disturbed? or Lil Wayne?” (True story). I unabashedly love My Chemical Romance, Coheed and Cambria, and Fallout Boy and my wife loves (a bit abashedly) Justin Timberlake, so there’s that. I think there ARE bands that are good AND popular, but they’re so few and far between nowadays that it’s hard to tell the wheat from the chaff. I’m guessing that back when you were growing up, there was plenty of crap too, it’s just been weeded out by time, so the stuff from back then we hear now is the good stuff like Billy Joel and Depeche Mode, not the garbage that was the Lil Waynes and Disturbeds of the time.
Well yeah, a lot has been weeded out by time, you never hear “Disco Duck” anymore(thankfully!) But it’s also a matter of what people are capable of listening to, right? I mean we couldn’t listen to “London Calling” without having heard what came before it, to know that it was fantastically innovative and sexy. You just can’t go back in time. Oh and uh, Billy Joel is not the good stuff, haha xx
My husband & I were just discussing this the other night. We both have very eclectic taste in music that includes a lot of obscure bands in various genres as well as some mainstream stuff, and most people who know of are aware of this. But it seems we both have either mainstream-only fans insulting us for liking folk, jazz, classical, and going to the opera or we have music snobs insulting us for liking U2 and watching American Idol.
The same thing happens when it comes to books and movies. Some people calls us geeks for liking classic literature and films, others act like we’re airheads for enjoying the occasional brain candy novel and Zoolander. But when it comes to music, movies, books, or anything else, it all depends on my mood at the time. Sometimes I want my mind to be challenged or to evoke a certain emotion, but sometimes I just want some fun distraction.
I have no trouble accepting that tastes vary person to person, mood to mood, so why must I limit myself to either being a so-called mainstream zombie or a supposed elitist intellectual? I think it’s how a person limits their taste in entertainment (especially if it’s to fit into a certain group) that says more about their personality and intelligence than the taste itself.
Of course, this is speaking as a general fan. When it comes to reviewing, I do make a distinction between singers, actors, and writers based on what I personally perceive as the amount of talent and effort they put into their art simply to make it obvious what I do and do not like.
Ok Vic, I got ya up to where you say this,
How to perceive talent when we also acknowledge that taste is so very personal and should be understood as a non-judged category? I struggle with this. I’m not sure I can actually judge talent without having any musical skill myself knowing full well that my own taste is so structured by my upbringing and by the way I’ve piloted my life since then. And is it fair to judge people who limit their taste? Are they really self-limiting on purpose or does carving out an identity not dictate that very act? I’m of two minds on it myself.
I have nothing to add. I agree wholeheartedly with the Tarty Tart Tasty Theory. In fact, I’m nominating you for the Nobel Prize in Tasteology. Brava! Brava!!
Oh FiL you kiss up! (not that I’d have it any other way, of course) xoxo
No kiss up, honest truth. Though here’s a peck on the cheek for you: MWAH!
Funny thing is I remember at age 10 listening to my friends AC DC tapes over the phone off his single speaker old school tape deck, he was always so geeked out over the new albums… I never got it, AC DC didnt appeal to me then but I listened cause he liked it. It wasn’t til I was about 14 that it clicked, and no I cant explian why, my friend Wob and I would spend our weekends scavenging through mall hoppers, local record stores and whatever we could find for our next big thing. In fact it almost became a competition between us to see what we could find that would out do the others find, I think we stayed pretty even on the next “big” finds.
I started out listening to the average stuff like Foriegner, and yes I had some Bee Gees album when I was younger, but the first official tape I ever bought was Ozzy Osbourne – Diary of a Madman (still an excellent album even to this day.) The first CD I bought was Prince – 1999. (all I remember is they had to pull a song off the album because the CD’s of those times only covered 65 minutes or so and that album was 2min over the max length.
Over the years Wob and I went different directions in taste, we both went from rock, hard rock, metal, and speed metal and then broke in different directions. I took a more electronic line and dove into Goth, Industrial, House, Techno, and eventually emo-esque. He went more advent guard, punk, and jam band.
Its funny thinking about how music has been a soundtrack to life, I can hear a song and pretty much know where I heard it for the first time (my wife thinks I’m weird like that) But it also took me through some of my funnest career choices (mobile DJ, sound and light tech for a road band and a roadie for a bit) Anyway there you go Tart, but you knew that anyway
Oh man! You need to get your own blog! hahah…. but yeah, I forgot about metal, damn! So the Freaks/Stoners of course listened to metal along with all the other stuff and then punk but always metal. And I had a very strong attachment to KISS for a while in 9th or 10th grade, and then Ozzy, oh yeah, I loved Ozzy and Alice Cooper too. Prince was a big influence after I left college the first time and lived with roommates. We listened to so much dance music in the mid-80s, all of it being whatever they played in the clubs. Funny, the first CD I bought was the Sex Pistols, I wanted to really test the theory that it would sound better than vinyl. I was disappointed, of course.
I love that you brought Techno to me, I had some in my library but didn’t know really what I had until you fleshed it out. And of course, you’ve been my major source of knowledge on most counts this past year as I’ve caught up to the music world a bit more. It’s hilarious to me that a conversation about Morrissey brought us to this point. And that I’m talking about this all on his 50th birthday. I remember very distinctly, last July, deciding that I needed to start a blog to write about all the music that you and I had been discussing. So yeah, we’re weird in that way that a song signals a moment in our lives. “You’re not right in the head and nor am I…And this why…This is why I like you, I like you, I like you”
Tart, great post. I grew up listening to popular music but as soon as I discovered how much better and unique non-radio rock was, I dove right in. Then the teenage punk scenester in me dover even further into the underground. I’m only now starting to appreciate some pop music again. That being said, I’ve always loved Journey.
Aww, thanks Eric
I’ll grant you that mainstream music is not unique but “better”? I dunno, about that. It is definitely interesting and I think part of what I’ve determined to be a major selling point with underground or indie or small label folk music is that you can actually get to know the artists somewhat. I’m amazed every time I blog about someone and they reply via twitter or email or in comments to thank me or correct me or update me on their progress or concert tour. You don’t get that when you blog about Bloc Party or Tori Amos.
And yeah, who doesn’t love Journey, eh? They were amazing! xoxo
Great post that took me back to high school, where I must admit I was an old-fashioned Dead Head into country rock like NRPS, Marshall Tucker, CSNY, etc. Then went away to college, and that was where I got my first exposure to punk rock like Ramones, Patti Smith, Clash, Pistols, and thanks to Jack and Fred on the 6th floor of the Hofstra University Tower E dorm, my tastes starting to change. But to this day I will listen to country, blues, oldies and OMFUG! If you have an open mind, then it follows you should have your ears open for music of all kinds. Enjoyed the comments here too.
http://www.wardensworld.blogspot.com
Oh gawd, and here I thought you and I were gonna get along… Dead Head indeed! hahah
But hell yeah on the Country rock thing, I do still listen to the Outlaws and the Allman Brothers quite regularly. xoxo
Excellent post Tart – I missed the Toad discussions what with being away, but I think this definitely proves that music taste is determined as much by personal experiences as any innate ‘good’ or ‘bad’ taste. I love both cheesy pop songs and credible underground stuff equally, but for different reasons. I’ve started writing a similar post about my own ‘musical background’ if you can call it that – the Beatles and Smiths will also feature heavily
Yay, Milo! I’m so glad other people are writing on this, it’s a sign of what a good thought-provoking nudge Matthew’s given us.
Look how you’ve characterized your taste above! “cheesy pop songs” and “credible underground stuff” … if that’s not a judgment call I don’t know what is. Thanks for stopping by, darlin xoxo
Great discussion, love all the little insights. The school years thing is unique for me because I frankly had no friends during most of my school years. Ha! So I sort of existed in this weird bubble where no one close to me was influencing my musical tastes, other than my older sister. I had little buddies, it’s not that I was totally friendless, but the only music I remember them listening to was stuff like Bryan Adams or The Scorpions, which I definitely did not like (I remember my friend’s older brother wore the same Scorpions t-shirt for most of his young adult life). And the cool or socially powerful kids in school were Mormons, interestingly enough, so if you weren’t Mormon you were kind of not ‘in’. But most of the Mormon kids were jocks, cheerleaders or on student council, so I guess in the end it ends up as the same power structure.
Getting back to it, my sister was really my biggest musical influence. She listened to stuff like Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Cyndi Lauper, etc. My parents were not really into music in a big way, though my mom loved 60s girl groups, so I got a decent dose of those growing up. Oh and U2. God, I loved U2 (which is why I get so sad every time I’ve heard a new album by them since about 1997).
My musical revelation in life actually came out of the dollar bin at a local CD shop, believe it or not. I stumbled onto Blur’s ‘Parklife’, and loved it so much that I went on a mission to find any and all related music. This led me to Pulp, Elastica, Oasis, then onto Scott Walker, Wire, The Kinks, etc. So music was literally an exploration for me, a research project.
I think coming into it that way gave me a unique appreciation for most any kind of music.
Oh, and I love the absolutely ridiculous and hilarious expressions you use, such as ’sorry if I’ve shoved my tits too far in your face’. I only wish I could whip that one out without confusing everyone that might be standing around me at the time.
hahah there are advantages to being female
… and yeah I feel you pain about U2, they were so good in the beginning. I’m always a little bit floored when I find so many of my readers read me over on Toad’s blog. I really should be more careful over there, eeek!
I sort of got passed over by Blur, rediscovered them recently and dig Parklife alot but can’t say that it “means” so much to me. I wish it did, it’s a wonderful album!
Always good to see you here, darlin xoxoxo
Star!!!!
a gold one?
I really liked getting a peek into your musical history. It’s so interesting, why people like what they do. I did not have friends with the same musical taste as me during the formative years so I listened to my stuff on my own, but if everyone was going to see Madonna or a hair metal band, I went along. I’m glad I did- I would’ve missed out on fun times with people I love if I’d turned up my nose at it.
oooh hair bands! I loved/love hair bands!
yeah, I can’t deny it. nice to see you here, greer xoxo
We all have our revelatory albums. If they were all the same life wouldn’t be half as interesting.
Gotta say, I’m not much for reading most music blogs… But yours is very compelling. Well done! And of course, the tunes are spot on! Rock on, …um…er… Tart.
Chris, it’s comments like yours that keep me blogging. That’s seriously the nicest thing to say, hun, thanks xoxo
@ muruch i don’t know why tart jumped on that last paragraph of yours – did she read it right? cuz honestly i am not even sure what you meant. was she right?
@ tepup your wife thinks you’re weird for remembering when you first heard a song, or having it bring back memories of a time in your life? now i think your wife is weird. no offense. doesn’t everyone relate to music that way? i am far from an aficionado – i don’t know who most of the bands are that people talk about here – but songs are definitely very strongly related to events in my life – to the point where i can’t listen to certain songs because i’ll cry, etc.
@ milo i got that about ‘whip it out’ even if tart missed it.
gwan whip out your ideas, i’ll ponder them til they explode. 
and who the fuck doesn’t love Journey???
kisses all!
Leave it to my little missus to lower the tone here at LSB, hahaha…. and sweetie, I think you mean Sean, not Milo on the whip it out comment! Tho I am surprised that I missed a sexual innuendo, that’s just not like me. Thanks for checking up on me, m’darling and how appropriate that the ravatar selector chose the Mona Lisa for you!!! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxxooxxo
a Brass one, cos you’re the sheriff around these parts
Nearly everything I say is littered with unintended innuendo.
hahha! me too… tho sometimes more intended than others
Great post and equally great run of comments….
I dont think I can ever really put my finger precisely on what it is that makes me fall for a piece of music. As a post-punk new wave kid, I automatically detested things I love nowadays – Leonard Cohen and Neil Young spring to mind. I’d also like to think that some current mid-40s who three decades ago laughed at some of the stuff I spent my paper-round cash on have also mellowed their views and now accept that the guitars on records by the likes of Buzzcocks and The Skids, and the level of musicianship by such as EC & the Attractions and Squeeze were every bit as good as the likes of Led Zepellin, Yes and Genesis…..if we are going to be anything like a half decent meber of the human species, we should get more tolerant and understanding of many things in life (incl music) the older we get.
Some artistes I’ve listened to in depth on the i-pod lying on a Caribbean beach over past 2 weeks:-
The Jam
Kylie Minogue
Curve
New Order
Malcolm Middleton
Eminem
Woody Guthrie (after re-reading Billy Bragg biography)
Pet Shop Boys
Mersault
Wedding Present
Arctic Monkeys
The Auteurs
Johnny Cash
Sons & Daughters (reminded of them cos they did a song called Johhny Cash)
There were many hundreds of others who came up on random play….all sorts of music with the exception of metal and classical (i can take the latter in a live setting but not in any other form….I struggle very badly with all forms of the former).
But why do I like, for example, Pet Shop Boys but have little time for Erasure? I like New Order but can happily leave most of Depeche Mode alone. I couldnt give you the name of any other 40s/50s folk artist other than Woody Guthrie…and I’ve never been able to understand the adoration folk have for Bob Dylan.
Eminem?? He’s a genius in my book. Most other rap artists I’ll pass on…
Arctic Monkeys?? Still liking what they’re doing but I’ve turned away from most of the other early 2000s guitar-bands that appeared out of nowhere (other than maybe Maximo Park, but in ever-decreasing returns).
I guess music in some ways is like all other forms of visual and performing arts…..there are different things that appeal to different people….and just you like one partucular painting by an artists (or one movie by a director) doesnt mean to say you have to like everything that looks or feels the exact same.
I dont know if this makes sense….I got bad jet lag. But I just wanted to try and somehow say that taste is always personal….and no-one should be pigeon-holed into a category of music lover just because they like or admire some songs/artistes in that genre.
Oh and respect to you dearest T for the love of Joe Jackson (or Joe Jockstrap as the metal boys at school christened him).
Ah you’re home JC!
Joe Jackson is genius! I’d rate him higher than Elvis Costello even, if I had to. And yeah, I think you nailed this argument on its head with your comparison to art and film. I LOVE “Starry Night” by Van Gough, but honestly, not much else he did, or other impressionists did for that matter (he’s an impressionist painter, right?). Am I some sort of un-refined, heathen because I happen to like the most popular painting? Well fuck em if I am, it’s what I like, haha
Do we get more tolerant the older we get? I always looked at my parent’s generation and thought they got less tolerant as they aged, so how can I say we’re any different? But you know, we started out on very different footing… so, I’m unresolved on the matter. It’s a thought-provoking statement, and one I get behind.
You and your two weeks in the Caribbean! What a wonderful time you must have had, dearest. Thanks for popping by so soon after coming back, you were missed, xoxoxo