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

[(Anonymous)]

I listened to The Toby because I wasn't supposed to, and then the wind changed and I got stuck like it.

The above statement is about 50% true, but the 50% is not concentrated in any one piece of the statement.

bopkids

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Country is surely the biggest and most long-standing "shouldn't like", though?

[sbp.livejournal.com]

music radio ... enshrines 'supposed-to's

Commercial music radio certainly does - that's how they sell advertising space.

I dunno. e.g. many of my close friends are into indie *and* minimal techno. I wonder if you get into any genre there are supposed-tos, but that must reflect the superficial (top most) layer of the genre. Once you get into the genre more deeply you realise either that they're supposed-to for a reason, or that there's so much other good stuff that you don't care about the supposed-tos anymore.

And "I Will Survive" has just been followed by "Stayin' Alive" on the office jukebox....

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

At school I was the "rocker", though the other metal kids didn't really accept me coz I liked Poison and Megadeth at the same time, and expressed a liking for T-Rex, and like you're not supposed to do that. I guess I'm supposed to like boring indie music like the Smiths, which thankfully I never will.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

'Metallica: pretty hev (heavy) for a junior'

Nyaaaw! :)

TBH this idea of "transgression" is an old chesnut and very close to wilful contrarianism (which is GRATE in of itself obv) to strike at straw men (not so GRATE) - esp in these circles! Or perhaps is seen as transgressing without actual investment in the act of transgression (dabbling in waters you don't really like for the sake of it). However on saying that I can't really draw any meaningful conclusion! Hurrah for me!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I was very worried as a teenager about what I should and shouldn't be listening to (indie snob phase). But most of the time this went the opposite way - I knew that the Manics were rubbish and their fans were ridiculous and and and... but then I bought the Holy Bible and it was actually good. I think it was from around about that point that I loosened up my disdain and was more open to liking previously dismissed stuff (eg Spice Girls), though it would be some years before I was brave enough to 'go public'.

[(Anonymous)]

That's probably true for some people in some places.

bopkids

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Like umlauts on Frank's LJ thread, I have no idea what other people think I'm supposed to like, and have no anecdotes to share :(

From my perspective, I do like exactly what I'm supposed to like! I am guilty of contrarianism at the margins. But I don't support bad music as some sort of rebellion against 'supposed-to's.

Dr. T is right that poptimists has a tendency to enshrine new 'supposed-to's, and that worries me sometimes. But since I like 90% of these things anyway, it's hardly worth rocking the boat.

[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.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

minimal techno IS indie, obv ;)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Aren't we in K-Punk sneaking fags behind matron's back territory here? ;)

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's more about working out what you really like without (much) reference to what other people would expect you to like. So it's only transgressing against ridiculous assumptions, which is THE SORT OF CONTRARIANISM WE LIKE.

bopkids

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

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

"Kompakt: because dance music needs an indie" (c) M.Mayer

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, for all values of "territory" where K-Punk = matron.

bopkids

"fags behind matron's back-territory"

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

:\

deliberately liking what you're supposed to dislike

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

"; finding yourself in transgression of 'supposed-"

sort of. i think my take on this poptimist crusade with the world in general is to make it known that YES it is possible that to like (appreciate, etc) Girls Aloud, Spice Girls and be sane and reasonable. because ppl assume so much about who you are - badging you up with the supposed-tos - making them aware when they are wrong.

it's 'consciousness raising' akin to tilting at prejudice in the more general sense. oh noes, i will lead to musical political correctness gone mad

more unhelpful analogies

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

like sid vicious wearing a sw4stik4 cz he WASN'T a n4zi!

Re: more unhelpful analogies

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

we're not trying to shock for the sake of shock. we might actively provoke to make it known. we could have t-shirts printed "I LIKE POP - ASK ME HOW" :-)

contrariwise, sid wasn't saying 'i like hitler' (though my may actually have SAID spoken-action it TO SHOCK too)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately my participation in this v. interesting thread was interrupted by the work I'm "supposed to do", which I can't usefully transgress against.

There's a big area, isn't there, between "supposed to like" and "not supposed to like"? In fact an area that mostly overwhelms "not supposed to like" - a kind of "respectable to like" zone, where the music isn't being made *for* you but your liking it is an acceptable, even honourable move. A lot of the time this is racially coded.

This area is where Frank's "creation myth" happens - hip white kids listening to black kids' music, which of course still happens today. At various specific times this listening has been transgressive but these days it's generally respectable and acceptable - most hip-hop no longer really fits into "not supposed to like", for instance. Notoriously, world music NEVER has!

Outside the respectable zone are musics that are seen as lumpen or redneck (metal and country), commercially oriented but not targeted at you personally (teenpop and kids music, contemporary easy listening), associated with naff elements in culture (filk, Christian rock/pop), or associated with socially unwelcome attitudes (dancehall, some grime and hip-hop still)

[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 :(

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

It means the poptimists hivemind is RIGHT! :)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

But investigating these musics is mostly a beaten *critical* path even if it baffles various mates - as Frank says, there's nothing new about what Poptimists do, and individual Poptimists explore any/all of these areas (maybe not filk but let's face it we're on LJ so the potential is surely there).

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

& this is the problem with the idea of "transgressing" - there's very little transgression against the actual audience of Poptimists (i.e. other Poptimists!), so you end up with these straw-men fights Sarah is criticising.

From my POV I have a genuine fascination with why people like music that I think of as bad - I want them to explore why and explain themselves (& convert me! or change their minds!). The best way to do this is NOT to say "AAAAAAH you like indie*", no matter how tempting it can be.

*or whatever

Muskrats On Parade

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The way the polls and games are set up is designed to confront people with people who don't like the same things they do, and get them talking, but in a ludic context so people a) have an investment in the outcome so they stick around, b) don't have as strong an emotional investment so they don't storm off in a huff.

They almost never work that way of course.