Cliched as fuck...but....

it interests me that many people whose tastes previously seemed more rock-based (in the same way that the NME will now ALWAYS pick a rock/guitar based band as their album of the year whilst the trendy dance album might just scrape the top 10 tho its no worse or somehow less relevant or even populist than the rock album) have now got bored of it and find reggae/hiphop/garage/whatever more fun...what do you attribute this to?

personally i'd much rather listen to 'The Last Broadcast' than something like 'Nellyville' or 'Daniel Bedingfield' but then i was enjoying reggae/hip hop and what became garage just as much 12 and 6 years ago as i am now...and that goes for guitar based music too

Meanwhile I'll *HAPPILY* continue to sneer at/ignore music that plainly doesn't engage me, be that "black/roots oriented dance music," vaccuous teen pop and/or ultra-elistist "indie"-credibility-obsessed noodling. But, as someone said on another thread a few days ago ("Rules & Regulations"), doesn't it ultimately feel great to be proven wrong and hear something fantastic in a genre that you'd otherwise dismissed/written-off/previously sneered-at? I may go around spewing "anti-hip hop" vitriol from time to time, but Mystikal's "Bouncin' Back" (to name but one) thoroughly made me re-think my narrow musical prejudices. It may be a long damn while before I hear any boy-band/teen diva shit that somehow infultrates the heavily-armed walls of the mental fortress that tyrannically dictates my musical taste, but I'm trying not to rule anything out. Could happen.

the 'indie rock (or whatever)' may throw the question because: does any other kind of music (certain kinds of punk yes but those kind of get swallowed into 'indie') have such a strong OBLIGATION to listen to it (because it's morally right to do so in some sense, or in better character) as indie?

the 'indie rock (or whatever)' may throw the question because: does any other kind of music (certain kinds of punk yes but those kind of get swallowed into 'indie') have such a strong OBLIGATION to listen to it (because it's morally right to do so in some sense, or in better character) as indie? that's really for another thread though. or the four million existing appropriate ones.

I could only do what venga says, for any kind of music, if what I looked for in music narrowed sufficiently. no one kind of music does everything I want. I can see myself only listening to jazz in my old age, though.

Having said that, I don't have much time for the revisionism that suggests that because guitar rock is pretty lame just now our estimate of how great it could be when it was still vital needs a sharp downwards revision. I still think it'll be the style that dominates histories of rock and pop written 20 or 30 years hence. In theory I see no reason why electronica or hip hop or whatever should not produce a body of great work to rival guitar-based rock/pop but somehow it just seems very unlikely.

for a huge number of people, they don't like music x because indie-rock is failing them right now, they like music x because thats they're music. go out on the street, the people playing Nelly in their cars, look at them, they aren't playing Nelly because the Von Bondies or Fischerspooner somehow aren't delivering!!!

oh, get over yourself, ethan.

we get it. you're the resident, constantly embattled, Hip-Hop Seer; the rest of us are doomed to forever miss the point entirely.

ArfArf: yes, rock is historically v.important but I don't think a listener now needs to engage with its history/'body of work' any more than they need engage with that of music hall - respectfully ignoring it is fine.

Somewhat tangentially, one thing I do find is that some views of fans of contemporary rock are too simple. I don't share their tastes, but it does seem to me that many of them are people with an intelligent and open-minded interest in music who have decided that contemporary rock is the music they like best. The caricatured presentation of them as people who would prefer hip-hop or r'n'b or electronica if they could only listen without prejudice strikes me as false and not a little self-regarding.

what are the permanent effects of your music first love? is it reasonable to assume that there is such a thing as an innate "understanding" of a style of music? or is it just bullshit elitism? for instance i've recently been reflecting on my constant exasperation with what i percieve as indie-centric ppl; it began with views on hiphop (which was my first love), but then it became to do with general perspective on life. (i know, i know) i've always been dubious about such generalisations, and if i were to post a thread saying INDIE PPL WILL NEVER REALLY UNDERSTAND then i'd fully expect to get slaughtered. but it doesn't feel like bullshit. but conversely I would never imagine that i'm not reading the full picture when i hear indie; so is there also something fundamental there that i would never understand?