Trends

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Lets talk about TRENDS.

In fact, let's talk about the EXISTENCE of trends - on the Lex's LJ in a recent post dubdobdee said he basically didn't believe in them, or at least found them harmful as a way of thinking about stuff (dunno if he was specifically referring to music or what). Boyofbadgers agreed.

I am interested in this perspective - do you think that thinking about music in terms of trends is useful? Do you think the ebbs and flows of musical fashion as documented by journalists has any relation to real life experience? If anyone else likes it, is it a bonus? (Or a PENALTY?)

Am I being too vague?

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yes otm to all of this. Also I find that actual real trends, micro or macro, are only ever visible in retrospect.

(The exception to all of this is the FASHION WORLD - as this is ENTIRELY PREDICATED on seasonal trends it makes complete sense to talk about them there)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I don't think they're visible in retrospect - they're visible as they happen - but it's rare to actually predict where one is going with any degree of insight.

(& also you can predict "oh there will be an 80s revival" and then eventually there is hurrah but in the meantime there have been 25 failed ones)

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

This is true - a trend is a trend if it's visible as it's happening. It's the difference between the musical and related fashion trends that exist (emo, nu-rave maybe) and those that don't (any of the top down imposed made up NME genres of the last 15 years).

This feeds quite interestingly into Tom's FT post from a week or so ago, that perhaps the NME has become more successful in associating itself with trends because it's as much about following them from bottom up as imposing them from top down (or rather, following them from bottom up while pretending to be imposing them from top down). Also yer Myspaces and whatnot make it much easier for them to quantify and identify emerging trends and get onto them at just the point where they threaten to trouble the mainstream.

Essentially, there's less guesswork involved now - the chances of a Terris or Gay Dad emerging now seem a lot smaller. Whereas no one would even have thought to take a punt on eg Enter Shikari until it was too late.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

Re: Enter Shikari example, I meant that, if they'd emerged 10 years ago, no one would have thought to back them until it was too late. Leaving them looking like bandwagon jumpers instead of bandwagon starters.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

One of the things that's really gone missing now there's only the NME is the sense of music papers OPPOSING trends - "yes this is happening but it's stupid, stop it now kids" used to be quite a regular stance when I was a teen (and it usually meant that the Melody Maker or Sounds were backing whatever it was). Though I guess emo is an example of the NME not really knowing what stand to take on something clearly big happening.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Nu-rave is a great example because (from my distanced perspective) it's like a hybrid of a top-down and bottom-up trend - something was happening and the NME essentially packaged and branded it and in the process almost certainly changed its direction - one of the problems with trends is that identifying one also involves freezing it and distorting it a little.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Hollyoaks = way better than the NME at recognising teenage trends! Cf their current emo characters squabbling with lass who likes r'n'b, both factions then also loathe the nu-indie band kids busking in the street trying to pass off Sonia songs as their own...