ColdBlooded33 said:
Nah, Popularity usually does it. If its underground, its like INSTACRED! Popular, people here hate it. Thats the way it goes 95% of the time
I'm telling you man. I want to be done with this thread, but I just can't stop scratching the itch. I give up, I'm in til the end now. Remember: you asked for it.
Some of my fave bands are ones that everyone calls "overrated." The press has never stopped polishing Nirvana's balls, and I love them. There's nothing underground about Flaming Lips, Beastie Boys, Bjork or Radiohead and I dig them too. I've gotten in heated arguments where I defend the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix from naysayers, and there are museums dedicated to them! I have over a dozen Bob Marley albums, and even more James Brown.
It's not the popularity. Anyone trying to put people who disregard the MTV spectacle in the "elitist" box is just taking it personally and lashing out. It's not a matter of taste, or me needing to "get over myself" and appointing my taste as superior and electing myself the only guy who can decide what's good or not.
There is such a thing as artless commercialism and the current crop of mainstream "artists" is full of it.
Do you really think anyone in XTINA's world thinks she is making art or moving the culture, or music forward? Her producer? Her manager? Her label? **** no, and they don't even care, because art is not the point. Am I making a statement that is about taste or the quality of the music? No. Why even defend it on those terms? It's an objective truth about the intent of that kind of music. Admit this to yourselves. (I can't believe that dude started typing about how many notes she can hit.)
PROTIP: You can all be arbiters in the great discussion of what is and isn't art. There's only one guiding principle, really: is the basic purpose to recreate a known "succesful formula" in order to be commercially palatable? If the answer is yes, it fails the test. Otherwise, it's made from an original vision, and it's art, no matter how many millions of people enjoy it, or how over-hyped it is. (Sorry, pretentious "indie" assholes - and yes, those types definitely exist.) Sure, sometimes there's a grey area, but that's what makes the discussion fun!
See, it's not about elitism, or being resentful of bands selling out, or being "part of the demographic" or criticizing people's guitar/vocals skills, or just hating everything that's popular. It's about looking for an original voice -- finding something special that you can only find when you turn to
that artist. Whether they're the most famous band in the world, or a band that only put out handmade casettes in the early 90s, it doesn't matter.
I understand that people don't care about all that necessarily and sometimes just want some comforting ear candy. Hey, that's fine. But guess what, that music deserves every bit of criticism it gets. I should suggest that you try to get along with your fellow "snobby" music fans by admitting that you just enjoy music that's pleasant to listen to and don't know/care about anything else. They'll just layoff, maybe make a crack at how lazy you are, maybe come back and nervously hand you a mix CD (and blubber about it), and that will be that. Fighting back with "oh yeah? Well, Kelly Clarkson's vocal range is 4 octaves!!" just proves that you deserve to be mocked. And you shall be.
).
