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"You only don't like them because they are popular."
The single most annoying comeback on the forum, and seems to pop up almost constantly when a big band takes a slagging. I have never, ever gone off a band because they became more popular. It often happens that as bands progress they change style or write rubbish albums, and people who liked them go off them - look at The Strokes. They have been getting gradually worse since day one, and this opinion has nothing at all to do with their popularity. If they were still writing the brilliant pop songs they are famous because of, I'd be going to see them in the arenas along with everyone else. Why should people assume this change of opinion is about anything other than music? Do you know anyone who would actually change their opinion of a band simply based on their popularity? It's a completely retarded comment.
It is
a silly argument.
I like stuff because i enjoy listening to it.
you like u2 though
so all your opinions are void.
I like your mum as well...
Pink Floyd boy :P
Humpf
I said similar in the other thread. If you are copying me then that's bad; however, if we think the same then that could be worse.
Come on!
Everyone who reads these boards must at least occasionally view some of the comments as being a little too indie for their own good. sure, it's great to hear something for the first time, and to be able to tell other people about it, but just sometimes, can't an artist or band be popular, and get more popular because they're good?
Yes!
And when they do so, I give them credit where it's deserved (see the recent review of Franz Ferdinand's 'The Fallen'), as does everyone else when they like a band who get bigger and keep making good music. It just so happens that many, many bands go shit as they get bigger. Whether this is becaus eof hectic label commitments and tour schedules with no time to let new material germinate at it's own pace, or because they simply run out of ideas, or because people want things that are new and unfamiliar all the time and bands can't keep them interested, who can say. But it's like some kind of syndrome. I just dislike and resent the idea that everyone on DiS is some kind of super-indie success hater living in an insulated ghetto against the mainstream. It's just not true at all.
I agree
I got accused of this by an Oasis-loving mate the other day, who said 'You are allowed to like bands that are popular you know'.
ME! REALLY?!? Bamos, who loves the POP! I'm not denying the I loved the first Oasis album, and bits of (What's The Story)... but now they're a parody of what they once were. Look at my record collection and tell me I just like unpopular stuff, go on...
I get more irritated by people who blindly follow bands and stick up for them without admitting their faults. Bands will ALWAYS let you down - I've said before that in many ways marking a band out of ten is impossible at times, because no band is perfect, and they all do things that annoy me. It's just that some people can't seem to admit this.
yes
there're always the "music is subjective" and "tastes change as you age" arguments too, which are completely valid, and seem to appear here once in a while.
it may grow tedious for the most regular posters, but perhaps it is worth these points being raised every now and then, just as a reminder...
otherwise, quis custodet custodes or whatever the phrase is!
I don't speak German I'm afraid.
If I listen to, and like, obscure stuff,
That's mostly because the ways that I discover music are typically underground. I don't listen to radio 1 or watch Top of the Pops- I just find non chart stuff to just be better.
But then again, loads of bands who haven't charted are now cult favourites (as their popularity has grown over time through different means to just singles and stuff) so they are now popular. I love Tool, for instance, but they are hardly underground- they may not have any hit singles, but Lateralus got to number 1 in the US, and I love it.
And also, bands like Refused, Slint and MBV (i.e: ones who weren't really appreciated at the time) are now probably more popular than many chart-topping acts are nowadays, as their influence lasts longer than a typical flashin-the-pan crap that tops the charts nowadays. The point is, just because it doesn't chart doesn't mean it's not popular- I like loads of technically popular stuff. Chart success isn't the only unit of measure.
I only like bands when they get big
It's amazing how much more soulful arena's and a mass sharing of adoration can be.
I also like the fact that the band, once successful, spend more time giving the same unsinspired answers to the same questions, the world over, yet talk more about looking forward to writing the next album than actually doing it. It's particularly great when a bands first album is full of energy and lyrics so incisive you feel at one with the stars, and then the second album is much easier to swallow and less distracting. It's even more amazing when bands begin to self-parody in search of themselves.
I love successful bands.
xo
It is true that arena gigs suck
Queueing 15 minutes for a £3.50 pint of flat lager in plastic cup, and then standing so far back in the teeming throng that the band looks like a dot, and listening to the sounds booming around the air hanger-like space. It's pretty unsatisfying. Going to a little bar and watching a band from a few feet away with a bunch of people that are really, really excited to see them is definitely more fun.
Smashing Pumpkins did the arena thing well though. And I really really enjoyed David Bowie and Bob Dylan in the arenas. My first ever gig was an arena gig at NEC - Metallica. lol
MetaLOLica?
I don't think I've ever seen an 'arena gig'. Do festival headline shows count?
Yeah, MelLOLica
Err. Dunno. Not really. More like, NEC / Evening News Arena stuff. I saw Lauren Hill in an arena in Manchester. It were right good.
Hmmm
Maybe I am elitist then. I'm off to book some tickets for Bon Jovi.
Oooh, hang on, I saw REM at MK Bowl. I'm counting that.
That totally counts!
Was it good? REM bored me at Glastonbury.
They were
SOOPER. It was '95, and Blur, Belly and Magnapop supported. It was fun in a bun.
I love REM.
Ah, I remember that tour.
It was Monster, wasn't it? I couldn't go. sigh
Yup
Monster indeed. 'Let Me In' in a big field, with the stars all around = AMAZING.
You, like Richard Ashcroft, are a lucky man
REM are one of two huge bands I would spend significant sums of money going to see. The other being Bruce Springsteen.
I was listening to New Adventures In Hi-Fi this morning, it's great.
I prefer records to gigs though.
we've been over this before
my mum thinks your a girl. and course you like her, she's lovely
and pink floyd > more or less everything.
Aye.
My brother said this exact thing to me
when i said how much i hated james blunt. i said, no, i don't like him because he's SHIT not because 'everyone likes him'.... grrrrrr
i think a lot of it comes down to the fact
that over-exposure leaves us with a bad taste in the mouth.
i like loads of bands i'd be sick of if i HAD to hear them wherever i looked, but as such i only hear them in moderation when i want to so i can live with that.
'mainstream' bands
also tend to be more straightforward in their approaches too. Generally, there's very little danger in what they do - I refer you to the latest Snow Patrol single - which is why they appeal to a wider range of people, particularly the 'fifty pound man' demographic.
That's why it's so exciting when a band comes along that rocks the mainstream a little bit.
And maybe that's why Radiohead remain important.
Although the V Festival thing does sadden me a bit.
certainly
i'm talking largely about bands i listen to far less now (ie. Bloc Party) because i don't need to play the album to hear them: i can just turn on MTV2 or XFM and there they are.
at the moment it's a pleasant surprise to see Hot Chip videos on the telly, but if they get to Go! Team proportions i'm worried.
major record
labels identify trends, and then churn out vast amounts of identikit artists. These are heavily promoted and receive insane amounts of airplay with radio one happy to play the same songs every show. Sometimes you want to hear something different, not to be different, but because your ears like it
someone who goes into HMV or Virgin
every few months and buys £50 worth of stuff, typically whatever is "cool" at that moment.
That's not what I said.
Are you trying to wind me up right now by misquoting me?
That's weird.
Why would you do that? I just don't get it. You'd have to be really thick, or shallow, or a total sheep.
It's a shit argument
I used to think some people were deliberately being oblique back in my teenage days, though. Experience has shown me otherwise.
To be brutally honest
If I know an indie band's first album has gone top ten then I'm quite likely not to bother listening to it because I'll make assumptions about what it will sound like, what the lyrics will be like, what the production will be like, how unique it will be and for all these criteria it's likely to not be to my taste.
Because most people don't care about music as much as me. They don't want every new record to be a discovery and a surprise. They just want some nice songs to play in the background whilst they're thinking about something else. They don't want records that scare them or challenge them.
Which is fine if that's all they want. But that's not what I want. And occasionally I'll hear a mainstream band that I like, but I won't go looking for them.
but what you've said is different
to forcing yourself to not like a band just because they're popular, innit?
i really must stop using "innit" in posts.
my luton-scum roots coming through i'm afraid.
You've just nicked that
from what JD Traynor said in another thread.
What?
No I didn't. Traynor said the same thing somewhere? So what.
Now run along, child.
Plagiarist
I wrote this entire thread in a few succint short paragraphs.
Yes, and you are the only person to have had this thought ever, clearly.
You should have it copyrighted.
pfft
I
presented a full and concise argument and countered all possible objections in a few words, rendering this entire thread superfluous and an exercise in befuddled thinking.
Why don't you pat yourself on the back, eh Traynor?
Superior cunt.
"superior cunt"
should be a band name.
see my mini dissertation in the ilikemusic thread
Fact is
when most bands form they are full of enthusiasm and excitement and want to do well and are like little puppy dogs jumping up for attention. They are as cute as hell and we like them for it. Unfortunately, as they go on it often becomes apparent that they only had one idea in the first place and that this can soon be exhausted.
There is also a lot of pressure on bands that enjoy even a modicum of success to pump out more of the same rather than try anything new.
Bands don't become rubbish because they are big and successful, it is just the sad fact that in general (and of course there are exceptions) they get less and less interesting the longer they go on.
To be honest
I don't find it half as annoying as "yeah, but that's, like, just your opinion".
Also, do you not think there is an element of esotericism involved in music fandom sometimes? In the same way there is with anything else? I think there is. It might not be conscious as the classic "you dont like tehm coz there populer!11!1" argument holds but I think it's real nevertheless. It's that warm glow of knowing something that no-one else knows! ;-)
i've just read that interpolVseditors thread,
where tomsmith (editors singer) mouthed off about this site and how snobby people on it are etc etc, and then how some random from the editors boards (i assume) came on and slagged us off too.
i mean, what a fuck.
i really hate when people think that i don't like something because it's popular. usually i don't like something because IT'S SHIT AND BLAND.
and, well, music that is most widely advertised and pushed and sells millions is unfortunately likely to be possibly shit and bland, as it is inoffensive and the mass public like it.
Edting Editors
the main complaint about Editors is that their copying of the early eighties sound has been done so passionlessly and so blandly. This criticism of them has been repeated by most peopel who like the style of music but don't like Editors. The cackhanded attempts to fool people by moronically and insistently claiming that the dislike of Editors stems from an invented snobbery is a clear statement of desperation.
word.
Popular music is seen as
watered down by some music fans because of the fact it accommodates a lot of people's music taste (which is why a lot of people like it = popular). Therefore any fan of a particular genre of music may find it watered down and not to their taste as much as something that is specifically for them.
this thread
was entertaining...
I'm a firm believer
that there's a huge section of the indie-fan coimmunity who stop liking bands when they become popular. The Strokes have definitely not gotten progressively worse as they've gone on, that's bollocks, but they're less popular among 'proper indie fans' because of the hipster crowd adopting them, Q covering them etc. See also: the people who are adamant that the Red Hot Chili Peppers were much better in their punk-funk prefame days, before BSSM. Absolute bullshit, it's just that it's way more 'indie' to say that than to admit to liking anything that Jo Whiley might play. Not that anyone who posts here is that much of an indie tosser. No. But some people are...
I agree with smileadelic
that although we may not be 'indie tossers', to borrow the phrase above, it is still a lovely feeling having a special record and knowing that none of your friends have had their grubby paws on it yet. But clearly, the feeling of making mixtapes and introducing that music is also great :)
Unfortunately, few of my mixtapes are appreciated... fuckers
huge section ?
I don't think so.
A few people maybe !