In response to comments on Friday's Random Ten, I wonder if the class would like to discuss why so many academics have such similar taste in music. Dr. Virago, Belle Lettre, Lauren, Craig and Jon all correspond to different colors in the leftist intellectual rainbow. Yet if they ask their portable .mp3 players to speak they do so with one voice. (Which apparently sounds much like Jeff Tweedy's circa Summerteeth.) How is it that thinkers who pledge allegiance to Green have the same taste in music as those who espouse undying love of Blue? And what are we to make of the Reds and the Yellows?
How did this strange state affairs come to be? Common roots? Were we outcasts all in high school? Does reading too much at too young an age predispose us to love of Morrissey and "alternative country"? An article about Morrissey's wild popularity in Mexico claimed that Mexicans love him because of the melodramatic ambiguity of his lyrics.* Is that why we love him? "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" [edited to refelct the fact that I confuse the lyrics with the title of that song] moved my adolescent heart via its elegant and articulate bombast. Why did it cause yours to skip a beat?
Why does the answer to that question have anything to do with Theory? I'm not sure. But perhaps we can tease out some sub-sub-sub-cultural distinctions which will account for our apparent similarities in musical taste. Do those who favor theoretical eclecticism tend more toward experimental music? Or do they also have a soft spot for Springsteen's working class epic "The River"? Why (hypothetically) can they abide by Morrissey but not Springsteen?
&c.
*At a concert in Arizona, Morrissey told the largely Latino audience that they could stay for the concert but would have to return to Mexico at its conclusion. As Gustavo Arellano noted, "Only one white man in the world—and he's not the Pope—can tell a group of Mexicans in the United States to return to Mexico and not only avert death, but be loved for saying so."
Scott, doesn't your question--insofar as you pun on the word "class"--answer itself? (But maybe your pun is unintentional, in which case we'll have to recapitulate the discussion of the unconscious...:) Seriously: despite our different political leanings--which we see as wildly divergent and hugely consequential (and people further right find to be inconsequential entirely, for various reasons)--we're all basically the same class. And thus, we share tastes.
Posted by: Rodney Herring | Sunday, 30 April 2006 at 10:03 PM
Oh shit: I shoulda read Jon's comment before replying.
Posted by: Rodney Herring | Sunday, 30 April 2006 at 10:24 PM
Theory: Everyone is too busy reading and writing to really follow good music past a certain age (let's say... sophomore year of college), hence the Summerteeth. Therefore, now to not appear pathetic we all rely on other people who are not academics to give us the goods - and it's the same person.
Posted by: Anthony Paul Smith | Sunday, 30 April 2006 at 10:30 PM
I wish I could take credit for the pun, but that was pure class-prep. inspired silliness on my part. I'm also curious about the assumption that we're all coming from the same class. Sure, most of us are currently and/or are destined to belong to the same class, but I doubt we all came from it. I'm of the school that "what you listened to when you were younger largely determines what you'll find acceptable when older" school of taste theory, so I think where we come from more important than where we are and/or are going. I still associate with my lower- and lower-middle class roots, despite my current situation. I know other people in my department in the same boat, and who have the same taste as our Harvard and Yale-bred compatriots.
And wow do I ever have specific examples in mind. I mean, as I type they're all making the long trek back from Coachella. They have the money to attend year after year. I don't. But if I did I would . . . which seems to indicate that I have unfilfilled aspirations, even though that strikes me as a ludicrous explanation as to why I like the music I do. Not that your point is ludicrous, mind you, I'd just need some connection between material circumstances and issues of taste which, well, convince me that what I like is determined by class-affiliation.
Also, can class really explain the difference between the jazz fan and the Wilco fanatic in any meaningful way? (Or the Deleuzian from the new historicist, for that matter?)
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Sunday, 30 April 2006 at 10:32 PM
I won't disagree, Anthony, only ask: "But why is it the same person?" Who is s/he? And why does s/he want us to love Wilco and the Jayhawks?
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Sunday, 30 April 2006 at 10:35 PM
Yes, we were all outcasts in high school. There you go.
Posted by: Lauren | Sunday, 30 April 2006 at 10:35 PM
Lauren, I sense sarcasm in your response. I was the most popular kid in my high school . . . so long as you discount the other 150 other kids in my class. Are we all just former losers, united in our loserdom, who decide to make other former losers into multi-millionaires in order to satisfy our sense of justice?
Plus, that fails to explain our love of beautiful people who happen to appeal to losers. I mean, by most everyone's account, Morrissey is one of the most beautifully androgynous people ever to walk the earth. I've heard tell from straight women, gay men, lip-stick lesbians, granola girls and members of the trans-community (all self-identified, so that all know I mean no offense) all state that Morrissey is the most beautiful human they've ever laid eyes upon. He's an uber-democratic Adonis, he is, and should be shunned by losers like us. Instead we embrace him. I sense confusion ahead, I say . . .
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Sunday, 30 April 2006 at 10:44 PM
Well, my point was that we all now identify with the same class, definitely not that we all came from the same class (because I don't really have any way of knowing that). But even so, I would (tentatively) argue that we always did identify with the same class, which explains why we're a bunch of worthless grad students who already identify with the professorial class.
And that always-having-identified-with accounts for our love of the same music over the course of several years when our actual class situations might not have been quite "the same."
At any rate, to the extent that Anthony's right, it's perhaps because we trust each other (when it comes to music). So for instance, Scott, you probably didn't discover John Vanderslice but you passed the word on from that "same person," and now I like Vanderslice too. And with Neko, we just got our news (originating from the "same person") through slightly differently articulated networks.
Posted by: Rodney Herring | Sunday, 30 April 2006 at 10:58 PM
Actually, I'm not all that into Cochella and my taste as of late have been towards, umm, the dreaded world music. I think most indie kids are turning towards Tropicalia and the Ethiopiques stuff anyway. I can hook you up with a guy if you want some.
Posted by: Anthony Paul Smith | Sunday, 30 April 2006 at 11:10 PM
And it's the same guy we all met on the first floor of the dorms Freshman year who later dropped out, but is still on IM all the time. We still know him becasue we too are still on IM all the time.
Posted by: Anthony Paul Smith | Sunday, 30 April 2006 at 11:14 PM
Also, can class really explain the difference between the jazz fan and the Wilco fanatic in any meaningful way?
The advent of Nels Cline is collapsing this distinction.
I got my mom one of the Ethiopiques CDs. There's also the Sublime Frequencies radio cutups.
And the power of the internet to disseminate new information quickly to anyone connected—and who were among the first connected but academics?
Posted by: ben wolfson | Sunday, 30 April 2006 at 11:45 PM
I'm going with APS' account. And no, there was no sarcasm in my voice there. I went to a high school of over 1000 and only managed three friends. Coincidentally, we are also now cool by my measure (my measure is the only one that counts).
P.S. I got my mom to like Jeff Buckley and Elliott Smith on a car trip, the same one on which I explained the so-called "pearl necklace." She asked.
Posted by: Lauren | Monday, 01 May 2006 at 12:05 AM
Actually, I'm not sure how much overlap there is in our (your and my) musical taste. Though I was struck by how much there was between Craig's and yours. I suspect, however, that some of that difference is national, plus I'm a little bit older than you all I bet.
But when you mention Morrissey... (And I love The River.)
And anyhow, the point about taste is always relative. My tastes probably occupy a homologous position in my social field as do yours in your own.
(Perhaps that goes for Theory too?)
Posted by: Jon | Monday, 01 May 2006 at 12:17 AM
That Morrissey got away with having told the crowd that they'd have to go back to Mexico might also have something to do with his having said that they'd have to go back to Mexicali, not Mexico. Specificity is a sign of, like, taking seriously?
Posted by: ben wolfson | Monday, 01 May 2006 at 12:42 AM
Not to play the immigrant card here, but I have to say, my musical tastes come wayyy out of left field. I, like you, Scott, had a low and eventually low-middle class upbringing, but I can't say where I started getting better taste in music. It surely wasn't my childhood, in which my older (then teenage) siblings, in their attempts to assimilate, brought home Air Supply, Chicago, REO Speedwagon, Michael Jackson, and Boy George records and emblazoned Pee Chee folders (or was it Mead, whatever). I actually had a Boy George folder to carry my Kindergarten homework in. It was embarassing. The New Wave years were better for me, but I am sure it was disturbing to see a child sing "Whip it! Whip it good!" Fast forward to high school, when I was finally developing tastes of my own not entirely formed by the weekly (and free, we couldn't afford cable MTV) edition of Sooouuul Traiiin! Unfortunately, I went to high school in Orange County, CA...during the height of OC ska and neo-Swing revival. The ska remake of "Come on Eileen" still plagues me. I hung out with kids who listened to really bad R&B and hip hop though. To this day, I like 80's music, punk, and have learned what good R&B and rap is by having lived through the bad.
So how did we, from such different backgrounds, class strata, and the unamed elephant in the room, races and ethnicities all come to converge? My theory is a combination of yours (Scott's) and Rodney's--aspiration and identification.
Scott: "which seems to indicate that I have unfilfilled aspirations, even though that strikes me as a ludicrous explanation as to why I like the music I do. Not that your point is ludicrous, mind you, I'd just need some connection between material circumstances and issues of taste which, well, convince me that what I like is determined by class-affiliation."
Rodney: "my point was that we all now identify with the same class, definitely not that we all came from the same class (because I don't really have any way of knowing that). But even so, I would (tentatively) argue that we always did identify with the same class, which explains why we're a bunch of worthless grad students who already identify with the professorial class.nd that always-having-identified-with accounts for our love of the same music over the course of several years when our actual class situations might not have been quite "the same."
All through my musically inane childhood, I was at least exposed, to some degree, to what I _should_ have been listening to in addition to what I was already listening to. Every kid, even an immigrant one, grows up hearing about the Beatles. Even if you go to a high school where everyone has appalling taste in music, there's always the salvation of college and the chance meeting of an earnest young man who wants to impress you by showing you an album "that will change your life." There were many ways in which I aspired to leave the meaness and coarseness of poverty behind and become "cultured"--I am a jazz fan and a classical music aficionado--but there are many ways that in doing so, you feel another type of poverty, and a need to reconnect with your "roots" and that sense of loneliness that comes with being torn from within--and so I am also a Wilco fan. And once I got to college and law school, I kept meeting more earnest young men and women who grew up with different backgrounds and incomes and record collections, but with a common sense of nerdiness and loneliness that comes with spinning records in your room by yourself until the late hours. That's when the poetry of the lyrics gets to you. And how you connect to others like you, the other lone wolfs. College is a great democratizing experience--thousands of heads bobbing to the same song, thousands of kids thinking they've discovered this new and totally different indie band themselves, and the inner cry of "righteous, man" bursting forth from each heart.
Finally, what I think unites us all, regardless of caste, class, or academic discipline: we're all lyrical souls. Those who actually listen/read the lyrics of the songs will always love the good songs by the good bands. This is why I love "The River" and "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot." And Jeff Buckley and Eliot Smith make me cry, and I like that.
Music is whatever moves you, man.
Posted by: Belle Lettre | Monday, 01 May 2006 at 03:06 AM
Personally I can't stand Morrissey. Or any of that British angsty male posturing stuff really (with some exceptions for some of Radiohead, in small doses). Ian Curtis had a lot to answer for.
Posted by: sharon | Monday, 01 May 2006 at 04:08 AM
"There is a Light THAT Never Goes Out."
Posted by: laura | Monday, 01 May 2006 at 06:17 AM
"The ska remake of "Come on Eileen" still plagues me."
Save Ferris!
All's I can say is thank God for OC Ska revival! That's what helped my generation get into indie music (I'm younger than Scott and so some of his music is 'teh lame').
Posted by: Anthony Paul Smith | Monday, 01 May 2006 at 06:45 AM
That was me and teh lame.
Posted by: Anthony Paul Smith | Monday, 01 May 2006 at 06:46 AM
Ben, methinks you confuse Calexico with Mexicali. Mexicali's in Mexico, Calexico the States. It's a notorious launching pad for illegals, which is what I think Morrissey was refering to, there.
Rodney, I'm still not buying it. As a junior in high school with a 1.2 GPA, I didn't think I was going to college, much less end up in graduate school, and yet I still loved R.E.M., The Replacements and The Pixies. The idea that class explains it all strikes me as too pat, unable to account for the complexities of class origin, regional bias and plain ol' pure contingency. I'm not saying it's wrong, really, but it just seems strange that a working-class Southern Jew and, to use the only person whose history I'm familiar with, a working-class Asian-American woman from Orange County end up with the same taste in music. Belle was a driven over-achiever; I, myself, was your typical stoned slacker. (Yes, now I would've hated myself as much as you probably think you would.) I don't see our class origins or aspirations as coterminous, and yet here we are. I would say that this doesn't even rise to the level of anecdotal, except it seems more true the more people I meet.
Gay men from the midwest? Check. Canadian men from, um, Canada? Check. Child of hippies from Berkeley? Check. African-American male from Virginia? Check. I could go on and on, but I think Belle's right to point to some sort of relation of certain kinds of minds to certain kinds of forms and/or contents. I think that explanation makes more sense, covers more bases, than the class angle. I could see how this seems to fall under the "everybody else's determinism," and I'll grant you that that's precisely what I'm doing. I don't mean to, but I can't help myself.
Anthony, I was going to respond, you're not that younger than me, but if you use IM, I suppose you are. Talk about technology I hate: the ability of anyone to talk to me whenever they want for however long they want. (shudders) Some technology the world's just better off without. Cell phones, too. This notion that one should always be reachable, and that excuses must be made if one isn't . . . I can't stand it. In the future there will be no privacy, and people will be praised for the grace and sincerity of their acts of public masturbation. (Sorry, sorry, I couldn't help it. That book still creeps me out.)
Sharon, I know a few people who have reacted violently to Morrissey, but you're the first who's called his posturing "masculine." Unless you have a very, very different ideal of masculinity across the pond. (Or maybe it was masculine in context? I came into my taste around '92 or '93, so the pose seemed stringently androgynous by then.)
Laura, corrected! I've been punting the title to that one for 15 years now, so it's only fitting I continue the tradition of confusing the lyrics with the title when I move online.
Ben (again), the internet may have something to do with it. I wonder if it'd be possible to poll our advisors and see if the correspondence here identified (or strongly posited) holds for previous generations of scholars. Or we all just cooler?
Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Monday, 01 May 2006 at 11:32 AM