Polling Without Context

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

[Poll #1018696]

Comments

Other questions

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

What do you think last.fm is representative of, if anything?
Which do you listen to most?
Are there any that surprise you?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

jesus christ that is nauseating!

Interpol are the only one of those bands I feel any kindness to whatsoever and even then that's in a "didn't like their last album, can't be bothered to track down their new one, haven't listened to their first in four years" way.

I am proud to have contributed to NONE of those.

Re: Other questions

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised Placebo are that popular. Are they still going?

Re: Other questions

[whalefish.livejournal.com]

Death Cab For Cutie are a bit surprising. I knew they were a pretty big cult sort of thing in the US, didn't realise they were actually massively popular though...

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I've liked most of these bands at one point or another, actually. But most of them I only like a very specific album or song (woulda been different if I had to tick for a specific album, I guess). I used my criteria for "any good at all" for this, so ticked people I might not have if the question were, like, "how many of these people would you want to put on a list representing your taste to the rest of the world?"

Re: Other questions

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Well "massive" here is a slightly rogue term. The most popular artist - RHCP, toppling the Beatles from that position this week - has around 58,000 listeners - this wd be enough to get a #1 UK single most weeks, incidentally. So the question is - how many people use last.FM, what percentage of them listen to the RHCP, and what kind of listeners AREN'T using it.

It may be that 90% of all Death Cab listeners are also on last.fm after all, but only 9% of, say, T.I. listeners.

Re: Other questions

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

I don't know what it means though - is it "most people who have listened to a track today" or "most tracks listened to ever"?

Similarly I don't quite have a handle on "do you like" - most songs? some songs? One great track?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

My criteria was an imaginary co-worker asking me "Do you like [x]?". Anything I wouldn't answer "Yeah" to didn't get a tick.

Re: Other questions

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

1. It's number of listeners to anything by that act in the last week.
2. Find a criteria that works for you!

Re: Other questions

[ms-bracken.livejournal.com]

I'm always amazed by this - I think they got quite a lot of traction in the US compared with other bands of that era, and are still going. These charts also favour artists with sustantial back catalogues, which Placebo have (5 albums?) compared to a lot of other bands. That doesn't explain all of these charts, but it does explain a lot.

And, I think, they represent the acme of proto-emo, even more than the Manics or Everclear do.

The full truth

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

http://www.last.fm/music/+charts/artist/

Poptimists favourite acts (this week) Rihanna and Justice come in at #69 and #175 respectively.

Re: Other questions

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Placebo also were Big In Europe.

I love this list

[cis.livejournal.com]

mostly because I find it really hard to answer! These are kind of poptimist-problematic artists, for me: a lot of them are groups I kind of consider poptimists to define itself against, of whom 'our' general consensus (assumed by me) doesn't approve, bands who aren't pop but are undeniably popular... and I can't really work out if I like some of them, if I secretly like them but don't want to admit to it, if I don't really like them but want to publicly declare myself 'for' them, if the amount of their songs that I like balances out how I feel about them now/in general... that sort of thing.

Re: Other questions

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I thought Weezer were proto-emo. Its so confusing. Didn't emo used to mean beefed up guitar pop rather than watered down nu metal?

Battle of the back catalogues: Led Zep but no Stones? And were Queen really big in America?

Re: I love this list

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes - this is one reason I posted it, it's a useful cautionary reminder of the gap between 'poptimism' and 'populism', & this list isn't just people voting for stuff they "ought to like", it's actual (reasonably committed one assumes) listening.

There are quite a few of these I wouldn't say I liked (by my strictish criteria) but which I wouldn't consider harmful. (Lex' big favourites INTERPOL not among them!!)

Most of them have a song a like, maybe almost all.

Re: Other questions

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Last FM is also big in Europe remember!

I am actually quite surprised by the Beatles.

Stones at #43

Re: I love this list

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I think - insofar as pop music can be harmful at all, ie not very - they are ALL harmful except lovely stylised soulless Interpol!

Re: I love this list

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

And re populism, it's the same as ever - only music geeks are on the internet, especially on last.fm, and we all know in our hearts that normal people in the actual real world would far rather listen to Beyoncé than any of that nonsense.

No girls

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

At all. That's...mildly depressing.

In the entire top 50, the only girls are Avril Lavigne (35) and Nelly Furtado (37), and NOT COINCIDENTALLY they are both approx several thousand grillion times better than anyone in the top 30.

Re: I love this list

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

There's nothing actually WRONG with being a music geek tho lex!

I think also our RHCP overlords are just as typical of "normal people" listening as Bouncy is.

Re: No girls

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Meg White is a gurl.

But yes, I take your point.

Re: Other questions

[ms-bracken.livejournal.com]

Sorry, yes - proto-emo in the sense of sounding like watered down nu-metal before that was cool...

Now you mention it, the lack of Stones in that list is quite a surprise.

[cis.livejournal.com]

What do you think last.fm is representative of, if anything?

mIddle-class american teens and early-twentysomethings! computer literate, college-educated (or about to be), predominately white and white-collar (in attitude if not in actual job). Clearly they do a lot of listening at their computers, so either they're working with computers or they spend a lot of wind-down time on a computer, probably doing some kind of 'social networking' and probably not playing MMORPGs or other computer games because those have their own soundtracks, don't they? I was going to define them as 'facebook-users', rather than 'myspace-users' or 'lj-users', but actually using last.fm implies slightly more of an early-adopter mentality than using facebook. People confident in their tastes as a social identifier: you don't get a last.fm unless you think people will positively react to what you're listening to, and getting a last.fm implies that your public identity is tied up in what music you associate yourself with.

Re: I love this list

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Oh there's nothing WRONG with it, after all we are all music geeks here, though certainly a superior type to...those people. But music geeks are not representative, really.

Funny last.fm tale - got invited to join grime-based group, did so, when weekly charts emerged they read as expected until, 20 artists down, loomed the name THE SMITHS. They get sodding everywhere :(

Re: No girls

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Except for the ones in fifth and ninth place?