Poptimist rountable: Why don't you like what you're supposed to like?

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

[koganbot  has been answering this question, originally posed by poptasticuk , in his column here, and talking about it on his journal here. I thought it might be in order to continue the conversation today. Personal anecdotes welcome! I'm off out, but I'll be back to talk after 2.]

When I was 12 I was a member of a Scout troop based on a housing estate a little way from the comfortable middle class suburb where I lived. I was just discovering music, and particularly loved the Beastie Boys. (Obviously my mum never let me steal a VW badge, but I was allowed to write and ask for the little replicas they gave out in an attempt to keep kids away from their cars.) For a while I was allowed to share this enthusiasm with other members of the group, until one day they decided that as a 'square' kid from a posh school, I wasn't supposed to like the Beastie Boys, and clearly was only doing it to 'fit in'.

Around the same time my dad was a director at a merchant bank in the city. One day he overheard a much younger colleague saying 'you know Mr T******? You'd think he was into, you know Vivaldi or something. But he likes Iron Maiden!' (And WASP, Helloween, etc. it transpires. Partly because he was lending money to a company that was involved with those acts, but hey, why spoil a good story!)

A year or so later I was in my first year at boarding school, and I had (via my dad -- not how this is supposed to happen!) got into metal. I remember one of the older boys (who subsequently ended up as a maths teacher at the school, I wonder where he is now?) walking past, noticing that I was listening to 'Kill 'em All' and saying 'Metallica: pretty hev (heavy) for a junior'. This time not liking what I was supposed to like was a good thing, and he let me have free run of his cassettes to learn up on all that other heavy stuff. (Result! Cheers Simon!)

Obviously this still goes on -- I think a large chunk of the 'poptimist' experience is about this: deliberately liking what you're supposed to dislike; finding yourself in transgression of 'supposed-to's of various sorts; and of course encoding new 'supposed-to's. (Aren't all the polling and games intended to recognise and disrupt the natural formation of 'supposed-to's?) Most of my IRL pals in Edinburgh like what they're supposed to like (although I think everyone has a couple of things they like that don't fit -- maybe this is the limit of the 'supposed-to' model), and are happy like that. [But I was playing tunes when we had people round for C's birthday and pretty much every track prompted a 'what! you can't play this' from someone -- but there was always someone else who thought it was ok to play it, so clearly all sorts of 'supposed-to's were clashing in the room.]

Anyway what annoys me most about music radio for example is how obviously it enshrines 'supposed-to's: you know, Radio 1 is for 'new music', as long as that doesn't include too much dance music etc.; 6music for 'music that matters'. But then I guess that 'supposed-to's are how the cultural industry works -- fixing and solidifying the 'supposed-to's that are already there in the social world. So the battle for autonomy is the battle against 'supposed-to's?

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

"Supposed to like" has worked on numerous levels for me, most of them at odds with each other!

There's the usual thing of acquaintances, on first discovering that I'm "into music", assuming that this means critically-approved indie rock. I usually have to repeatedly, loudly and baldly say things like "I don't like indie", "that's not my thing" and "I like hip-hop and dance music" for my actual tastes to even vaguely filter through - and THEN they get confused when I say I like PJ Harvey! Similarly liking mainstream music as much as non-mainstream music tends to be a source of confusion - possibly along the lines of "but if you devote so much time to digging around for obscure acts how can you possibly keep an eye on the charts too". There's definitely this thing of...people wanting to peg you down, initial assumptions are willingly replaced by more assumptions. And as a music journalist I've often found that people want me to like hyped up-and-coming bands esp those that they themselves have discovered, in order to validate their taste or something - examples here include JACK PENATE and JUST JACK :o

Separately people who know my general tastes are often surprised when I express dislike for things within the umbrella-ella-ella I've set out for myself eg not liking Justice et al when I've said I like dance music, not liking (or not expressing much enthusiasm for) Outkast when I like hip-hop, not liking Mika when I say I like pop (actually the last is inaccurate, no one I know thinks Mika is anything other than a massive twat HURRAH but also who on earth is buying his stuff).

And then I often feel that there's music which I'm "supposed" to like as a gay man - and I do love a lot of this music (MADGE), but I've often found that people are MOST surprised whenever I don't conform to these particular expectations (other gays are MOST AT FAULT here, if I have to endure another gay man telling me off for liking hip-hop and dancehall I will commit a HATE CRIME on them).

What it boils down to, I think, is that people like to believe in social tribes and those demographic groups which are given prominent placings on the BBC site on slow news days.

torchwood meme alert

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

"i am saucy jack"/dalek the ripper ect ect

i faithfully promise to carry on teasin my public till
i. i finish this stupid piece
ii. the plain ppl of the I/W beat me to death with my own lamest avatar

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Lex, you're bang on with your last para there. Even though when we know our own (and our friends') music tastes aren't neatly categorized, we have a mental block when applying this to strangers. I wonder how much of it is down to 'trying to think of common topics for conversation in awkward social situations'. Working where I do, this can be v problematic :(

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Worst culprits at applying it = the music press! Permanently in fear that their readers won't like certain artists.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough mainstream radio DJs tend to take the poptimist approach superficially - they give their approval to whatever is on the playlist - however this doesn't stop you looking at Jo Whiley spouting off about how wonderful eg Just Jack are, and thinking "woman, do you actually have EARS?" There's a difference between tolerating something you find rub that your listeners/viewers might actually like and outwardly gushing about something clearly awful. We can tell the difference, Jo!