Nobody's Fault But Mine
You know, back in the early 80's and late 90's, when what was once "underground" music starting leaking into the mainstream, I was happily convinced that people's attitudes about music variety would change. Pop and rap and punk and everything in between would adorn every household CD rack in the nation, and people will grow more curious about what's out there and more experimental in their selections. Joe, however, believed that the opposite would be true, that people's tastes would instead become much more marginalized. I didn't know how that could be, when there was so much out there now for people to explore.
Turns out he was right.
I am becoming amazed every day, working where I work, and meeting people and learning about their tastes, how increasingly limited their musical scope has become. And you can tell it just in the way they ask for certain "sections" in the store. Kids who like metal only listen to metal. And not only that, but certain kinds of metal. People who listen to new bands like Becoming The Archetype won't touch anything older like Iron Maiden or Metallica. People who like melodic metal like Nonpoint won't touch the instrumental proggy stuff like Pelican. And not only that, they ask for sections in the store where we keep only the stuff they like. Sections where we would keep the new metal away from the old metal. Or the "nu" metal away from everything else. The term "hardcore" which I grew up thinking of as early 80's punk like Black Flag, now means something completely different to these kids, and they want their "hardcore" metal section away from everything else. I can't even imagine what our metal section would look like with that many dividers and sub-sections, especially on opposite ends of the store. One thing I've learned -- and this applies to all genres -- people don't like their favorite kind of music touching anybody else's. Especially the jazz fans. Whoosh. There's a whole 'nuther story.
And that's just an example of sub-genre nitpickery. People who hate rap are infuriated that we keep the Beastie Boys in rap, because they are horrified to even think that they could actually be rap. The weirdest gripe of all was this teenage punk kid who sniffed at me because we didn't keep the pop-punk band Millencolin under new age. I admit, I didn't quite know how to respond to that.
Personally, I'm all about alphabetizing everything in the store, tossing out these ridiculous labels and letting the old biddies looking for Barbra Streisand duke it out with fans of Strapping Young Lad. So I can stop having arguments over whether or not "beach" music is actually called "shag" music and just say "Look, if you want Bill Deal, look under "D" for Deal. End of story." (Actually I'd more likely say "Go to Birdland" since they carry more local artists while we carry, er... none. How sad is that?)
I'm seeing an increasingly leisure world where there are more entertainment options than ever before. And more options means people can build an entire library on that one little thing they like and be perfectly content with it, not knowing and maybe even not caring what else could be out there. That they become so immersed in their "thing" that exposure to anything else that isn't their thing, even a slight deviation, almost seems abrasive to their ears. A world of possibilities open to people, and I was once naive enough to believe that everyone would rush to embrace it. Now I see people into the Red Hot Chili Peppers thumbing their noses at cars driving by with Nine Inch Nails stickers on them, when there was once a time, back in 1989, when I was lucky enough to hear them both back-to-back on the local alternative station, just because it was something different than the Paula Abduls and New Kids On The Blocks that were dominating the mainstream airwaves at the time.
Now of course not everybody is like this. I can point to maybe one or two examples of young people that i work with who are willing to step foot in a section of my store that they might not know anything about, just out of idle curiosity. But I want to still be proven right, however. I want to be told that all of this is just part of the wee little microcosm that is my admittedly backwards local community. Has anybody else seen this phenomenon in their local music scene? For once, I want to be known as the exception, and not the gosh-darn rule.
Turns out he was right.
I am becoming amazed every day, working where I work, and meeting people and learning about their tastes, how increasingly limited their musical scope has become. And you can tell it just in the way they ask for certain "sections" in the store. Kids who like metal only listen to metal. And not only that, but certain kinds of metal. People who listen to new bands like Becoming The Archetype won't touch anything older like Iron Maiden or Metallica. People who like melodic metal like Nonpoint won't touch the instrumental proggy stuff like Pelican. And not only that, they ask for sections in the store where we keep only the stuff they like. Sections where we would keep the new metal away from the old metal. Or the "nu" metal away from everything else. The term "hardcore" which I grew up thinking of as early 80's punk like Black Flag, now means something completely different to these kids, and they want their "hardcore" metal section away from everything else. I can't even imagine what our metal section would look like with that many dividers and sub-sections, especially on opposite ends of the store. One thing I've learned -- and this applies to all genres -- people don't like their favorite kind of music touching anybody else's. Especially the jazz fans. Whoosh. There's a whole 'nuther story.
And that's just an example of sub-genre nitpickery. People who hate rap are infuriated that we keep the Beastie Boys in rap, because they are horrified to even think that they could actually be rap. The weirdest gripe of all was this teenage punk kid who sniffed at me because we didn't keep the pop-punk band Millencolin under new age. I admit, I didn't quite know how to respond to that.
Personally, I'm all about alphabetizing everything in the store, tossing out these ridiculous labels and letting the old biddies looking for Barbra Streisand duke it out with fans of Strapping Young Lad. So I can stop having arguments over whether or not "beach" music is actually called "shag" music and just say "Look, if you want Bill Deal, look under "D" for Deal. End of story." (Actually I'd more likely say "Go to Birdland" since they carry more local artists while we carry, er... none. How sad is that?)
I'm seeing an increasingly leisure world where there are more entertainment options than ever before. And more options means people can build an entire library on that one little thing they like and be perfectly content with it, not knowing and maybe even not caring what else could be out there. That they become so immersed in their "thing" that exposure to anything else that isn't their thing, even a slight deviation, almost seems abrasive to their ears. A world of possibilities open to people, and I was once naive enough to believe that everyone would rush to embrace it. Now I see people into the Red Hot Chili Peppers thumbing their noses at cars driving by with Nine Inch Nails stickers on them, when there was once a time, back in 1989, when I was lucky enough to hear them both back-to-back on the local alternative station, just because it was something different than the Paula Abduls and New Kids On The Blocks that were dominating the mainstream airwaves at the time.
Now of course not everybody is like this. I can point to maybe one or two examples of young people that i work with who are willing to step foot in a section of my store that they might not know anything about, just out of idle curiosity. But I want to still be proven right, however. I want to be told that all of this is just part of the wee little microcosm that is my admittedly backwards local community. Has anybody else seen this phenomenon in their local music scene? For once, I want to be known as the exception, and not the gosh-darn rule.
posted by Melissa at 12:43 PM
1 Comments:
That sounds like a bunch of middle schoolers trying to tell you what kind of music they like. Sounds just like my middle school years about 11-13 years ago.
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