Middlebrow - confessions and definitions

This has been on my mind of late:

First, the juicy confessions. Stuff I like that I'm sure would be considered middlebrow - Fleet Foxes, Interpol, Arcade Fire (kind of), Eels and what I suppose you'd call the 'big-hitters' of trip-hop, Portishead, DJ Shadow and Massive Attack. In terms of older things, I do like quite a lot of Pink Floyd's output, and not just the Barrett-era stuff either. However, I would like to state categorically that I think The Wall is a terrible record.
I hope that anyone who replies to this thread will join in the fun and post all their guilty (or otherwise) middlebrow pleasures as well.

Now for the soul-searching theory bit - what exactly do we mean when we describe something as middlebrow? I'd assume that it's almost always used as a somewhat perjorative term. You might say that it just means any artist that it is the subject of a consensus of critical praise - so basically the same as the perennial complaint that such-and-such is 'overrated'.
But I think it's more precise than that, I think it has to mean things where there is something objective in the style of the music itself that guarantees in advance that it will appeal to the average music critic, and to the sort of people that take the opinions of these critics as a guide.
I think a mark of middlebrow music is that it employs whatever the sonic signifiers of 'serious' and 'deep' are at a given time, but still manages to avoid being too genuinely challenging, so that it provides listeners the best of both worlds: the kudos of listening to something with art status but with the familiar coast-line of pleasent, usually tuneful features. I think big, solid production values are usually a standard feature of middlebrow music. But perhaps this is all putting it a bit cynically; as I say, I like a fair ammount of the stuff.

Oh, and I also like a certain ammount of prog house, esp Emerson-era Underworld. I supsect that may be cause for around these parts - in any case, you surely can't get much more middlebrow than progressive house.

Even more thoughts - there's a class dimension to it too isn't there? Shown in the way that 'coffe-table music' is kind of a synonym for it.

swears said:

I think it's subjective, my middlebrow might be your mainstream, might be another person's idea of what's radical/marginal. Depending on where you're standing along the hipness/obscurist foodchain.

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Yeah, that certainly makes sense. What interests me though is that you might then expect it always to refer to what the proverbial other guy is into, but as my list above shows, it seems possible to say of your own tastes, 'ok, I know that's pretty middlebrow, but still I really like it' and similar. But then I guess that's actually true of a lot of perjorative musical terms.
With that in mind, you dodged the fun part of the thread - confess! (Unless you're so hip that you like nothing middlebrow whatsoever, which I suppose is always possible ).

*school disco flashbacks*

Oh yes, absolutely.
Right now I can't listen to them very much, but I seem to go through cycles of like/dislike with them. Always a very stodgy band, I thought.

Deacon Blue were definitely middlebrow, and horrible. Fleetwood Mac possibly too, I don't share the massive love for them that some people seem to have, but things like The Chain are undeniably great songs. My brother is a big fan, come to think of it.
I don't think middlebrow and MOR is quite the same thing, though, although I'll grant that theres a fair ammount of overlap. But for me middlebrow signifies stuff that has at least some pretentions toward art status, respectability, critical approval and so forth, wheares middle-of-the-road is more stuff that seems to be deliberately unimaginative and unexciting, the appeal is that it's something comforting and familiar. However, that whole sonic stodginess/weightiness is something that they both seem to share.
Similarly, guilty-pleasure-pop is something else again, mainly designated for me by the unabashed cheese factor, but as you point, the whole category of guilty pleasures seems to have become eroded of late.

josef k. said:

I would contend that Joan as Policewoman is basically middlebrow. I also sometimes wonder (he boldly declares) whether Burial isn't middlebrow. And I think there's an argument that Animal Collective are middlebrow.

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I can see what you mean about Burial. He does seem to be the dubstep/dubstep-orientated favourite in terms of listeners who think of music in terms of albums as the basic significant unit (although obv other dubstep artists make full-length albums, but Burial in particular seems to present albums that are to be taken as a conceptual whole).

4More music that comes to mind -

Almost-certainly-middlebrow that I like:
The Orb
MIA (although to be fair, I've only started listening to her properly very recently)

Sorta-kinda-maybe middlebrow that I like:
Echo and the Bunnymen
Simon and Garfunkel

I had someone else in my head for the second list but then it slipped my mind, will get back to you.

Edit: Now I remember - Goldie. Though I will admit that a good ammount of his output is pretty tedious.

Well, it certainly is a term widely used in discussing music, which is why I started the thread here. I am aware that is has provinence in other areas, and might be considered more appropriate to some of them. But still, a good number of music critics and fans use it as a term that seems to mean something to them.