poptimists | (no subject)

Apologies if this is incoherent or obvious. I've been toying with it since an attack of insomnia last night. It is a bit muddled. And long.

freakytigger's recent posts have been pretty much OTM for me in that they seem to be building up a list of first principles of "taste". You know, that people have good reasons for listening to the music they do; that listening is made up of a series of moments. The fact of their self-evidency doesn't seem to make a difference in the long debates on the ILM thread(s), where participants seem intent on scrabbling around for facts (like sales, image, aesthetics or whatever) in attempt to give coherence to their -ism over the other. Perhaps, this can work but...

I'm not convinced by either -ism. If we want a task, I'd say continue along freakytigger's lines, and pare it back to the listener! Give the listener more credit! The one thing I get from the the attacks on either side of the -ism debate is a lack of respect for the other. One camp thinks that the other is just wrong and vice versa: ignoring that both, no doubt, have their good reasons for liking what they do, when they do, how they do, etc etc. And I'm not just talking about us internet mentalists--I'm talking about your average Sugababes/Keane fan--they will have their "good reasons" too! It's something to do with a rapport that I build up with the music I listen to: when I listen(ed) to it, how it makes me feel in particular...the longer and stronger this rapport breeds the rockist/rockist-about-pop. It's what makes talking about the music we like so difficult.

I don't know. This seems obvious.

I guess I'm saying we should try and be clear-headed about these things. Why does there have to be a popist/rockist "backlash"? This seems to imply something petty, spiteful, pointless, to me. Is it a pipe-dream to hope for measured responses!!