Pop Culture Oblivion
-- Does it take effort to ignore pop
culture?
Recently a friend was visiting my apartment and
she picked up a
Maxim
magazine to inspect Michelle Branch (pop guitar rock chick for those of you
currently expending energy to ignore pop culture) on the cover and ask about
her. I certainly wasn't shocked that my friend didn't recognize the name or the
image of this pop artist, since it is fairly common for hip people (and this
girl is hella HELLA hip) to be oblivious to the most popular parts of society,
but then I started thinking about it more. This girl helps run a radio station
and is always on the lookout for new music... mostly in the genre of indie pop,
but she is interested in other kinds of music too. Was it really reasonable for
her to have ignored this whole group of
artists?
The way I see it, there are 3 possible explanations for this:
1. Very popular music is comprised of almost no worthwhile songs
2. Ignoring very popular music is a form of protest against record companies
3. The fun of independent music is discovering the artist for yourself
Notice that "4. General music snobbery" is not on the list, that is not because I am being polite, it is because I know too many people who are not snobby who do this.
1. It is possible that there are almost no worthwhile songs in very popular music, but I would be pretty surprised if that were the case. For one, every genre has gems amongst a sludge of less cool stuff. Only a small percentage of new jazz is that good, or new trance, or new trippity-cliphop-soul... for very popular music to be ignored it would have to be less than those small percentages. Also, our other forms of media (movies, books, etc) don't have to be devoid of value just to be very popular. Many of the best movies and books were unknown at their introduction, but many others were popular from the get-go.
2. The big record companies are so bad that I can almost empathize with this one myself. A combination of moral opposition to purchasing music from big record companies, and a moral opposition to listening to music without paying for it could lead someone to avoid listening to very popular music at all. This seems strange to me because it means you are picking your music based on the politics of creating it instead of the quality of the music itself.
3. Which brings us to number three, where music takes a back seat to the obscurity of the artist/band. I think some people like the thrill of finding obscure music nobody has heard of and introducing others to it. I love learning about new music this way, and if I ever chance upon some unknown treasure myself I love sharing it. It seems to me that if someone is into discovery so much that they totally ignore the stuff right under their noses (michelle branch, remember?) then again, it isn't about the music, it is about the search for it.
So in conclusion, whatever. Looking back this question probably doesn't warrant a post this long. Even dedicated music fans can't keep up with every kind of music, and they can have whatever reasons they want for not following pop music. In all likelihood a warm and fuzzy combination of all four explanations above and then some.
The way I see it, there are 3 possible explanations for this:
1. Very popular music is comprised of almost no worthwhile songs
2. Ignoring very popular music is a form of protest against record companies
3. The fun of independent music is discovering the artist for yourself
Notice that "4. General music snobbery" is not on the list, that is not because I am being polite, it is because I know too many people who are not snobby who do this.
1. It is possible that there are almost no worthwhile songs in very popular music, but I would be pretty surprised if that were the case. For one, every genre has gems amongst a sludge of less cool stuff. Only a small percentage of new jazz is that good, or new trance, or new trippity-cliphop-soul... for very popular music to be ignored it would have to be less than those small percentages. Also, our other forms of media (movies, books, etc) don't have to be devoid of value just to be very popular. Many of the best movies and books were unknown at their introduction, but many others were popular from the get-go.
2. The big record companies are so bad that I can almost empathize with this one myself. A combination of moral opposition to purchasing music from big record companies, and a moral opposition to listening to music without paying for it could lead someone to avoid listening to very popular music at all. This seems strange to me because it means you are picking your music based on the politics of creating it instead of the quality of the music itself.
3. Which brings us to number three, where music takes a back seat to the obscurity of the artist/band. I think some people like the thrill of finding obscure music nobody has heard of and introducing others to it. I love learning about new music this way, and if I ever chance upon some unknown treasure myself I love sharing it. It seems to me that if someone is into discovery so much that they totally ignore the stuff right under their noses (michelle branch, remember?) then again, it isn't about the music, it is about the search for it.
So in conclusion, whatever. Looking back this question probably doesn't warrant a post this long. Even dedicated music fans can't keep up with every kind of music, and they can have whatever reasons they want for not following pop music. In all likelihood a warm and fuzzy combination of all four explanations above and then some.
Posted: Thu - February 19, 2004 at 10:08 AM
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Published On: Dec 14, 2004 07:47 AM
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Published On: Dec 14, 2004 07:47 AM