Sunshine7 wrote:
If it's bad, then how did it get popular?
Feel free to take this with a grain of salt if it really sounds outlandish, but, I've come to understand that people take music in in such different ways that it can be as far apart as night and day.
A lot of people out there simply look at it as social commodity - ie. whatever's popular; its a nonphysical form of clothing, its a badge of conformity; these are the people who'll diss anything that's not immediately popular - now - and will diss anyone who actually listens to music as music.
You also have people who confuse music with sports - hence they can really get overboard on a, technically, crap band because while their songs, melodies, and ideas are hackneyed, one cliche after another, they can't stop marveling at how good the drummer or guitarist is on a dexterity level or how great a show the band puts on live.
Truthfully I really get the impression that the amount of people who get into the ambience, the feel, the ideas, the headspace of songs, and really like music for music are, while a somewhat large minority, I'd give them maybe 35% to 40% of the population, are still a minority.
So how does crap get popular? Well, its only crap to people who actually *listen* to music, I don't know that there is such a thing though to the people who only like music as social currency, although these people do have one upfront rule that keeps intelligence off of the table much of the time - they hate deep thought in music, something about it kills their high. Hence, the most popular music - while not definitionally shallow (some band can slip past their radar) - more often than not it tends on the shallow side. Also music is marketed to youth, youth are terrified on the grounds of physical harm to break the rules. Who makes the rules? The people who are totalitarian haters of anything that isn't immediately stylish or doesn't enhance status. So - you have lots of people who hear music as Abercombie and Fitch, D&G, Diesel, or whatever brand of clothing is popular and these people, typically being the popular kids, have everyone else scared to think differently.
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