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[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Sparked by a familiar controversy rearing its head on The Lex's LJ, I thought maybe a poll would help us get further into this question. (Let's not go all ILM here, please.)

[Poll #663010]

The underlying question maybe:"Is it important for your consumption of music to reflect your social and political beliefs?" (another old ILM favourite). When the choice to be made is a negative one, a lot of people say "yes" - someone who hates homophobia may well boycott records by an act they see as homophobic. But my guess is people who believe in racial equality don't make 'positive' choices to support that in their music consumption (for instance). And why should they, if they don't like the music? But I think it's an interesting area.

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I should maybe have made the poll viewable to none - don't fill out any questions that you're not comfortable answering, obviously.

And the two scale questions are 'approximate' - deal with mixed-race/gender bands in whatever way you see fit.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

seing as i made a BIG PITCH for myself in the mid-80s as "world music critic" at nme, i obviously also made an effort LISTENING to music from lotsa difft places

(in my defence: it wasn't CALLED "world music" when i started)

i STRONGLY ENCOURAGE ONE AND ALL to make an effort to listen to more IRANIAN music as it = bettah than all the rest of music PUT TOGETHER even inc.craig david

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

i can barely remember the last ten records i bought, it's probably about two years worth...

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

haha yes does "bought" include STOLE VIA THE INTERWEB?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I was obliged to abstain there because I can't actually remember what the last ten records I bought are.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I'm having trouble thinking of the last 10 records I bought! Downloading might count but then all 10 would be BANGING GERMANS because of Saturday's electro spree.

My nuanced response to No 2 is - people should listen to whatever they feel, but if their taste skews heavily away from black people, or women, or whatever, they should maybe think about why this is the case beyond "I just don't like it", and maybe be aware of the social and cultural factors which have constructed their taste, and not dismiss certain 'aspects' of the music out of hand (eg people waving the entirety of hip hop away because it's all about guns'n'hos or whatevs). And if there is underlying snobbery or god forbid genuine racism underlying their tastes then I dunno, have the decency to admit it or something.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

well also, it's all just track, track, track these days, not "records" ie alBUMS

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes nor can I actually! As a market researcher I ought to think these things through more.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

ie how do i count the 200+ tracks by JUST ONE LADY i d/led in order to ensure victory in cuptimism?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Actually the 10 rekkids thing is easy - about 3 in 10 (all banging German dudes) of the stuff I listen to is male and about 0 in 10 is quarter-English quarter-Scottish half-Chinese.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

also should i include two alBUMS i have downloaded in their entireity recently, but which i bought ten years ago?

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Mine are guesses. Of the last four (in the Music Zone sale, Friday lunchtime) all were by men, and one of them was an all black group. Further back than that I can't remember.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

i don't think freakytigger's thought this whole thing through...

[steviespitfire.livejournal.com]

about 0 in 10 is quarter-English quarter-Scottish half-Chinese.

Yes, I wondered about how ethnicity was being defined here.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes!

[steviespitfire.livejournal.com]

In the poll I mean. Ethnicity is a loaded term, surely.

[steviespitfire.livejournal.com]

Oh, he's a busy man, you know!

[nicolars.livejournal.com]

The only problem I had with this poll is that I had a hard time remembering the last 10 records I bought! So my answers were just (at best) a guess.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Aye. Plus moving outside yr musical comfort zones is usually a good thing, and this is a likely side-effect of trying to broaden yr listening demographically.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The interesting option for me is the one I ticked - I don't think listening to music from a wide demographic spread correlates against racism, but at the same time I do think at some level it's 'good for one' to listen to lots of different stuff*. But then at the same time this feels like a slightly obnoxious opinion - should music even be 'good for you'?

*in the same way that reading novels, which I hardly ever do, is 'good for you'.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

But is it always a good thing? Aren't we trying to impose a particular view of music - that it ought to "challenge" something? And isn't this exactly the view that infuriates those of us who've got sick of the indie (or Wire-ite) consensi?

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

like flip he is ;) i do as much work as him and i do next to 0.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

was that lady GOOGOOSH? (don't answer this if it will somehow spoil the surprisedisrupt Iran's team selection) (haha catch 22!)

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I can do the last four I actually *bought* - of which I've got one mixed-gender trio, and the rest men. I think they're all white, but not entirely sure.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I guess it is, more so than "race"? I wanted to get an idea of how closely people's record buying fits with this aspect of their own identity.