(no subject)

[poptasticuk.livejournal.com]

Following on from the discussions of what we are 'supposed to like', I thought I would pose the question: How open are you about your pop fandom to your friends? And how about new people you meet?

This was also triggered by thinking about music lists on sites like MySpace and Facebook. The artists I list on there are all ones I like, but there are some big emissions - Bodies Without Organs, Backstreet Boys, Darren Hayes. Some of my all time favourites but there is no mention of them on my MySpace or Facebook. When you're filling out these things you have to think of every person who might see it, and even though I am confident enough in my poptasticness to say that I like pop music, I prefer to list the lesser known poppy bands (such as Robyn and Margaret Berger), or the slightly more critically acclaimed ones (Patrick Wolf or The Pipettes, for eg). How do those of you who use these sites deal with this issue? Do you think anyone is completely honest?

Comments

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I tend to attempt to make my music taste reflect what I actually like; there's a lot of blatantly pop stuff on both my facebook and my myspace (although I haven't updated either for some time) and also a lot of "indie" or "dance" or whatever because I feel it's better to get a realistic depiction of what I like. On the other hand, obviously I am picking and choosing because if I started transcribing even my relatively small CD collection, I'd be there all day and so I do tend to pick things to make myself look cool or at least my own variation on the word.

Inevitably, those boxes are only able to showcase so there is a lot of pretension in it in a lot of ways and I know a lot of people write things they either don't really like or don't know much about in there to make themselves look better/more interesting (I know I have done this before) but equally I think they can be quite telling, especially knowing that people know they're there to tell other people about themselves/

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty much completely open about everything I like, but I don't generally initiate a conversation about pop with a new acquaintance - a colleague at work, say. This isn't because I don't want to reveal what I like, more that I don't know what level of conversation they're comfortable with (i.e. I don't want to bore them).

That said I've been in the happy position of liking, or at least not being intimidated by, everyone I work with for the last few years - in my previous job, when I didn't really get on with anyone in the office, I didn't advertise my liking of pop.

I dunno what my strategy on social networking sites would be - depends if I was using them to keep in touch with people I already know or to meet new people. In the latter case I'd probably pick acts, or rather combinations of acts, I think would bring me into contact with interesting people. (Dunno what those would actually BE, though. Pet Shop Boys and ABBA for starters I suppose!)

When I was at University myself I was open about liking pop, but "liking pop" was as low a priority in my tastes as its ever been, so the kind of people I was keen to meet were like me, "indie fans who also like pop" not "pop fans".

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

With my friends, and usually friends of friends, I'm pretty open about my tastes; depends on where the conversation is going (like if two people are talking about the new Liars album, I'm not going to butt in with HAVE U HEARD THE POTENTIAL BREAKUP SONG!). Usually I get the most knee-jerk reactions when I talk about Ashlee or Paris -- Paris I actually tend to avoid in conversations with people I don't know so well because if they react too strongly I might end up disliking them immediately (through little fault of their own), but I ALWAYS underestimate the vitriol yr random stranger will have toward Ashlee. I once fought with an opera singer (!) for about an hour about Ashlee. I mean, I think I actually convinced her to listen to Ashlee (which she never actually had grrrrr), but really it was just kind of unpleasant. (NB: we were both drunk.)

But with stranger-strangers, I usually play whatever cards I need to ingratiate myself. It's very important to me for people to like me, and being overbearing about music/taste upon first meeting is a surefire way to turn people off, regardless of what you're saying. Online is a different story (would that you could use hypertext in regular conversation -- "why do I like it? Well, basically, [link], cool I'm gonna go get another drink").

[mcatzilut.livejournal.com]

On Myspace, I dealt with it by listing all the A and B named Bands/Artists that I like. The downside to that was it became outdated really quickly and I didn't want to update it. Also - that C-Z band names weren't represented. On facebook, I list the most recent music I'm listening to, and a top 10 albums of all time.

In other words, I deal with it by completely circumventing the issue of *how do I present what I like* by instead offering *possibilities of likeness*.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

This is the first time I've seen Patrick Wolf called pop I think! He is indie through and through.

Anyway, I am definitely open about my pop fandom - like Dave I try not to be overbearing about it in real life conversation but this goes for music fandom in general, esp to people I don't know that well. My main group of friends are all music lovers, and though a lot of them skew towards indie or dance, they're mostly basically pop-friendly or at least pop-tolerant - and music is a really integral part of how we socialise which probably helps. Plus, there's so much music that we collectively bond over that the music we disagree about is relatively unimportant.

I put up a massive list of acts I liked on my myspazz, inc pop acts, scattered amongst other stuff...I don't really want to have a similar massive list on facebook, it looks a bit lame and I don't want to have to keep updating it, right now it's basically four of my favourite artists right now and it may revolve. I was thinking of putting genres up there actually, of which pop would def be one. Actually I think these profiles are a v helpful way of pre-empting any possible real life 'controversy'.

I don't really think of anything I like as uncool...I'm aware that certain acts are perceived to be more credible, for whatever reason, than others, but...I dunno, cool/uncool is such a nebulous concept, it can shift completely according to what social circle you're in, and I take the view that liking 'uncool' music shouldn't make you 'uncool' yourself; rather the fact that I like it makes it 'cool' (because I think of myself as basically cool, and I think anyone who's secure in their music taste should also do this - I am heartily sick of people proclaiming their uncoolness, it's basically like wearing a T-shirt which says "I think I am lame"). Re: your lists I would totally call Backstreet Boys cool but not the Pipettes.

[celentari.livejournal.com]

My MySpace and Facebook music is copied over directly from an iTunes list of everything on my iPod - total honesty. The thing that appealed to me about Poptimists when I first joined was the "guilty pleasures aren't guilty" attitude, although obviously that turns out just to be an inversion of what would be considered a guilty pleasure by others - I wouldn't tend to advertise the indie-rock aspects of my music fandoms here, since Poptimists has the exact same attitude to that sort of thing as some indie rockers have to pop.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I try and list the bands that reflect the broadest range of my interests. However at the moment my Myspace has "Fergie, The Fall, Fabric mixes" as I was feeling lazy.

[koganbot]

I love Beatles, Stones, and Dylan, but if I put them one-two-three on my MySpace, I'm sending a false message about myself, which is that I either disdain or fear the present. Whereas if I list them on poptimists I'm not sending that message, but I'm not sending a particularly clear message either. But on poptimists we get to explain ourselves. E.g., I like the '60s Stones image for much the same reason Lex likes Paris Hilton's image. What I try to avoid is something that will give the reader a false sense of cameraderie based on shared likes and dislikes. (Btw, I like two of the three Mika tracks I've heard fine, especially the Cutting Crew rip, though I don't think he has the voice for what he's trying to do.) But it's not really hard to get people to suspend their cameraderie with a few well-stated preferences.

Btw

[koganbot]

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