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No, you're onto something there: there's a difference between people who have something of a defined artistic aesthetic and people who don't. that's a pretentious way of phrasing it, but that's so it can be multi-discipline, and also because depth of knowledge is hardly regular across the board for most people: think about it like bathymetry, the ocean floor of a given person's artistic knowledge isn't a smooth surface, and people can still be in the ocean if they're not operating at Mariana Trench levels of understanding/immersion all the time.

And some people, of course, are on dry land.

vidret wrote:

Eivind August wrote:kaeth nails it. Music is not as important to all people as it is to us (nor is art as a whole, for that matter). It's like fighting about soccer teams or ideologies. I'm not a fan of the us vs. them mentality. It should be noted that I live in top 50 hell through my job, and I don't think it's all that bad.

Well, kaeth and darcy both have points that I seem to agree with here.

On the one hand, yes, how can I demand everyone to be super into music? They might very well be very into painting or something, and to them i'm a fucking peasant. Fair enough.

But then Darcy's point is; how can you be so lazy that you stuff yourself with things that you mostly don't even like just because it's what's on? The TV example is spot on. People just going "eh, it's not good but it's what's on".


Even if I haven't delved deep into art, the stuff I put on my walls will be thought-out, not.. well, I was gonna say ad-posters, but I did actually steal an ad poster from the subway and put it in my bathroom. Nevermind, i'm a pleb.

I do too. But the art equivalent of what I think would make you a pleb would be to buy a frame at Ikea and to keep the stock picture. Because advertising can be funny/artsy/devious/smart in it's own way, or even hold an emotional value (for exemple I keep business cards of restaurants I had a good time at as a way to remember the good times with friends and I even framed my Oslo paper trail which are what was left of crowns in my pocket, business cards from the restaurants we ate at, subway tickets, airplane tickets, a couple postcards I got etc... I've stolen my fair share of posters ad actually have 2 framed in my room). My point is not that certain medias or cultural goods are objectively shitty (though for some the case against it would be hard to make) but more of the fact that one, as an individual, is numb enough not to make a conscious decision about consuming it. Because when you stole a poster, you made a conscious decision you wanted it. It wasn't served to you on your bathroom by the previous occupant of your home, and when you came upon it, you didn't shrug and mumbled a "might as well leave it there". Because that's what a top 50 playlist is.

It's like the replay example. I don't think TV is bad in itself, I watch some of it on the replay websites of the public French-German TV which I think plays tremendous content. By using replay, I just do so at a time I've decided, and make a conscious decision to watch a German news show on futuristic new stuff or a documentary about polar bears or ancient China because I like those. However, I dislike the actual news and never watch it or skip on documentaries about the British old privileged female overlord thing her "people" call a "queen". If you sit around numbed down flicking through three different channels back and forth because what you see you don't like, and you can't even make the effort to hit the "replay" button or load up a DVD or try a different channel or something... There's a chance we're not gonna have much to talk about.

That's what I meant taking one of my friends as an exemple, we've tried making music together and never gelled. The stuff we both listen to overlaps very very very little (maybe in the form of some electronic music that I don't find too uptempo and he doesn't find too downtempo and I think we both like Nada Surf and maybe that's about it ). Yet I don't mind listening to his music because it's actually what he likes, and by presenting me with it he's sharing and giving me a glimpse of his world and I like that. Just like I rarely if ever like metal records that you listen to and love but don't mind sharing music with you and that you would share music from that genre with me, like we did in Oslo passing around a phone running Spotify and a portable JBL speaker you now? But would someone playing us the top 50 playlist on Spotify (because it is the first one in the menu you can click on) give us the same social experience of sharing and bonding?

But yeah, what you said definitely hit home because it made me feel like I feel about the news. I just can't stand it anymore and I've decided about two 3 years ago that I wouldn't read/listen/watch any of that directly. Just hearing it triggers me. If I want news, I'll consume it in my peace and quiet, at a time of my choosing, by reading the headlines or typing a topic in the search bar on google news, on which I've carefully selected the sources (both left and right) I deem serious and the ones I don't want to hear about. But the constant stream of bad news I don't care about that is served with fake constant news or even all the BS that is said on the radio just aggravates me. It serves no purpose. Most of the content I don't want to hear about, is irrelevant, and not to mention the idiocy of the commentaries. "France's deficit growing some more!" "National Front representative says mean thing about homosexuals or foreigners, was called upon it by an elected official that didn't have any actual political work to do at that moment and yet said representative says it's not mean" "President Hollande declared something that no one even understood" "Mr. Unknown thinks President Hollande isn't a good president" "Polls announce right wing primary duel to be tight between Alain Jupé and Nicolas Sarkozy (5 mins later) oh scratch that, just like as usual we've been repeating what competing media had been saying and we didn't see that third man Fillon would win and send our storytelling compatible favorites into oblivion, but it proves we were right anyway" "This just in: Trump is impolite, Clinton is president" "10 die in regrettable car crash (because sun in summer and ice in winter)" "terror, beards and islam, compatible with European way of life?". I just learn as much in much less time with reading nothing but titles. And it saves me the stream of anxiety and aggravation that comes with all the bad news and the constant toying with reactionary ideas to fill the void in between political non-events.

D.o.S. wrote:No, you're onto something there: there's a difference between people who have something of a defined artistic aesthetic and people who don't. that's a pretentious way of phrasing it, but that's so it can be multi-discipline, and also because depth of knowledge is hardly regular across the board for most people: think about it like bathymetry, the ocean floor of a given person's artistic knowledge isn't a smooth surface, and people can still be in the ocean if they're not operating at Mariana Trench levels of understanding/immersion all the time.

And some people, of course, are on dry land.

This, if not a 100% relatable to how I feel, is pretty well put and I agree to some extent.

Most of my friends are musicians, or at least has a decent taste in music, so I don't have that much "music pollution" around me.
And if I go out to meet people we usually go to places with ok>good music.

But one thing I've thought about lately is that it seems like a lot of people, like my co-workers, have little or no interest in music, apart from using it as a background noise in the car/gym/etc. For me that is very weird. Never looking forward to the release of a new album, reading about a new exciting band and listening to it for the first time, etc.

But then again they might think I'm weird for spending all my vacation on touring, not wanting to have a drivers license, have no interest in having children or buying a house at the age of 27(soon 28), not watching reality shows and only having 3 channels on my TV.

^ Dude, that's exactly why they show sports events in bars. Watching TV when you can watch whatever you want when you want never made much sense to me, though it can add an element of surprise to what you watch (I've occasionally enjoyed stuff I would not have watched otherwise, through the state sponsored channel of course).

Haven't had a TV since 2003. But damn do I still get subjected to awful music by random radios and people. Like when you are shopping and get douche chills from Bono in the background. Or everyone who thinks of 'punk' like some narrow, anachronistic thing that is either Sex Pistols or Green Day. I mean I don't go out much nowadays, but every time I've had that conversation with someone it's gone like that. So now I just avoid that by staying home at all times. Unemployment also will help that, now I don't have those radios blaring the same old hits (or bland pop) at me every day. Though I would turn the volume down on any unattended unit mercilessly, because I seriously get nauseous and psychically ill from shit music and the groundhog day repetition.

My friends can impose 'other' music on me, because it's usually good, and if we get into a discussion about it it's on a level playing field where I'm not scared of insulting them or vice versa. I also have friends that are gamers, not super into music and we talk more about movies or life/emo stuff. In the outside world though, it's weird, but it's often the people who like the most mainstream stuff that are the most offended when you criticize it, or just very baffled that you like whatever weird shit you do.

Sometimes I will meet new people who are into music and my curiosity will take over, but 9 times out of 10 their taste will be awful. Like this young guy who plays guitar that I'll see around occasionally, the other day he plays me this John 5 thing on his phone, just all the fucking parts of Billie Jean on guitar. I'm so pissed that even the musician kids around here are still stuck on those old mainstream rock bands and don't seem to listen to anything new. I could see myself being friends with this person, maybe inviting him to a jam, but because of this now I won't. I don't resent him, if anything it makes me resent myself from not having the energy to just go in aggressively and try to show him and others different ways, actually doing something for the community? Not that I or the band I play in is sooo amazing, but at least we're not like any other band around here, way more noise-oriented, and we basically exist only for ourselves. Sometimes I feel like we should be doing way more shit outside of our comfort zone. On the other hand.. fuck it, kids are on their own, not my problem. It's only music. But then again, it seems like it's been this way for so looong, this town and Norway in general is so fucking boring and if people don't give a shit about advancing/thickening the weirdo culture in some way, what's the point?

Thank you! I think that's my longest post ever, the topic apparently edged me.

either go good crazy and live in a world you created having the best time all the time, or go fucking nuts and spit your blood into the faces of everyone..."as i said to my gay lover in paraguay, i may be sleeping in the gutter, but im staring up at the stars"

comesect2.0 wrote:either go good crazy and live in a world you created having the best time all the time, or go fucking nuts and spit your blood into the faces of everyone..."as i said to my gay lover in paraguay, i may be sleeping in the gutter, but im staring up at the stars"

GG

ognoy wrote:But one thing I've thought about lately is that it seems like a lot of people, like my co-workers, have little or no interest in music, apart from using it as a background noise in the car/gym/etc. For me that is very weird. Never looking forward to the release of a new album, reading about a new exciting band and listening to it for the first time, etc.

I feel this so much. One of my new coworkers tried to talk to me about music but said that he listens to Bring Me The Horizon and also he didn't know who The Cure is

I don't understand it. Maybe music just doesn't resonate with some people, like they're missing the genes that make people want to scream that one fuckin' line in that one song or whatever gives that feeling of connectedness to a work.

I separate myself by trying to ditch my ego as much as possible and look at everything as an outside observer.
Sometimes I can just hear it as another noise in the background. Just part of the ambience, even if it's shit.
Other times it'll drive me crazy because I"m already agitated from trying to work on something. I swear to god, every time I do anything to a car the only songs that get stuck in my head are WORKWORKWORKWORKWORKWORK and the like, and I have no idea why...maybe it's masochism.
I think I've settled with the fact that any music I like is going to be obscure to 99% of people.

I just try to find something worthwhile in whatever's playing around me. It works almost all the time.

*hint: usually production tips.

Fuck guys, it's surely not that hard to avoid. I maintain a fairly active social life with a wide variety of friends and associates and while I sometimes fucking despise some of the music being played, you can pick and choose venues and situations to minimise this. I go to gigs where I either know the bands are mad or can scope them first. I keep a bunch of different playlists on Spotify for a variety of different social climates (Sunny beers on the balcony/pre drinks/4am comedown/more analytical stuff/relaxation/straight personal enjoyment/whatever). I almost never listen to radio. Me and the bulk of my mates all studied music, and most of them have pretty decent taste. The only time the music around me is out of control is like at a random house party or at work. Work can be especially shit, but I'm getting payed to work there, not to sit and enjoy the tunes.

SO yeah like, Top40/100/200 is primarily garbage, no doubt. But the only time I am ever subjected to it is at work. There is not really any other context where it is really forced upon me. It doesn't really affect me.

Surely it's always been like this though. i can't think of an era in modern musical history where I would have enjoyed much of what was on the radio/on the charts anyway.

ognoy wrote: But one thing I've thought about lately is that it seems like a lot of people, like my co-workers, have little or no interest in music, apart from using it as a background noise in the car/gym/etc. For me that is very weird. Never looking forward to the release of a new album, reading about a new exciting band and listening to it for the first time, etc.

I think that's just reflective of the disposable nature of music these days. Like when else could you skip through 400 songs with abandon listening for a hook you like, rather than investing yourself in the artist/s and their craft. And that's if they even ARE an actual artist with a craft, rather than a face to a product or whatevs.

pfft.