Cos nobody loves me, it's true, not like you do

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

- Do you listen to miserable music?

- Did you listen to more (or less) miserable music than when you were a teenager? Or is the balance still about the same?

- What do you 'get' out of listening to miserable music?

Definitions of 'miserable' open to interpretation, of course.

(Guess who was listening to the new Portishead album last night!)

Comments

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how you're defining 'miserable' but I'm a goth, so my answer will basically be yes to pretty much any definition you want to use.

I don't always find things that other people find 'depressing' to be depressing, however, and often mind those same things to be quite uplifting. When I do enjoy things which are maudlin, I find them very good when I'm already sad - to me, they're as useful and necessary a form of catharsis as 'angry' music is, and I like a lot of that too.

But obv, one of the reasons I'm here is that I like music which isn't overtly 'miserable' as well!

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Same here - my music taste is pretty gothy in its fundaments (I was into IDM and minimal way before I was able to listen to funky house) but I think of myself as a more-cheerful-than-average personality, and I find stuff like Joy Division or the Cure or Morrissey/the Smiths to be uplifting, not depressing/miserable. Like, I hate that freaking Wombats song because it makes dancing to Joy Division out to be an ironic activity. Bitch plz, "Transmission" and "She's Lost Control" are totally unironic dancefloor fillers where I come from.

When I actually am feeling miserable I either listen to low-energy music like ambient or weird-folk, or loud/angry music, depending on what needs to get done. But "angry music" is the category I generally avoid and can't relate to, rather than "miserable music". (I actually sometimes wonder if there's a divide between dopamine-pathway-dominant people and serotonin-pathway-dominant people, in this sense - I have a vague anecdotal sense that this maps onto drug preferences as well.)

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Like, I hate that freaking Wombats song because it makes dancing to Joy Division out to be an ironic activity. Bitch plz, "Transmission" and "She's Lost Control" are totally unironic dancefloor fillers where I come from.

Heh, rage on!

I'm interested in the idea of drug preference, though - partly because I have a weird metabolism for drugs, having mild ADHD, and preferring speedy drugs as a simple correction to my own imbalances. I think a study of that nature would be fascinating, if probably impossible.

(I also like low-energy music when in non-angry mope.)