Should I be ashamed?

rivetrenuck

Well-known member
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Really begining to like the mainstream poppy trancey stuff. Hhhhmm whats happening?
 

Ulala

Awkward Woodward
I've been tying myself in knots trying to give a brief and succinct response to this, because I've spent a lot of my life worrying about whether I should profess likings for things that my peers deem to be shit, but ultimately: no, don't feel ashamed. Thing is, if your tastes generally fall outside the mainstream, there's always some dissonance when you find yourself enjoying something that falls within it.

Many of my teenage friendships were built on a shared love of music, be that comparing notes from the previous night's Peel show or swapping Dreamscape tape packs, or whatever. Back then, we thought we had better taste than the kids buying Now! compilations or taping the Top 40, and to some extent the "I like good music, I'm cool" thing was a badge of honour and a way of differentiating ourselves from people we though were twats. I began to define my music taste as much by what I didn't like as what I did, developing some sort of superiority complex - "oh god, you like that shit?" - and this was reinforced by friends with whom I obsessed over what I did like.

I think this continues into adulthood, but in addition to friends, you discover internet forums to share your love of (what you consider to be) cool music, and to sneer at those who don't 'get' it. So when you find yourself at odds with your friends/forumites, liking something 'uncool' that the 'twats' you try so hard to differentiate yourself from also like, there is doubt and (my point at last hoves into view...) shame.

This was my problem. I thought: I can't like song X/genre X, the people whose music taste I respect don't like it, they'll think less of me. And the people who I think are idiots do like it, and I don't want to associate myself with them in any way. I am ashamed to like this.

I spent much of my teens and early twenties grappling with this (and in fact in reverse as well - "Ugh, hipsters like that, I'm not a hipster, my taste is more real, bloody hipsters,"); I cultivated my snobbishness by working in a record shop for 6 years and generally acting the cunt to perfectly nice customers who wanted to buy things I thought were shit (Oasis, usually); and effectively talked myself out of liking things that I now think are great because I was worried what other people thought. These days? Fuck it, if I like it, I like it. I don't care what my friends or peers think of the song, or who else likes it.

/rant

On the pop/trance tip, I'm fond of that Chris Brown record you posted, rivetrenuck: the synths are great, the vocal melody is catchy. I don't like the Guetta/Rihanna one because of the auto-tune fuckery-foo,and the other two were ok. There is stuff in this style that is genuinely obnoxious - that Black Eyed Peas one that interpolates Dirty Dancing (and actually, almost any Black Eyed Peas) - but the odd track here and there is quite enjoyable. This style absolutely dominates mainstream radio and clubs, and it's on in the background at gyms, shops, etc. Inevitably you're going to hear a lot of it and end up finding one or two that stand out. Give trance a chance, innit.
 

Ory

warp drive
let this be the great dissensus trance thread

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entering hyperdrive... don't cringe too hard now

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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I once saw Tiesto DJ, and I swear he played the same record 78 times. Terrible. I'd always pick (what I see as, may be wrong) eurodance over trance, so the original of that Grace track is pretty good, for example. Obv Show Me Love is possibly the ultimate example.
 

Roshman

Well-known member
Can't help but enjoy the Chris Brown one. I think it's because it sounds relatively unoffensive compared to the overly sidechained electro-house that surrounds it.

alsosteelpans
 

rivetrenuck

Well-known member
I began listening and liking this stuff as i have been going out with a lot of work collegues. and go to bars where music like this is often played. but for some reason when this tracks come one there is an unbelivably good vibe that takes over the dance floor. that chris brown track as chessy as it is, is really pure love on the dancefloor.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
stuff like that is popular because it is easy and enjoyable.

so you are only human if you find some of it enjoyable. but most of the time you probably prefer things with other qualities besides mere pure physical enjoyment, things which stimulate not only your physical ears as if you were on MDMA.

yes i think the most stringent music critic on earth would also enjoy this stuff if he was on MDMA, and i would NOT want to hear Kuduro all night, if at all, if i am on it. so my point is about mindless enjoyment.

i love fine cuisine but also enjoy macky Ds every time i have it. there is no art in it, the ingredients are shit, but they do make that shit taste good.
 
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zhao

there are no accidents
and i continue to be fascinate by the concept of "cheesy". because my definition of what it is keeps shifting and mostly shrinking as i get older, and also when i examine my tastes there might be double cultural standards i apply...

why is this saccharine bubblegum tune from Ghana so amazingly genius that i play it repeatedly for days, while this other saccharine bubblegum tune from Taipei sends me running for the door covering both ears? well of course the rhythm is better, and the melodies... are more difficult to account for. but the palette is largely the same, and the over all "feeling" is identical.
 

SecondLine

Well-known member
so my point is about mindless enjoyment.

i love fine cuisine but also enjoy macky Ds every time i have it. there is no art in it, the ingredients are shit, but they do make that shit taste good.

always risky to bring intellect in it...surely that's basically a way of justifying in empirical terms what are basically likes/dislikes and a perceived heirarchy between the 'credible' stuff you like and the mainstream stuff you don't.

also me and my flatmate always go at it with the food analogies when talking about music, they're useful up to a point but the fact remains that a person can never listen to any music (be deaf, for example) and not die :)
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"I once saw Tiesto DJ, and I swear he played the same record 78 times. Terrible."
I read this interview with Tiesto where he said "I've started getting into indie now and become a more adventurous dj - I'm dropping in the odd bit of Kaiser Chiefs and Razorlight (or whoever it was) into my trancetastic mixes now". As far as I can tell an attempt to make a terrible experience even worse.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
always risky to bring intellect in it...surely that's basically a way of justifying in empirical terms what are basically likes/dislikes and a perceived heirarchy between the 'credible' stuff you like and the mainstream stuff you don't

disagree.

"intellectual" qualities such as innovation vs. derivation, efficiency vs. indulgence, craftsmanship, and most of all "fitness to purpose", can go a long way toward a convincing argument for a piece of music being OBJECTIVELY superior to another (of the same genre).
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I read this interview with Tiesto where he said "I've started getting into indie now and become a more adventurous dj - I'm dropping in the odd bit of Kaiser Chiefs and Razorlight (or whoever it was) into my trancetastic mixes now". As far as I can tell an attempt to make a terrible experience even worse.

If Tiesto actually and unironically used the word "trancetastic" (and I can only assume he'd use it unironically, since trance is pretty much as irony-free a genre as you're going to find) then kind of makes me warm to him a little bit. Kind of.

That Chris Brown track makes me want to kill people, preferably while listening to some face-meltingly nasty techno. Autotune is the worst invention ever (except when it's used by those 'Aututone the News' guys).
 
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Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Does this come under this heading? (It definitely comes under ''should be ashamed'')


They should remake ''The Beach'', just to have this on the soundtrack. Set it in Argentina instead of Thailand or something.


This song is hilarious.

I dunno, I'm just posting ''gym music''.

Don't be ashamed of anything IMO. Dancing to cheesy music (probably while loved up on jillz) is a perfectly legitimate pleasure, probably even more pleasurable than trying to ID every tune the DJ drops while scowling at people with smiles on their faces.
 

alex

Do not read this.
corpsey you say gym music but in my gym they prefer more old breaks and breaky electro, that and all the old (good) hardcore stuff. They even have this ratpack set that is pretty tuff. They also have this weird pounding techno CD, it's not like loopy stuff it's more broken and chopped up, almost like donk but with breaks, sometimes it feels like you should be on ecstasy in there.

Can see what you mean though, I bet this kind of stuff reigns supreme in esporta.
 

trza

Well-known member
i remember a music column about the "ibizafication" of american commercial hip-hop. but can't find it anywhere. the combination of autotune rap with euphoric trance synthesizers and drum patterns has been ruling american radio for the past two years. usher pitbull enrique iglesias kesha akon solange and black eyed peas non stop.
 

PadaEtc

Emperor Penguin
I really like the sexy chick track, I would never admit that to my girlfriend though! haha


As appalling as the build up - this one has some sort of strange charm too, especially when he rhymes "going" with "Lindsay Lohan"
 

alex

Do not read this.

Coincidently I saw Taio Cruz @ Twice as Nice in Eden, Ibiza, before this sort of shit was all over the charts, and he was just emerging. (He was in jeans, a leather jacket and a wooly hat, stood in a stage light. Just looking at him made me sweat)

Maybe that’s where they get their inspiration? Although I don’t see how he could of got that in there that night, they played ‘Talkin the hardest’ ffs.
 
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