Existential Dilemmas Over Margaritas
I suppose this isn’t really an existential dilemma exactly, but it is troubling.
After taking expected twists and turns through Karl Rove and Scientology, my Saturday night party conversation eventually landed on the whole “So, what kind of music do you like?” question. And I realized that I have NO IDEA how to answer this seemingly innocuous question.
Even if it’s partially true, I can’t just say that I like all kinds of music because I then come across as someone who really just listens to Top 40 radio but thinks he is eclectic and diversified because he’s also heard of Bach and Bob Marley.
I certainly can’t say that I have a strong affinity for the hip-hop/rap genre because I then become the complete white-boy poseur. As much as I would like to think otherwise, I can’t really pull off rap.
I guess I could say I like alternative/independent music, but even I don’t really know what that means. And if they then ask for examples, the dilemma gets even trickier. Do I list a bunch of recent bands that most will not have heard of and risk coming off as a pretentious snob out of a Nick Hornsby novel? Or do I list acts like Green Day and Beck and risk coming off as a rather laughable character who only thinks he likes true independent music?
In this case, I ended up babbly incoherently for five minutes and just listing many, many bands. It wasn't pretty.
posted by OleNelson at 10:37 AM
7 Comments:
SomethingAwful.com has an excellent article on answering this sort of question - http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2424
I think the best answer to that question is to throw it back in their face - what kind of music do YOU listen to? Then, instead of spending five minutes balancing indie-hipness with snobbery, you can spend it making fun of them.
i'm not sure exactly what course of action is best for this situation, but i do think deploying the "independent" label is not the way to go. strategically, this is a poor choice because you yourself steer the conversation to the cool/snob balancing act by opening up the question of what independent music is.
beyond conversational strategy, the category "independent music" is unhelpful because it doesn't suggest any particular style/genre of music (it might include rock, pop, folk, hip hop, country, punk, etc and all of their oh-so-important subgenres).
maybe the way to go is full on snobbery: tell people you HATE all pop music, and ask them what kind of books they like to read...
Hee. The SomethingAwful article was FUNNY. Here's a snippet to give the gist: "Remember: conversations about music aren’t really about music, they’re about you. Always steer your conversations toward your own personal taste. In this case 'taste' just means 'superiority.' You can’t help it if your standards are too high."
I'm sad that you fixed the wonky formatting on this post.
i think the question "what kind of music do you like?" is lame. who asks that?
but anyway, i say indie rock. it used to refer to "independent labels" as new haven correspondent points out, but when you say "indie rock" that's not what you mean.
indie rockers are not hipsters! they do not (should not, i mean) care about snobbery, name dropping, coolness, or hipness! just read The Hipster Handbook. there's even a little section on indie rockers and how they are not hip.
i like to think of that one indie guy on the movie High Fidelity. When Jack Black's character is all like, "What is this shit?" The indie guy is all "Umm... uh... have you ever heard of Belle & Sebastian?" and he's not snobby at all about it.
there are papers on indie sensibility and indie radio announcers' stylings usually characterized as self-deprecating, lots of umms and ahhs, not remembering names of albums and giggling and stuff, sort of endearingly monotone.
so if someone asks what you listen to, or name a band or something, you can just kind of get shy and be like, "uhh.. i don't know... i kind of like the magnetic fields, have you ever heard of them?" (put on your hopeful cute face when you ask that question and notice that i "kind of like" is a shy understatement. then you would be totally indie.)
unless you don't even like indie rock.
just don't say you like "alternative" music. what does that mean?
All I have to say is that multiple readers of this blog are hoping that one reader of this blog purchases that Kelly Clarkson CD pronto!
Who, me? Didn't I already say I would?
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