Out of general curiousity

liah

A bit of a spinoff of the music rant thread.

Most people in there seem to listen to and judge music mostly by the artist, which is fine.

But am I the only one who listens to music purely by song?

There's a few artists I like the majority of, sure (Sigur Rós, Pink Floyd, AC/DC, Andrew Bird, etc.) but for the most part, I find myself listening to songs moreso than artists. I tend to really just not give a damn about the "integrity" of the artist behind the tune. If I like the song, I like the song, and I really don't give a flying who made it.

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely adore music. I can still appreciate the art of a well put together album. I have infinite respect for phenomenal artists. I constantly have music on, either at my computer or through my mp3 player. The only time I'm not immersed in it is when I sleep. I can't imagine life without music, without the emotion it invokes. It can put you through an absolute loop and has such a stunning effect on your psyche.

But I seem to be the only one who genuinely doesn't judge music on the artist, but moreso the song. Everyone else seems to be fairly dedicated to artists and genres, whereas I switch between them quite efficiently.

Am I alone?

Chaosangel

what the ****.
yeah man songs are deadly.

Insect Overlord

I get what you mean, sometimes brutal acts can come up with a fantastic song/ sometimes great acts can produce absolute rubbish. But, in general, it's fair to say that a musician who hasn't appealed to you before is less likely to come up with a single that you enjoy. Getting to know a band/artist gives you an appreciation for what makes them unique, what makes their style different from everybody else. That sense of familiarity might make their song more immediately enjoyable than the latest release of a previously disliked act. Obviously people get to like new musicians by being open-minded about them at first, but there's always going to be some people who just love hearing the singles and other listeners who will become fans of the musicians' wider output.

Rockshamrover

An File wrote: »

I get what you mean, sometimes brutal acts can come up with a fantastic song/ sometimes great acts can produce absolute rubbish. But, in general, it's fair to say that a musician who hasn't appealed to you before is less likely to come up with a single that you enjoy. Getting to know a band/artist gives you an appreciation for what makes them unique, what makes their style different from everybody else. That sense of familiarity might make their song more immediately enjoyable than the latest release of a previously disliked act. Obviously people get to like new musicians by being open-minded about them at first, but there's always going to be some people who just love hearing the singles and other listeners who will become fans of the musicians' wider output.

This could be very embarrassing but it's the only example I can think of.

James Blunt "Your beautiful" utter crap.
James Blunt "1972 (I think that's the song) not so crap. I really liked the bass line in this song, have no idea what the song is about apart from something to do with 1972.

Karl Hungus

I wouldn't really agree. While there's plenty of artists or bands whom I would like a particular song from, or very well a good few songs, they cannot compare to anyone who's got a solid body of work of which I'd enjoy the most of, or often enough, all of it. It's like comparing an album where there's one or two good songs to an album that's fantastic from start to end with no filler tracks. On the whole, they don't measure up.

I'm not particularly interested in bands and artists, or albums that only have a few good songs. For me, an album is more than the sum of it's parts, it's not just a collection of songs, it's a singular work and how the individual songs flow together are of huge importance. It's like individual scenes in a film. I wouldn't really just listen to individual songs from Opeth's Still Life, it would always be the entire album. Likewise, albums from Pat Metheny, Dream Theater and so forth. I suppose that's a lot about the kind of album I prefer, I'd consider Metropolis Pr.2: Scenes From a Memory one of the best albums out there.

Kold

I agree with Karl, a discography is the measure that an artist will be judged upon and the albums will be treated with extra scrutiny. The singles market to me is just something to give you a taster, I won't go to a concert to listen to that one song that was kind of good, I won't pay a euro to download it/get a horrible low quality version on LW, I'm not going to pay over a fiver for the hard single, I'll jump around to it in the club alright. A song is just that tidbit to entice you into listening to it.

Now I don't have any problem switching between artists and genres either, I always have music on too, my 80gb iPod is full and I'll need to upgrade at somepoint.

As an aside, nothing is more frustrating to look through someone's iPod and go "Oh cool! You've got 'good band' here!" only to find out that it's that one song that got onto some compilation.

Insect Overlord

Kold wrote: »

As an aside, nothing is more frustrating to look through someone's iPod and go "Oh cool! You've got 'good band' here!" only to find out that it's that one song that got onto some compilation.

The same problem frequently occurs with juke-boxes, whereby "non-mainstream" bands that had one or two popular hits come up with most of their best material missing. Pisses me off big time.

liah

I don't listen to the popular single, though, I generally add an artist's entire discography to my last.fm and love them as they come up. I don't listen to the radio, and the only time I hear popular music is when I'm out.

I just don't put so much influence on the artist as I do the actual song, whereas everyone seems to get haughty and judgemental if you don't know everything about the artist, which irritates me.

I think it's more of a case of people write off songs because of the artist that really annoys me personally. It's just stupid. If it sounds good, enjoy it, regardless of who created it.

Like I mentioned, I still have favourite artists who I absolutely adore, it's not my point.

Insect Overlord

liah wrote: »

I just don't put so much influence on the artist as I do the actual song, whereas everyone seems to get haughty and judgemental if you don't know everything about the artist, which irritates me.

I have never bought a t-shirt, hoodie, fan magazine or poster for a band that I listen to, nor do I make any effort to look up their biography before listening to them, if that's what you mean.

liah

No, not quite.. it's harder to explain than I thought. I owned Pink Floyd shirts and Bob Dylan posters, I love them to bits, and would love to get a Sigur Rós something or other, too. I'm interested in these bands so I find out about them.

I moreso mean like.. say someone told you about this great new song by.. I don't know, Girls Aloud or something. Immediately you'd probably think they were idiots with no taste for liking anything by Girls Aloud, regardless of whether or not the band managed to crap out something that was actually decent, so it comes down to the judgement of the artist rather than the actual song itself.

You know..?

I don't like people who say "well I refuse to listen to x song because I hate x artist, everything they do is crap and not worth listening to, you're an idiot for liking even just the one song, they're terrible/talentless/shíte/whatever other word you can think of," whereas I would probably like the song if it was good/appealed to me regardless of who did it without knowing or caring about their merits.

Karl Hungus

If someone doesn't like a particular band or artist, then I don't see why it should really matter to you, or why you think they should be inclined to give a listen to a song from someone that doesn't appeal to them.

I'd say with certainty that if people don't like a band, it's because there's a certain element of their music that grates, be it an irritating vocalist, the style of the music, or any other number of things. If you can't stand a singer's voice, it doesn't matter how many songs of theirs you may listen to, it's still the same singer that you can't stand. It's not really very hard to understand why people would take a dislike to a band or artist and not feel inclined to listen to other things they have done.

Rigsby

liah wrote: »

I don't like people who say "well I refuse to listen to x song because I hate x artist, everything they do is crap and not worth listening to, you're an idiot for liking even just the one song, they're terrible/talentless/shíte/whatever other word you can think of," whereas I would probably like the song if it was good/appealed to me regardless of who did it without knowing or caring about their merits.

This seems to be a contradiction to what you said here in the other thread.

What I don’t understand is why people are so highly judgemental and elitist in regards to music, or any of the arts, really. What is truly so hard about understanding someone else may like something that differs to you? Just because it doesn’t appeal to you doesn’t make it awful. It gives you no license to ridicule them. Is it so difficult, so incomprehensible to simply state that they’re not your preference, and move on

Why would you care why people would not listen to a given song?

lordgoat

Not sure what the overall point is there are certain artists that i'm pretty sure i'll never like a song of theirs due to many factors like Karl has listed.

Also the inverse is true.

So yes i'd judge some artists on their previous work. I also have no problems in enjoying a good pop song. Sometimes you need to lighten the mood.

liah

Rigsby wrote: »

Why would you care why people would not listen to a given song?

I don't care if people don't like it. Just don't get why they have to act like bollixes and put others down/belittle them for liking it.

Hardly contradictory, just two entirely different topics.

And Karl, I'm not quite talking about that either, I'm talking about people who refuse to listen to a good song because it's by that artist, even if it appeals to their general tastes, and even if they heard it before and didn't mind it because they didn't know who did it, they still refuse to listen to it out of "principle" because they can't get their head around the artist.

Latchy

Suppose you could look at the many artists who started off in dodgy groups of one kind and another ( dodgy in the sense of a bit nerdy ) and were sneered at , even though they might have had a pop hit or two in the charts .

Then they musically evolve and take direction in another way sucessfully ,only for the people who dissed them fist time around to say '' Ah , he /she / they really were cool ya know '' .

It's like they have to be appeal to the mainstream before their original talents are disected , analyised and appreciated .

Karl Hungus

liah wrote: »

I'm talking about people who refuse to listen to a good song because it's by that artist, even if it appeals to their general tastes, and even if they heard it before and didn't mind it because they didn't know who did it, they still refuse to listen to it out of "principle" because they can't get their head around the artist.

You're talking about an abstract, you're ranting (both in this thread, and here) against a strawman 'elitist' that embodies personal qualities you dislike in music fans. And you know why this is a strawman? Because you, nor anyone, could really claim to know that another person actually has ulterior motives in saying they don't like something, or to presume to know specifically what appeals to people.

It's presumptuous, judgmental, ignorant, incredibly closed minded, and it says a lot more about you than it does about anyone else (real or abstraction) you might be ranting about. Someone's taste doesn't conform to yours, ie; you consider a song 'good' that they don't like, therefor they must be an elitist and aren't liking it on 'principle' or some such nonsense. I think the real elitist here emerges at last, liah.

You don't have the clairvoyance to know what appeals to anyone else, so to assume what may appeal to their 'general tastes' is just wrong. I'm constantly surprised by what bands some of my friends would like / dislike, despite knowing fairly well what they listen to, so how can you judge? What does general tastes even mean? Are we talking generalisations such as genre here? If so, then Rock would appeal to my general tastes, but would that mean that any rock band would appeal to me? I can tell you, that's rubbish. You talk about people disliking 'good' songs, but who decides if it's good, you? Is Eiffel 65 - Blue good in your opinion?

You know what I think?
I think you're looking for people to look at what you're listening to, you posted this complete with link to your LastFM page, you've got your LastFM in your signature, to make sure that nobody misses what you're listening to. It's all screaming "Look at me, look at what music I like" but you're immediately going on the defensive, ranting against people who are as you say "Acting like bollixes" and are putting down other people's taste in music, so that if anyone did say anything in passing about what you listen to you could retrofit them into your preemptive generalisations. It's just saying "Look at me and my great awesome music, but don't dare say anything to me, or you're this stuffy bollix elitist type..."

I don't see much point in further posting on this thread, it's all a bit attention seeking. I'll just leave it by saying that I looked at your last FM page, and I wouldn't give you the satisfaction of telling you what I thought of your taste in music.

bigeasyeah

All I can do I try to be open-minded.However other factors apart from music can put off an artist.

Rigsby

liah wrote: »

I don't care if people don't like it. Just don't get why they have to act like bollixes and put others down/belittle them for liking it.

Hardly contradictory, just two entirely different topics.

And Karl, I'm not quite talking about that either, I'm talking about people who refuse to listen to a good song because it's by that artist, even if it appeals to their general tastes, and even if they heard it before and didn't mind it because they didn't know who did it, they still refuse to listen to it out of "principle" because they can't get their head around the artist.

I find it hard to believe that this is the same "Liah" that posted this in the other thread : V V

Find a worthy cause and use your criticism to help it out instead of wasting your efforts on music. People are allowed to like whatever the hell they want, and it's no bloody business of yours to be calling it shíte just because it doesn't suit you.

If this is not contradictory, then I give up. :rolleyes:

lordgoat

Karl, that was an awesome post. Cheers dude.