As promised, here is my rant about ‘fans’ who are so hung up on labels that they let the labels tell them what to like, instead of keeping their minds and ears open to whatever strikes them.
I’ll admit that I’m guilty of this myself. I find myself enjoying, maybe even singing along to the repetitive chorus of a pop song (I know I’m hypocritically using labels, but part of my point is that it’s impossible not to), only to remember that I’m listening to a commercial radio station, and that the song I’m enjoying was not written by the person who (allegedly) sings it, and that the ‘artist’ probably only has a career because he / she looks good on TV and album covers. When this occurs, I give myself a quick uppercut, change the station to Triple J, and try to appreciate some (allegedly) less mainstream music. I try to remember to forget the pop song, so that if it comes up in conversation with my painfully mainstream friends, I can either cringe my disapproval, or deny having heard it.
So why do I do all this? Why don’t I go with my musical instincts? I was, after all, enjoying the pop song, wasn’t I? What’s so fundamentally wrong with that?
The answer is the label. In my head, I’d labeled that song as mainstream pop, hence I’d already decided that I wouldn’t like it, before I heard it. The truth is that I didn’t want to like it, because then I’d have to admit to knowing and liking it. Does this make me a hypocrite? Yes, I believe it does, but I’m trying to do better. If music is enjoyable, that’s all that should matter.
As a quick test, always ask yourself if you’d listen to what you’re listening to if you weren’t allowed to tell anyone. This can work both ways: Would you still listen to pop if you knew you wouldn’t look unhip when it got played in the club and you didn’t know the words?
OR, and I think the next question is more appropriate for people who claim they deplore ‘mainstream’ and label themselves as ‘alternative’: Would you still seek out the currently-less-popular, but bound-for-great-success tunes and genres if you knew you’d never have the cultural ego-boost of declaring truthfully that you were into a band before they were popular?
Stay tuned for more on this idea.
Heath J
