The great unwashed / popular taste

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
What do you make of it?

Are They the bovine herd, who'll whistle anything if it's rammed down their ears? Are They mostly uninterested in music, and so are as impressed by a catchy chorus as a caveman being shown an etch a sketch? Are They hopelessly sentimental, convention-bound, fundamentally philistine?

Or is widespread popularity indicative of a certain quality that you'd be an ivory tower dwelling dickhead to deny? Is it not Them, but You, who doesn't get it?

(Spinoff thread of this thread suggested "Democracy doesn't work")
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
To refer back to my much derided personality psychogy studies - people vary in terms of openness. Openness correlates to artistic leanings. It follows that only a certain proportion of the population is able to tolerate experimental, strange, "tuneless" music. (Or need drugs to tolerate it.)
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Speaking for myself, I sometimes think there's something going on with my rejection of popular acts like say Adele and the Killers that is to do with me not wanting to be the sort of clueless normie who likes them.

Otoh I do love a lot of hugely popular pop, rap, RnB - so maybe it's not the popularity of the killers that I loathe but their actual music. Lol
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
At different I’ve been both someone who’s opted for the populist stuff and Simone who has valued the obscure and so forth.

With the latter I just ended up championing loads of badcanp music and rubbish obscure genres that fact had written an article about. Just wading through garbage. None of the music I ever revisited. None of it stuck with me. None of it changed my life. None of it moved me.

Whereas the music that I hear in the real world; dancehall, drill, spice girls, etc. That’s all beautiful and amazing.

There’s a whole rockist vs poptimist thing in the discourse and I’ve got my Schlick about the populist as being different from a poptimist.

The populist plays to their base. Gives a niche community exactly what they want. So for example drill in 2016 was populist, but not popular.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Even within these more underground cultures there's a mainstream taste. As you say some ppl react against that and go for the most obscure shit possible (or maybe they just like that music more).

I've noticed how many times I'd listen to a mixtape and there'd be let's say three standout tracks I thought were amazing and then I look on YouTube and those three tracks have by far the most views. Not that I'd change my mind if that wasn't the case but I thought oh that's interesting in a way this is "objective" proof that these are the best tracks.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
My favourite jungle sets are very populist


My favourite drill is Harlem Spartans. I’m sure kartel crops up disproportionately on the bad boy basgmenf platlist.

So all very populist
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I read a review of Tarantino's latest and it pointed out how Tarantino has this nostalgia for when there really was a mainstream culture that everybody shared, from Hollywood actors to the Manson family. Everyone in the country practically watched this show at 7pm on Sunday night. Everybody knew that song. Etc.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I used to be very much an obscurantist.

But at this stage in life I think I've swung the other way - probably too far.

I don't like everything that's popular but I tend to view any tune that has broken through in a big way as having proven itself. As if popularity is a meritocracy.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Another perfectly creditable option is - it doesn't matter. It shouldn't be invoked.

While this is credible to a degree music is an interesting one cos it can be a very communal experience. Unlike literature, say, which tends to be solitary.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
You also have to point where the popular actually conflicts with the populist. Populist music is bottom up, whereas popular music is top down.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
You also have to point where the popular actually conflicts with the populist. Populist music is bottom up, whereas popular music is top down.

That's interesting - marketing and major label clout is obviously what muddies the waters.

Can music be both though?

There's probably examples of people going for the song that the label wasn't pushing. They pushed one song it flopped and the one they didn't like became a smash.

Top of the vox populi
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
Does Mvuent actually like Hungarian fart music? Does it move him? Will he play it at his wedding? Will he still listen to it and 50 years and be brought to tears?

Only he can answer.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I think the danger of swinging too far populist is to assume that any music that you can't whistle or dance or fuck to etc is invalid.

When of course music can have all sorts of functions.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
For those who were old enough, Did more fire ‘oi’ feel manafavtured or conceited in any way?

To me it sounds like the real deal. It doesn’t have the creepy invasion of the body snatchers thing that russ’ gun lean has for example.
 
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