Polling Without Context

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

[Poll #1018696]

Comments

Re: I love this list

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Conversely, I work in a less fashionable office and lots of the people here like nostalgic hits, school reunion stuff, classic disco, and also semi-current pop like Dido, Lily Allen, Madonna. None of which are really represented in the last.fm lists, because they're not the kind of people who wd download last.fm.

An observation I'd make, though, is that none of those people REJECT mainstream rock and commercial indie in the way that people who are into the modern bands listed here might reject the stuff Lex likes. The people in my office who liked 80s pop and the big Kelly Clarkson songs all also copied the Arcade Fire album.

Also, most Brits don't like hip-hop really. This may be not true any more for under-20s.

Re: I love this list

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

This is key -- there's no equal binary between me dismissing, say, Deerhunter (whom I've listened to and don't care for) and someone coming onto a comment thread or blog I've written in and suggest that there is no inherent MERIT in even ATTEMPTING to listen to Kelly Clarkson or Ashlee Simpson (meaning, they haven't really listened to them). That's what kind of pisses me off about the supposed pop/indie split most. Invoking "the people" or "the masses" is usually just a shortcut when you can't claim to have listened very carefully yourself but still want to make sweeping generalizations about music someone else (I) like on predominantly, if not exclusively, social grounds. Not to say that these social grounds are even valid (they usually aren't), just that's kind of the conversational escape hatch for people who aren't thinking hard enough.