Where is the love?

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

So we're all resigned to a bit of a slump in pop and teenpop, but... am I imagining it, or is everyone getting spikey about music in general? I know "I Love Music" has rarely lived up to its name in the last 5 years, but it does feel like a lot of stuff (new stuff) is getting ACTIVE dislike more than seems usual (or healthy, to me).

Is this because things are "on the move" and people are trying harder to be "taste makers"?

Or perhaps I am just imagining it, and no explanation is needed.

Settle my mind, or solve my conundrum.

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

lots of new stuff is great! i spend well over half my time listening to new stuff. lots of new stuff is horrid but as long as it stays out of my way i don't mind...

i am positive and gushing on ILM far more than i am spiky.

[pot80.livejournal.com]

It's because everyone there is getting older and as people get older, they tend to get more reactionary and/or set in their ways. The peak of ILM came at a point when people were more willing to get excited together, and now we're at a point in the cycle when people are more eager to define themselves against other people, or by what they dislike. It's lame.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I don't immediately recognise this I have to say. Was there anything specific bugging you?

it's not music...

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

.. it's the war

("I've been Ben Elton and Alexa Chung thank you good night")

A possible explanation

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

In terms of getting to hear music there's a kind of pyramid of motive viz

1 I've heard this without trying to (i.e. on the radio/in a club etc.)
2 This sounds bad but I want to see what the fuss is about.
3 I'm interested enough to give this a go.
4 I am really keen to hear this.

As access to music becomes easier (and more often free), #s 2 and 3 expand enormously. That's what's been happening: more people able to hear and offer opinions on music they wouldn't otherwise have bothered with. A lot of them aren't going to like it so the opinion-giving trends more to negative. And there's no much music being discussed that there's not many people bothering to qualify or explain there judgements before hopping onto the next thing.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I think the music industry is undergoing a revolution in production and distribution at the moment, which means:

a) there is no stable basis for massive innovation in sounds, and much rock-crit discourse is built on demand for innovation in sound.

b) tastes are separating out into niches, even if people will happily enjoy more than one. But there is less emphasis on combining or crossing over in order to achieve mass appeal, and this is where one source of innovation comes from + then see comments in a) about rock crit discourse.

+ [possibly not directly linked]

c) some odd things are happening in the mainstream in the UK, which I blame on the BBC, but this is short hand for dictatorship of certain ideas of what constitutes tasteful music.

i.e. revolution in ways of making, selling / obtaining and listening to music BUT not in types of music. But someone else will tell you different at a micro level perhaps, and there is possibly a quite extensive reshuffling going on underneath the radar of concerned-but-not-fanatical listeners.

There's also a definite age thing, i.e. no-one is producing anything which sounds radically dissimilar to what I've heard before; but I'm discovering that loads of things I thought were new back in the day just sounded like older things (e.g. post-rock was just prog / kraut rock coming round again).

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

ILM is full of people not really telling us what new stuff they actually do like and are listening to, for sure. and if they do it's just listy 'X is good' stuff. ZZZZ.

i do what i can tho, Track Of The Week thread etc. (oh noes i don't think i have a track for this week yet been too busy with PROMOZONE wooo)