How many songs in a given genre do you have to listen to, before you can say “I don’t like _____”?
Whether it’s bluegrass, metal, opera, musicals, country . . . as soon as someone opines that they don’t like it, someone else will come along saying not everything in the genre is the same, and anyone who doesn’t like the entire genre is ignorant.
I agree with that thread’s OP that I don’t like the blues. How much blues songs do I have to listen to before my dislike is valid? Do I have to be familiar with every blues performer before my claim is taken seriously?
Same goes for action movies, “modern” art, Frank Gehry architecture, Irish dancing, Anime, etc.
Six. The Western mind at least keeps track up to five, and after that it’s simply many: ergo, if you hear six songs of a genre and don’t like any of 'em, you’re free to assume you don’t like the genre. Granted, it’s possible you heard the six worst examples, but there’s always a loophole.
I hate jazz. Especially modern jazz. (There, I said it.) It sounds discordant and screechy and highly unpleasant to me. Makes my ears hurt and my teeth itch.
But it took me years to realize that, because cool people are supposed to like jazz so I gave it my best shot, even going to live concerts. It was quite liberating when I decided that nope, not happening, will not listen because I officially hate it.
Christian motivational glurgy music, on the other hand - about 30 seconds of one song.
I used to review albums when I was in college and could often decide I didn’t like the album after hearing about 30 seconds of each of the songs on the first side.
I never dismiss an entire grenre, though, since there is often something I like a lot once I come across it.
I bitched about bluegrass in that thread, but here’s the thing: I like bluegrass, but after about 20 minutes of listening it all starts sounding the same and I get bored with it. But I like those 20 minutes.
As for movies, I bail on them as soon as possible. My wife and I watched ‘The Counselor’ this weekend. Well, I only watched the first two scenes before I knew it was a steaming pile so I left but my wife watched to the end. She confirmed that it did indeed suck.
I’ll give books a little longer, but I still prefer to fling a book away in disgust rather than endure another page. For fucks sake I read 100 pages of ‘Lonesome Dove’ before I realized the asshole who wrote it was still introducing characters.
Five or six seems about right. I mean, obviously you’re entitled to say whatever you want, or to write off a whole genre after only one song. But if you want a rule of thumb for giving a genre a fair shot… yeah, five or six, I’d say. Preferably from different artists.
You are, of course, allowed to say whatever you like. But you should only include anime if you also think disliking “American movies” would be a valid statement. Anime is not a genre. It simply refers to animation from Japan, which encompasses a much, much broader range of genres(and styles) than animation in the west. It’s not all about cute young girls with big eyes and giant robots.
I agree with the sentiment of the OP; that it’s ridiculous to keep being told you haven’t listened to the [del]true scotsman[/del] right songs yet, so your view isn’t valid.
But on the other hand it is irksome when you’re trying to, say, recommend some rap or hip-hop to someone, and they say “Oh but I can’t stand all that awful gangsta rap music. All that bitches and hoes stuff. You know, Will Smith and all that”.
In such a case that’s someone basically ignorant of the genre they’re saying they don’t like, and could benefit from hearing some good examples.
Contemporary broadway musical numbers, the second I hear them. I would rather be chained to a tree, covered in bear excrement and be forced to listen to rap for an hour then to hear one contemporary broadway musical number.
There are a crapload of songs where I couldn’t even tell you what the lyrics are actually saying, or tell you what the lyrics are, and I still like the song.
System of a Down, for example, half their songs seem to be utter nonsense lyrics.
At the same time, I can tell you that I enjoy the song. I can jam out to it.
Maybe that’s the problem with Christian music- I can understand every word of what they’re saying, and it’s not music.
Three, but there is a caveat or two: they have to be three that are recommended to you by someone you know and trust (“internet friends” is fine) who actually really is a fan of the genre in question, not three that you found for yourself or from online reviews or music mags. And they have to be from 3 different artists. Because a fan should be able to pick a few songs that they think are great in a genre, but they may have a couple nostalgic blind spots*/irrational loves, so hence three. If you don’t like those three, you’re cool.
And if you can’t find three artists, it’s not a real genre.
Also known as the “songs I got laid to” escape clause
This pretty much mirrors what I was going to say. Sometimes I can listen to bits of a couple of songs and realise that I don’t have any regard for the artist’s musical sensibilities.
But I get surprised all the time by things that I think I would hate.
In my opinion it’s easier to go with the things you do like. Labeling things is a negative approach to finding things you enjoy.
Pick some source that you appreciate more than 75% of the time and use it to locate the sounds you prefer. Disregard other sources until your tastes expand to include things outside your original I Like This universe.
The best example I can think of is Roger Ebert. I learned early on that I agree with Ebert’s views as much as 80% of the time. I followed his lead on new stuff and was usually pleased with that choice.
There must be at least one critic or commenting source that you can locate whose opinion you find useful. Go with that. Start by being positive. It helps.
As a music director for my Episcopal parish, i can professionally vouch for the crappiness of 99% of contemporary, evangelical, “Jesus is my boyfriend” drivel. The old classic hymns remain classics due to traits common to any quality music of any genre…memorable, rhythmical melody, pleasant chord progressions, meter, sensible words, and some sort of pattern be it verse, chorus, verse…etc.
Most anything outside of this framework generally won’t work, at least for me
For me, it’s not a set number of songs; it’s how you say you don’t like it. Here’s the OP from the other thread:
Maybe SlackerInc is friends with judgmental people who look down on him when he shares his perfectly valid opinion. Or maybe his friends are discussing some blues music they like and he starts talking a lot about how terrible it all is and is derailing the conversation. There are people out there who are judgmental about music and other arts, and there are also people who take every opportunity to rant about their favorite musical hates.
Hip-hop comes up in conversations more often with people I know. If I was talking to someone and they said hip-hop music wasn’t their thing, then I would say OK to that and move on to another topic of conversation. If they said that they’d tried to get into hip-hop but hadn’t found anything they’d liked, I’d try to find out more about what they listened to and see if I could make any more recommendations about different stuff they might like more. If they said that hip-hop is terrible and all sounds the same and they don’t know how anyone with working ears can listen to it, I will look at them like they are crazy and ignorant, because those are crazy and ignorant things they are saying.
That’s not to say that there aren’t judgmental people out there, who won’t accept your opinion unless you’ve listened to a long list of artists and gone to shows and done this and that and all these things to learn about the blues (or whatever else). But don’t worry about those people; they won’t be happy with you unless you do all that and parrot the right opinion.
I think there are a lot of weird restrictions on Contemporary Christian Music. It has to sound a certain way and cover some subjects but can never cover some other subjects, or it will make the music company nervous and the potential audiences upset. The CCM audience is one that can get very upset about seemingly arbitrary rules.
Also, I think there are some artists who get into CCM because of their love of music and their passion for Christianity. But there’s more than a few who are doing it because they couldn’t find success in the more mainstream music business so are trying it in the smaller CCM market. Some of that cash-grabbiness can come through in the music.
Also there are musicians who are Christian who write some songs specifically about Christianity or their faith or something along those lines, but also have songs about other topics. Those artists will be on mainstream or indie labels not in the Christian Contemporary Music genre, and won’t be usually categorized as Christian music.
Exactly. You can figure out pretty quickly if you don’t like something, but if you’re going to say things like “it all sounds like X” you’re asserting a certainly level of familiarity. If you’re going to do that, you should actually have it.
There’s probably going to be one or two artists in any genre that you will like, but that’s among thousands. The only difference is what’s popular to the fans of that genre, since the artists have to eat and are going to generally push their music in the direction of popularity. If your tastes run in the same direction as the majority of fans, then there might be more than one or two artists in the genre, that you’ll like.
So basically, it’s technically wrong to say that you don’t like a genre in any case where you haven’t heard literally every artist in that genre. But you could easily say, “I haven’t heard any artists in that genre that I like, which includes Bob Bigname, Johnny Superfamous, and Janet Wonderkind.” That’s polite, lets 'em know that they’re probably not going to convince you (unless they know some of the non-popular artists), and is actually a true statement.
