We Hate Music

as for hate, i'll sometimes take potshots at artists irrationally, but usually i try to avoid that because it annoys me so much when someone does it to me. that said, the thing that gets me the most is the group love/hatred thing, where it seems like new forum contributors are required to either give props to or dis random artists so as to be considered 'in', the requirements of which are usually based on tom(or some other high profile writer)'s personal taste and are totally beside the point of any 'ilm mindset'. treatment of daft punk and gorillaz = ugh.

OK no, seriously....actually hey, wait am minute, I *am* being serious. Because the internal feedback loop of a critical forum means that after the initial period of 'fitting in' the best way to appear 'individual' becomes to praise the generally-dissed and to diss the generally-praised. This is the problem with the whole question of "People hate X because Y" - it degenerates into silly second-guessing.

Somebody - Glenn I think? - made a suggestion that people in general refrained from commenting about things they didn't like. This would certainly lead to cleaner air and people appearing less ignorant, but even so what you dislike is as much a part of 'your taste' (whatever 'taste' means) as the stuff you like. Maybe a better suggestion would be that nobody takes people's hatred of things to task...

Hating performers irrationally can indeed be fun, but everyone hating the same band all at the same time without any explanation ever being given as to why (besides some lame-ass reason like "hype" or "they're in NME a lot") = DUD, not to mention suspicious.

i think the common thread running through the things that are cool to hate is that they are either 1) self-serious, although if they're self-serious enough sometimes they'll end up being 'cool', cf.radiohead and 2) critical darlings, especially self- righteous social reform types (common, mos def) or self-consciously cool types (beck, gorillaz). there's no denying that image has an impact on music, but hatred of an image seems to be taken too far too often, especially considering that it's always the same damned image. there's a constant glorification of the lower class, of the things that are 'wonderfully stupid', and breaking out of that ghetto is too often considered to be the kiss of death, as far as coolness quotient on ilm is concerned. in the end it doesn't matter and i can go off and listen to common and beck and be happy, but when you're trying to contribute to a community of intelligent reasonable people, having disturbingly uniform standards dictating the point where an artist becomes hatable is a bit disheartening.

(The common thread in *my* mind is that the artists which are hated are those which are specifically either marketed or self-presented as being better than other music. This is what lies behind most ideas of 'real' soul, 'real' hip-hop, 'real' songwriting eg Coldplay as opposed to teenypop etc. When your presentation starts going in that direction you're asking for trouble, especially from people who don't like being told what to like.)

Accusatory: not really - I'm not actually saying you or Patrick are just being contrary, I'm saying that this is the type of comment that can be irritating: a sense of I know why you like/don't like something better than you do, which is what the haters run up against plenty.

(Also I was bristling at the suggestion that I fit an 'ILM Mindset', heh)

Seriously, there's been enough genuine and contentious debates over the musical quality of to make me doubt the proposition that are being praised/dissed in an enforced party line. A single example among many: the lead hater of The Strokes (undoubtedly Kate the Saint) also hates Daft Punk and Air, etc. Whereas Tom has said a number of times that The Strokes are not worthy of hatred.

Sure, certain bands and artists pop up more than others as objects of revilement, and it's usually due to intense media focus, but there is a reason for this. Bands/Artists who receive heaps of coverage, like Macy Gray or Travis or The Strokes, provide useful figureheads/focal points for explaining various different concepts that one might find distasteful in pop, eg. Travis to me represents the use of "songwriting craft" as a way of hiding a lack of "personality" (in the broadest sense of the word), innovation and interesting emotional depth. Any band that does this is more likely than not to disinterest or repel me, but Travis provide a good shorthand method for expressing the concept.

For the record, I moderately-to-muchly dislike all the names Patrick put forward bar The Strokes, who I haven't heard. I'm perfectly willing to provide reasoning for disliking each one.

Other categories - ICONIC (Madonna?), COOL, (BUT NOT TOO WIERD)- Air, Daft Punk?

Can any music be successfully sold to the masses today on the basis that it's FAKE? Or NOVEL? Can't think of any right now, but I have a boring meeting to go to now to chew this over.

the point about something being marketed as 'better' is often aggravatingly true (but, marketed being in the loosest since of the word, since again you usually refer to outside hype), although i don't buy gorillaz being what i was referring to as 'glorification of the stupid' or whatever, methinks you were probably straining for a companion piece to the fact that daft punk are considered clever (which is admittedly true, even though their disco-80s leanings are undeniably 'stupid', in quotes). i think all the people on the blurillaz thread talking about how gorillaz aren't about glockz and bitchez like all that OTHER hiphop shows that they aren't being sold as 'stupid' to the general masses. as for you being blamed for the general ilm mindset, it's true, not that you're wrong for it but rather that all of the fucking lemmings (!) who treat tom's word on whatever subject as The Gospel without checking with thine own self are, blah blah blah. i've seen far too many snide comments about gorillaz in the past few months, but the first i ever saw was courtesy mr.tom ewing (not to imply that all the other ilm regulars who hate them are simply following your lead. although certainly SOME of them are).

i think the key to wearing away what you see as irrational and overarching dislike of your faves is to plug away until you find likeminded blokes who flow the same way, really.

Amendation to previous post - I have no problem being told what to like, I don't like being told what to *dislike* by these cool artist types. Which is also the root of the problem here.

I don't agree that there are people lining up to kiss my ass - or if they are they're doing so very gently and I can't feel it through my trousers.

tom likes some wack shit like radiohead and smog, so i don't think people are gonna wanna copy him even if he is a good writer.

One important thing here is the WAY that the dismissing is done, and I wish I had the words to describe properly why some putdowns seem like hipster contempt. The only way I can do it is by pointing at its opposite : when Chuck Eddy attacks a performer, (which he does constantly - for instance calling Roy Orbison a "muzakbilly blowhard"), even when it smells to me of kneejerk attitude-over-music, I never get the impression that he thinks "I'm too cool for this shit" or "this is so 3 months ago" or that he's putting himself above people who do like Orbison. Same goes for Mark S dismissing Negativland sound unheard (it helps that he EXPLAINS WHY).

i. The UK media environment genuinely do over-expose this stuff and its very blandness does become offensive, because the attitude is: all the rubbish in the charts is awful, here is the alternative, and it hurts that the 'alternative' is eight million times more predictable and hackneyed than what's in the charts.

ii. (A more interesting reason probably). The music you're listing (Gorillaz aside) is playing on ideas of timeless, proper ways to do things, is suggesting that its classicism is free of the taint of fashion-led valuations. Sneering so unreasonably at it is a way of short-circuiting that, reminding yourself and its fans that nothing is really free of fashion-led valuations - or a way of asserting your bloodyminded autonomy in the face of the 'timeless'.

Please oh please explain, what's fundamentally wrong with the Beatles?

1. Parody can be (though isn't always) the cooing voice of admiration. Two-reasons lists are not a bad thing but a GOOD thing.

2. I didn't know you didn't like "Gorillaz". So much for your Prominent Outspoken Views which Everyone Follows like Lemmings. No, Cattle. With Foot and Mouth Disease. And big Bells on. Clanging.

Clang! Clang!

I have never heard this "Gorillaz" band anyway. Has anyone? I did read a reference to them in the Guardian the other day, though.

Ethan were you here for the "pick a disc we ALL hate" thread? — it sort of didn't work (ie was never satisfactorily concluded), cuz it got lost in problems of definition (and the assumptions it was assumed were being assumed, wrt reasons for such rulemaking).

There is always an issue about who "we" is, and abt hounding newbies out for not being "with" us as a mass. But the "with" is more to do with the unspoken rules which allow for SOME play between [a]'s approach to etiquette and [b]'s: ie if [c] aes from otusdie and behaves in such a waqy that [a] and [b]. reacting to [c], find they can no longer be in the same space, "we" are more likely to hound [c]. than [a] or [b]. who we've grown fond of. Aren't we?

Of course, I reckon 2-step mixes of any of the ILM-disendorsed artists would improve them immesurably. Only, nobody took me up on my suggestion vis a vis "Yellow".

I would like them to be talked about more actually because I think some fresh perspectives would be nice and the people on ILM could provide that if anyone could. A lot of writing about them - the huge body of pro-Beatles opinion and the smaller corpus of anti-Beatles both - is flabby and lazy and seems to say nothing about what listening to Beatles records is ACTUALLY LIKE for the writers, but a great deal about how good and important (or bad and overrated) the band are. The irony of the Beatles is that listening to the records disappears from the discourse a bit.

I don't like gorillaz, Damon's post modern art gags are beginning to bore me.

The problem I have with Gorillaz is that the original version of "Clint Eastwood" is so off-putting to me that I would never buy their album. There are some remixes that boost the tempo out of the lumbering rut that mires the song, as well as playing tricks with Damon's vocals to make themm palatable, but the original song is aggravatingly horrible. It's kind of like the Coldplay Effect; their first single was loathsome and horrid to the point where I would never spend any money on them, despite liking some of the other songs I heard from their album.

It's the curse of the lowest common denominator.

You don't like Stereolab? Come around to mine and I'll put on Dots and Loops and change your mind. ; - o

But should we try not to [hate music], and if we do try not to, does this squashing of whatever impulse led us to hate the bands in the first place make us better listeners/critics?

And from my personal point of view the answer to that last bit is "no".

A choice, meanwhile, between rational argument and irrational chatter is no choice at all.

The main criticism I tend to hear about "[ ] sucks" is that it's sexist and homophobic: the phrase supposedly implies that people who take the passive role in oral sex are degraded, decadent, slutty, unmanly, whatever.

While the promiscuous use of the phrase will lower the tone of a discussion, I reserve the right to keep as part of my palette of critical responses. I like keeping my options open.

Part of the reason I would like to maintain the subjective/objective distinction as clearly as possible is that I do believe it is possible to have some objective discussions about music (i.e., discussions that are not about personal tastes). Part of the discussion of manufactured pop, for example, turned on the question of whether that manufacture undermines the communicative nature of art, and if so what effect that has on its audience. Those are largely objective questions, and although I don't think we resolved them, it's conceivable that they could be resolved. We might end up collectively convinced that NSync's music is ultimately "bad" in some socially-destructive sense, even though some of us still like it, viscerally. Or that some of us hate listening to it, but it's actually a powerful force for positive social change in some unexpected way. These are objective subjects, whether we can make coherent sense of them in the end or not (and whether you care about them or not). Likewise the long-running argument about whether pornography breeds violence towards women, which isn't about whether you, as an individual, like Penthouse.

Related question: how do opinions change? I've found that turning people onto something requires describing/highlighting innate musical qualities and relating those to said persons' tastes. Turning someone OFF something, on the other hand, usually ends up being a worldview discussion. So I might get you to like Blu Cantrell 'coz of the harmonic runs in the chorus, but to get you to dislike the song, I'd have to point out how as the video closes it was all a dream and she goes back to him. Thoughts?

matthew, i would love 4 u to present an actual example of this happening on the forum before u go on to dismiss the discussions occurring here as such. i have never seen an all caps argument here (aside from the odd one off poster who happens here by accident), and to dismiss the posters here as that kind of ignorant all caps spewing malcontent seems grossly unfair.

In this context, hating bands without cause CAN make you a better listener/critic of the ones you DO make time for.

This is insane. The only honest way in which N'Sync's effects upon society can be explored is for people to publish their personal reactions to N'Sync's music. The notion that what constitutes positive or negative social change is "objective" is just a wee bit fascist, don't you think? Am I misunderstanding you? I'm certainly not here to be "collectively convinced" of anything. I want to read about what other people think about music. Nothing could possibly suck more life out of ILM than an extended meta-discussion of what ILM should or shouldn't be, or a bunch of rules meant to clarify the data for your personal hypotheses.

On the Roxette thread, the person who introduced the, um, concept of "She sucks and so do you for liking them" did so in an amusing and actively self-deprecatory way. Step forward Alex in NYC: who arrived at ILM PRECISELY because ILM en mass had declared the obvious suckage of his Big Love, Killing Joke. He enjoyed the fight, and stayed. ie His judgment, which (assuming I'm reading it right) seems to me much rational a threatened tantrum-exit if we don't all speak in the proper hushed and respectful manner — was that Ill-informed Hostility towards his Beloved would tell him something about that Beloved he hadn't thought of, and thus something abt himself. (sorry Alex in NYC, to sit here analysing you: swoop in and demolish me when I'm thru). Sometimes you have to pass *thru* the suXoR-yell stage to get to understanding: if you disallow it competely, you also disallow circulation of actual feelings, in favour of endless subterranean worries abt Korrekt Etiquette. If you *always* run away from someone else's rage or fright or panic or incomprehension, you probably won't ever have anything *that* useful to say about what they're reacting so extremely to.

I dunno, I think we should have way more discussions about rules. It cracks me up endlessly. I think I should start making all my personal real life discussions with people EXACTLY like this meta crap.

(random closing thought; i've made some rather vitrolic comments about nirvana before, but i just realized how my (and 11235's) beck stories are startlingly similar to all those nirvana tales i always hear from twenty-somethings about how their entire world being opened up by the band, and so in the future i'll try and lay off a little)

First rule: Originality and "soul" don't count for shit when you're criticizing music after noon!!!

HAHA, BECK RULES NOW!!! I WIN!!!

-To answer Tom's initial question, hating bands irrationally is (or can be) fun, and I think that really it's more the smug goes-without-saying dismissals I have a problem with. Irrational dismissals can get pretty boring themselves though - I hate when it gets too high school-like, one guy saying that Bon Jovi rools and Def Leppard are faggots and pussies, the next guy saying the exact opposite, neither of them capable of discussing WHY that is the case. But I certainly don't think people should try not to hate - know what you love (and why), know what you hate (and why).

- "hype"/image/overexposure is not a lame-ass reason. It's the social aspect of art coming into play.

I fail to see how dismissing the Strokes for being hyped or Macy Gray for getting critical approval is any different from attacking teen-pop for being manufactured - all those judgments cut the actual sounds on the actual records out of the picture.

- I love Ninjasquid's post about her discovery of Beck.

- I wonder what music that purports to represent Frank Kogan would sound like.

Can I jump in and conclude that maybe the reasons for hating a given artist are a combination of haters' aesthetic/musical tastes and their resentment at the artist being overhyped? Disregarding the specific choices, doesn't it make sense that a combination of (subjectively perceived) awful music and inexplicable hype would make an object of hate more hateworthy than the sum of its parts?

You can say the same for manufactured pop as well, but a lot of anti-pop people admit quite openly that they'll hate any manufactured group or artist on principle, or alternatively reason that it's the manufactured-ness of the music that makes it unlikable. I guess it's possible to hate an artist for being manufactured while liking another artist despite their being manufactured to the same degree or greater (or even because of it), but it's logically inconsistent and it undermines the power of the anti-manufactured argument.

That's not what I meant at all.

Roughly speaking, what I objected wasn't that people say things like "I like Beck because he mixes acoustic and electronic musics, uses samples in a deft manner, is surreal, etc." Rather, what I object to is when people say "I think Beck is a pioneer because he mixes acoustic and electronic musics, uses samples in a deft manner, is surreal, etc."

Calling someone a pioneer or copycat demands a reasonably thorough sense of cultural history; calling someone good or bad doesn't.

Me too. Musical epiphanies: classic.

Can any music be successfully sold to the masses today on the basis that it's FAKE? Or NOVEL? Can't think of any right now, but I have a boring meeting to go to now to chew this over."

The KLF made a career out of doing just that. I seriously recommend reading any of their printed material. Their thoughts on the industry are pretty on the money.

Patrick, unless the tapes got lost in the mail, you've heard music that purports to represent Frank Kogan. But lots of music, some good, some bad, purports to represent Frank Kogan, from the arid frozen heights of "Happy Birthday" to the swampy depths of "Jingle Bells." And of course there's Blind Willie Johnson's classic "John the Revelator" - though I don't know how he got my name wrong! I said "Frank" quite clearly, was even going to write it down for him until I realized that to do so was pointless. I think he was visited the same day by John the Piano Turner, and that's what caused the confusion.

I mean it ultimately becomes impossible to argue about this because you just dismiss any reason and say "oh but thats not about the music/film/whatever" as if the context of the music/film/whatever was totally unimportant. Nobody here dislikes [band] because it is 'cool' to dislike [band], they dislike them initially because they make tedious music. That dislike then becomes fury when the tedious music suddenly becomes a supremely popular cultural touchstone.

If you really think any artist gets a raw deal on ILM then please, please, set a good example and explain why those people are *good* - that's after all what we did to start with on FT and NYLPM, trying to explain why we thought Britney and R'n'B *weren't* the devil's work. But this second-guessing and ghost-chasing after some kind of phantom hipster consensus is getting really old.

I LOVE MUSIC precisely because that's all I care about. The performers mean nothing to me. Lyrics often fall on deaf ears with me, too.

See, this is why I hate this board and love ILE. It's like I don't exist here. This complain about Richie-haters comes up every time Richie's name is mentioned ("You all never explain it beyond he's a wanker/fuckhead/pissbag/whatever"), and every time I explain that I think he's a very smug individual with no talent to back it up. His films are awful, irritating toss with no saving graces besides Brad Pitt. AND him and Madonna make the most obnoxious couple.

Critics of music critics seem preoccupied with the idea that music critics don't really enjoy music, and that any enjoyment of the music must fit into a discrete area of inauthentic music enjoyment. It must be because the music is like old music the critic already enjoyed, or because it's 'fun', or 'innovative'. According to the critic of the music critic, these categories of enjoyment are clearly inauthentic - signs of a critically debilitating 'professional' approach to the music - and can be easily contrasted with the critic of the music critic's authentic appreciation of .

I think the safest thing people here can do is work on the assumption that everyone here is a music critic. Firstly, because a hell of a lot of people here do it professionally, and secondly - and more importantly - because by writing here you implicate yourself within a critical discourse re music that is both unconscious and inescapable. Unless you limit yourself to "it's just music, man!" posts, you automatically become the enemy of which you speak. And I don't think there's anything wrong with liking music because it's fun, innovative or like other music you already enjoy.