Non-Eclectic Eclecticism

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."

Comments

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

And I still managed to miss two!

Lauren, first, the thought of having that conversation with my mother, well, I don't know what to say. But yes, I'm happy to hear that you were so unpop . . . that you're as cool as the rest of us now. I sometimes read Rolling Stone just to feel half-pandered to, which is something I couldn't do back when they weren't reviewing Pavement albums in the early '90s.

Jon, taste is relative, but what I find interesting is how everyone ends up with relatively the same the taste. At least, why all the cool people, some of whom can't agree about anything else (and sometimes don't do so in almost uncivil tones), somehow have taste which falls into a slim band of the musical spectrum. (Although if Anthony continues down the world music road . . . )

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Finally, Anthony, I think I'm only two years older than you. I remember Save Ferris, as well as being very snobbish about my dislike for them. I would hear them blaring from some speakers at the State Fair and think "God-damned posers should listen to the Clash or Operation Ivy or some real music."

[Adam Kotsko]

In my group of friends, I "discovered" Radiohead. I spent the next eight years SEVERELY behind the curve, apparently for karmic reasons. I discovered Weezer in 2002, for instance.

I get all my music from roommates -- I have hundreds of mp3s that I've never listened to, for instance, which I just grabbed off former roommates' computers before they moved out.

[Mike S]

This is a very entertaining discussion.

I have to put this out there because most of you are right around my age: what did you think of Rage Against the Machine?

I always thought they were one of the more exciting acts of the 90s.

A bit on the shrill side? Yes. But I admired their criticisms of corporate hegemony, FBI corruption, and other pernicious aspects of "The System."

It might be useful to consider that readers of this blog are a self selecting group, and that commenters might be even more so. You might actually know a lot more people than you realize who don’t share your musical tastes, but they aren’t rushing to point this out to you.

Add to Rodney’s comment the fact that despite our low points in high school (mine was about 2.1, I think), we have all taken a path that is at least somewhat the same to get where we are now, and thus have all shared our musical tastes with somewhat similar people on the same track at about the same time, and so it’s really not so hard to see how the really good bands get around pretty quickly.

I think Belle’s point is perhaps the best. They say (and no, I don’t know who they are) that there are music people and lyric people – what are the odds that most people here draw heavily from the lyrical side in their social and professional circles? I’m not sure this is a valid point to generalize to the crowd, but my experience is that lyric people tend to track together when it comes to certain bands or singer/songwriters.

Finally, I wonder about the phylogeny of the music being mentioned here… Don’t they all kind of descend from R.E.M., The Replacements, and The Pixies? And back when we were in our formative years (we’re all pretty close in age, I’m guessing - am I way off?), wasn’t it a lot less remarkable if you heard and liked one or all of these bands, there being not so much of it out there then?

So while I think Scott has a point, is it really so strange that we share so much musical taste? Doesn’t this assume a kind of null hypothesis where we would all like vastly different music if not for the influence of some mysterious force?

After all, Ellington tells us there are two kinds of music: good music, and the other kind.

[Brian]

Not to mention that you could blast "F*ck you, I won't do what you tell me!" REALLY loud in all kinds of inappropriate settings - that was fun...

Oh - and the long anonymous comment was me...

[Jon]

"Is it really so strange..."

OK, new competition on this, another sunny day. Each commenter in this thread has to smuggle in at least one (and preferably many) Morrissey lyrics into his or her comment.

(Oh, and I ain't no Canadian man! Johnny Marr lived at the end of my street. Morrissey's mum at the other end. [It was a long street.] And I spent one fine day stalking Morrissey himself with some friends. We put notes under his car windscreen wipers.)

[Mike S]

That song in particular, Brian, got to be pretty popular among jocks in my school. I think the fact that they were loud and angry most of the time made their music popular among burly, irascible adolsecent males, the type that loved to give me a hard time in high school.

But Rage, and also Fugazi, were the real deal. Their songs dealt with racism, sexism, genocide, rape, corporate/government collusion, fallacious histories, etc.

There just weren't too many bands in those days -- at least that I knew of -- that tried to educate as well as entertain.

[ben wolfson]

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.

No, Calexico's a band. What I meant was, Morrissey didn't say "Mexico" (the word), he said "Mexicali" (the, yes, word). The content of what he said amounted to: you will be going back to Mexico. But he named a specific part of Mexico. Hence "specificity".

Don’t they all kind of descend from R.E.M., The Replacements, and The Pixies?

Of course, my most recent exercise in randoms ten gives the lie to all such genetic explanations!

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Calexico's a band, too, but it's also the city on the State-side of the US/Mexican border. The city on the other side is...Mexicali! The capital of Baja California, and the staging group for most illegal entries into the US via the California border. So you see, I'm actually being more specific than you. And your FRT proves nothing, son, as I also own Elliot Smith and King Crimson albums. So there! As Meatloaf said, two out of ten ain't bad.

Jon, Holbo's friend Dan manages Ameoba records, and Morrissey comes in all the time. The first time he did, he browsed their Morrissey selection and informed them that he never seen, or even heard of, have the albums/singles he found. So you have good stalking company.

Brian, the phylogenetic account jibes nicely with my dissertation, and your null hypothesis hits the mark. But that just makes the theoretical differences all the stranger, no? I mean, if we can all agree not to listen to Alan Jackson, doesn't that say something about our intellectual positions?

Adam, I discovered Weezer way back when they ripped off Pavement's sound to sing about a sweater. I was so . . . of the moment. Radiohead, however, I discovered, then abandoned, then had to be talked into rediscovering after OK Computer was released.

Mike, I could've liked Rage, but as you note, it became the official thing to blast out of trucks during and after mud-riding, so I had to hate 'em on principle. I've since come around--not to Audioslave, although I like them more than I ever liked Soundgarden, which I hated--but I missed 'em in the moment. If I remember correctly (not an entirely sound assumption), I was an old school rap snob when they first came out, and was distressed by the whole affair. Faith No More had more in common with the rap I was listening to. But I'm an odd duck.

Alright, I must leave now, as I'm having some sort of dinner-type-reception-thingy with Gay Talese in an hour and must finished sewing this silk suit, sprint over to the haberdasher's and find some hand-made leather shoes before I do. (And get a hair cut, as it'd be impolite to wear the hat indoors.)

[Walter Wadiak]

The class argument seems like a better description of our particular historical moment. Listening to alt-country gives us a sense of not being "them" (/not/ being, say, Darryl Worley of "Have You Forgotten" fame).This is roughly Bourdieu's point, I think: the "distinction" between Jeff Tweedey and Darryl Worley is there, all right, but it's more a matter of an imagined difference than a material one (even if everyone, including me, would prefer to think there's a /big/ difference). In this repsect, the fact that alt-country is a point of reference for all of us is telling; it's a "not" genre more than a genre properly speaking. Thus, for example, one reviewer can speak of *Yankee Hotel Foxtrot* (a fun album, I agree) as a "brilliant deconstruction" of country music -- as though only something as radical as a deconstruction could render it acceptable to the middle-class palette.

I think it bolsters the case to be made for a class explanation that it's not just academic types listening to the same music; it's a solid third of America, including my little brother and all his friends. Isn't that why Scott himself finds Rolling Stone such an oddly flattering read?

[Dr. Virago]

Oh lordy, what has my innocent comment wrought? Te-hee. Anyway, sorry I went away from the blogosphere for a few days and missed this. I'm sure I have nothing to add that hasn't been already said, and since at the mo' I don't have time to read all the comments, I'll just have to assume that is true.

However, I did read up to the comment that linked Summerteeth with "sophomore year in college" and had to giggle. Dudes, when I was a sophomore in college, Uncle Tupelo hadn't even released No Depression yet. Indeed "alt country" as such didn't exist yet, though people were talking about the new face of country (Dwight Yoakum, et al.)

However, R.E.M. was still cool (it was still the pre-Green years) and I blame them and all of jangle pop for my own fixation with alt-country.

(PS -- Yes, I am old. Just about as old as Jeff Tweedy himself.)

[Anthony Paul Smith]

I know you're older than me because in pictures I've seen you with a gotee. No one my age in indie music has a gotee.

[ben wolfson]

I have a goatee. Actually, I have a beard. But last year at this time I had a goatee. I know I'm not very much older than you, one or two years at the most.

[Dr. Virago]

APS and BW -- Please tell me you're not talking to me. I mean, I know I'm a brunette and all, and we sometimes have to bleach and wax unwanted facial hair, but I assure you I have no goatee!

[Dr. Virago]

And Scott (the one who must have the goatee) you can add a middle class midwestern Irish Catholic to the mystery of a working class Southern Jew and a working class SoCal Asian American ending up with the same taste.

[Craig]

The "person" in question, of course, is "Pitchfork", which exists for the sole reason of telling people who don't have the time (or have lost the inclination, such as myself) to find out what to listen to by spending hours in record stores what to listen to. Having said that, I'm not inclined to jump on their exagerated Kanye-loving bandwagon. (I don't listen to Kanye, I don't watch Jon -- the liberal ying and yang if there ever was one.)

With respect to tastes, I'm not now a fan of nor have I ever been a fan of Morrissey. In fact, I don't get most "British" stuff. While I don't particularly care for Wilco, I do quite like Will Oldham. And I really like the country-esque Black Heart Procession.

Part of that is likely that were I grew up, "post-hardcore", "post-rock" and "emo" before it became "pop-punk" were the dominant styles of music, both played locally and booked to perform in the city. (That would be albums released on Discord, Quarterstick, Thrill Jockey, oh, and, Matador, of course.) For this reason, I'm inclined to call "the best record of all time" a tie between Sonic Youth's "Daydream Nation" and Slint's "Spiderland".

Among my peers, they only seem to listen Broken Social Scene and the Arcade Fire. Good Canadians, we are. But, before that, it was the Postal Service.

[In terms of class background disclosure: I came from the prosperous suburbs of Ottawa, populated primarily by professionals (doctors, lawyers), bureaucrats, and people working in the high tech bubble. It was expected of me that I go to Queen's -- where all the good families send their kids -- to do commerce, and then go to law school. Zero for three on that front. A good decision, overall. Queen's is now most famous for having kids go out in blackface.)

[Craig]

I should add: nothing makes me roll my eyes more than hearing about the next band dubbed by the British rock press to be the next big thing. It isn't just Morissey that I don't get! I do, however, get Mogwai and Ninjatunes.