Transferrable poptimism?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

When you start exploring a new genre do you make any assumptions about whether the best-known acts/records/choons in that genre are likely to be the best or not? Do you think, for instance, that there must be a load of obscure better records lurking behind the famous ones that the Real Heads know about?

Of course I think for most people the answer is "depends" - but what does it depend on? For instance, here are two statements someone might make:

"James Brown isn't actually that good - there are loads of other obscure funk acts who are way better than him."

"Incantation aren't actually that good - there are loads of other obscure pan pipe moods acts who are way better than them."

I think statement #1 would raise eyebrows and statement #2 would be more generally accepted as likely to be true.

(I started on this train of thought because I realised when answering a thread on sukrat that for all I knew Merzbow might be a huge noise sell out and despised by all the real noise fans.)

Comments

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Also what if the thing that's been lost in mainstreaming it was one of the pillars of the genre, but unfortunately a pillar of sh1t that the genre could never have been popular without?

(eg "oh no this is new jaunty country music" - good, keep it coming!)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

If one of a genre's pillars is a pillar of shit, it's unlikely I'll care much about that genre in the first place!

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying, but you might like a crossover hit that did away with it.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I almost certainly have! (eg indie with an actually decent rhythm section and competent voices.) Sometimes I think "validity of a genre's particular pillars" could be a discussion worth having, ie why is this thing which is so fundamental to a genre liked by its fans/disliked by non-fans, etc.