Woman - PF is not bad, but here in Iowa they are played non-stop on the local radio stations (thank you for the escape button Sirius-XM!). So now, I am sick to death of all the same old songs. Same reason I don’t like the Beetles, Led Zep, etc. If I ever hear the intro to that stupid “Money” song again, I will probably drive a sharp spike into my brain to take away the pain.
I used to like them. Really I did - my brothers turned me on to their music (and it wasn’t just the wall, though I did enjoy that movie). Thanks IA radio, yet another band completely ruined.
I won’t start a Pit thread because I’m not spoiling for a fight. But you seem to be. You seem to be going out of your way to find sexism in a thread where none exists.
And if you’ve noticed, plenty of us are questioning the OP’s assumptions.
I’ve been to at least 100 rock shows in my life and the mix is almost never 50/50 male/female unless its an extremely popular band like PF or Rolling Stones but even then its 70/30 with lots of dragged along wives and girlfriends. Perhaps 80/20 for non-huge bands, and even worse when you start getting into anything indie or especially guitar heavy, indie, or experimental. Ive seen several shows with 100% males.
If we’re generalizing, women tend to gravitate towards dance/club music and guys towards rock. Rock is a pretty male art form. Lots of loud guitars, noise, machismo, etc. Songs about getting laid, hitting on girls, partying, etc. Most rock songs are written by single guys about things single guys are interested in. Doesnt seem like much of a mystery to me.
I’m a big fan of Pink Floyd, and have always been surprised that my wife is too. It never seemed like the kind of music she would like. She does, though.
Remember, this is the Straight Dope, a place whose collective tastes can often resembles Bizarroworld. You’ll get a lot of women chiming in saying they love Floyd, and men saying they can’t stand them.
As for why women generally don’t like Floyd … I don’t know. I found that women tend not to like progressive rock in general. Go to a Rush concert, and it’s a giant sausage party. My ex hates prog rock with a passion.
I don’t think the “it’s not dance music” explanation doesn’t have anything to do with it; other popular music genres and rock subgenres have large female followings.
That would explain your typical rock, but not necessarily Floyd - their subjects aren’t necessarily your typically “macho” subjects, madness and alienation being pretty well unisex.
Sure, but culturally, do women sit around and get into arguments over what synth is being used, if Gilmore’s guitar is too loud, the ‘true’ meaning of the album, the intricacies of band member feuding?
I feel like thats something only teens and early 20s guys go through. Its culturally acceptable (and perhaps expected) for a guy to sit around and be obsessed with all things related to a specific band and have very loud opinions on the subject. Id argue that a lot of prog-rock culture is this kind of meta-appreciation. If you dont know the gear and the personalities as well as the music then you’re not really a fan. If you cant get into a 3am stoner argument about Barret-era Floyd vs Gilmoure era floyd then many would not consider you a real fan.
As far as the subject matter goes, well, its still rock and prog-rock at that. If cock-rock is a turn off then prog-rock with its emphasis on concept and boring hooks is doubly unappealing to someone whose more interested in catchy music or is just a casual listener, regardless of musical themes.
Theyre also presented from a male perspective, ie Pink’s relationship problems with women, son/mother relationship, growing up as a boy, etc.
I think it boils down to the fact that - thank god - men and women *are *different. Each gender has its own preferences, abilities and attitudes. It doesn’t mean that all the people of a particular gender like what every other person of that gender likes. It just means that statistically, it’s usually true that, for example, more men than women tend to like Pink Floyd. No, I don’t actually have the statistics to prove that; just forty years as a Floyd fan, observing that at concerts, among friends, reading websites and message boards, and magazines and books that those displaying an enthusiastic interest tend to be male. Many other groups and artists tend to attract followers of a particular gender.
Why? I don’t really know, but possibly groups whose attitude or music is seen as being ‘aggressive’ (Led Zeppelin, heavy metal, hard rock, for example) tends to attracts more males than females, as do other aggressive pursuits. Other artists are perceived as having other conotations - ‘intellectual’, or ‘simplistic’, for example who will appeal to particular people. Yet others appeal to different age groups, rather than to gender. Race, socio-enconomic status, intellect, among other categories and groupings can also be an indication as to the type of music that a person will like. Is it stereotyping? Yes - because stereotyping is just a form of shorthand. On the individual level, it can, and almost certainly, will be wrong. It’s just a generalisation.
But why the Floyd in particular, and a lot of prog in general, attracts more men than women, I can’t begin to fathom.
There are surprisingly few bands and artists whose appeal cuts across gender, age, sexual preference, racial and social divisions.
I’m NOT saying that, say, U2, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen are universally popular. They’re not. But if you go to one of their shows, you’ll find loads of males AND females, loads of teens AND Fifty-somethings, loads of professionals AND blue-collar types.
But most musical acts appeal to specific groups or sub-groups. Acts like Rush and Pink Floyd and King Crimson and Frank Zappa appealed primarily to males yes, but more than that, to a certain TYPE of male: to intellectual, precocious, slightly alienated, upper middle class, teenage white males in the suburbs. To be sure, many women are baffled and bored by Pink Floyd (“Why listen to depressing music with words that don’t make sense? Why not listen to something fun? Something you can dance to?”), but no more so than black kids (“Zzzzzzzz”), or blue collar white guys (“What’s all this weepy crap about Pink’s dead father?? Let’s hear something that ROCKS!”)
If I wanted to start a “Why Don’t Men Like ______?” thread, there are loads of acts I could put in that blank. Kenny G, for instance. It’s a safe bet that every male at a Kenny G show is there solely because his wife or girlfriend wanted to go. O nthe plus side, every male there will make out like a bandit when he gets home.
Hey, I’m bored silly by Kenny G’s music, but anyone who’s heard women screaming for him knows, the guy has to have SOMETHING!
Quoting myself because its easier, but are there any concept albums with a female main character or from a female perspective? It doesnt seem like the the format is welcoming to women.
I also think the kind of single-minded obsession and competition (see my bits about being a real fan, outdoing your pals on band trivia, etc) are a young man’s game.
Yes
The Who
Emerson, Lake and Palmer
Frank Zappa
King Crimson
Grateful Dead
[del]Pink Floyd[/del]
Can’t really explain why, other than that they bored the bejesus out of me and though, honest to God, I did try, I could never connect with them either lyrically or otherwise. I always felt like the only person on earth who didn’t like Dark Side of the Moon. Who knew it was a gender thing?
First I must say Ellis Dee, get off my wave length, dude. I’m not going to quote every post you made but you could be me right now.
I’m another woman who likes them but the only reason I’m mentioning it is because I totally understand the question and am not sure why some are getting prickly about it. I only got turned on to them because my older brother was into them so I got exposed at an early age. Yes, they are the ultimate “big brother” band (followed closely *by *“Yes” ). None of my contemporaries had a clue about them until “The Wall”. This is not because I was enlightened or had better taste; it’s because I was fortunate to have a brother who turned me on to his favorite music. I would have never sought them out by myself but you hear that music constantly blasting and it’s bound to suck you in.
As to the OP, I think the answer has already been given; they don’t play your typical “girlie” music. They’re not danceable, attractive / sexual. I prefer to listen to them when I’m alone as they’re (for me) really solitary mood music. Their lyrics are not particularly relatable from a female perspective compared with the majority of popular music.
Oh and King Crimson? I think I might have been the lone chick at the one torturous concert I was forced to endure. Not only did I have to sit through two hours of . . .I don’t even know what that was . . . but my date who loved them and for whose benefit I went, got too stoned and fell asleep so I had to sit there in solitary horror :mad:
I think you might have hit on something major here.
Getting back to really primal basics of gender differences, men are typically isolated, while women tend to want to share feelings. This is why women are generally far more social than men (and are something like ten times as aware of subtle social cues).
A lot of music, especially dance music, is meant for group consumption. It’s no surprise that it would tend to be played in social situations, where women are likely to be found. But Floyd is not only meant for private headphones listening, but the content is usually about isolation. No wonder it appeals more to men.
Your reading of my post was sloppy. My sentence about The Who was not a generalization - it was a statement about “my guy friends”. Not all males.
As I said, I majored in math. I work with statistics. I know the difference between making an observation of data and making a generalization from that observation. There was no hypocrisy. Or failure of intention.
But boy, you DO seem to like to jump to conclusions, don’t you? You go from misreading my statement, to speculating about my standards of conduct, for myself and society.
And then next you are back to conclusions about all women: that generalizing is “threatening” to us. That is a huge jump.
I have no idea what proportion of women would object to any given generalization about their sex. But I can tell you in the case of the premise of this thread - that women don’t like Pink Floyd - that my objection is mainly based on the fact that THIS CONCLUSION DOES NOT FIT THE DATA. Again, that is me speaking as a statistician. I gave several examples from the data that I have observed in my own life, which overwhelmingly contradict the premise. I also, as a good scientist/statistician should, considered corollary statements that might be relevant to the premise, e.g., were their other musical artists of that era which I observed to appeal more to one sex than the other? Is the premise true for a subset of women, i.e., those younger than my own demograph?
In one respect I see I was not as clear as I’d like: I don’t object to ALL generalizations, about the sexes, or any other subject. But I do object to statements which do not fit the data, and/or are not well thought out. And the hallmark of such generalizationa is that they are stated in terms that are too sweeping. Whereas, for example, with the statistics that I use in my work, when a generalization is made, there are also limits identified.
Re: the premise of the thread, those who have agreed with it have not given that many examples of women who don’t like Pink Floyd, while a substantial number of actual females have posted that they do like it. I now wish I’d counted before starting to type this post, cannot check now, but my impression was the numbers against the premise were significant enough to reasonably call it into question. One poster’s argument was not based on data, but the fact that to the poster, the lyrics seemed to be the kind of things teen boys would be into. I’m not saying that that is an invalid argument, but one could also argue that Pink Floyd’s music is dark, moody, fatalistic and poetic, which are some of the elements that characterize the “Twilight” series - do teenage girls not like those things?
Re: you own generalizations, what is your basis for asserting that women are threatened by generalizations? Or that women, as a group, have any objections to generalizations at all? Do you think that men do NOT object to generalizations? If so, why, and if not, why not? Are those reasons based on actual examples? And even if it were true that women object to generalizations more than men do, given the fact that in this case my objections were based on logic, if there’s any conclusion to be jumped to, wouldn’t it be that women are more logical, more discriminating than men, rather than that they are threatened?
YOUR idea of an “example” is actually another unfounded generalization: “God forbid anyone points out that women aren’t into watching sports, for example.” You give no REAL examples of who objected to that statement, or in what context. Personally I am quite comfortable with a statement like, “Studies shows more hours of sports are viewed by men than women.” If that’s what the facts show, cool. In fact there are probably lots of cool facts we could study around that subject, like which sex watches more of which sports, or which level of sports (little league, high school college, pro), or what proportion of, say women, watch “big event” sports like the Olympics or the Superbowl, after not following those atheletes during the months in between.
Then from your so-called “example”, you jump to the conclusion that OTHERS would jump to the conclusion that such a statement is a threat to women’s right to vote or something. Geez can you say “straw man argument”? if you have actually encountered a person in real life who made that statement, you are right: she was crazy. But she did not speak for me, ergo she could not have been representative of “all” women. I doubt she spoke for many women at all. But that’s just a hunch.
In summary, I am fine with the idea of there being differences between the sexes, and would not dream of squelching discussions of those differences. What I raise objections to are sweeping statements made about differences between the sexes that are unfounded. They are not helpful to getting to the real truths about gender differences. From my experience such a statement’s true foundation is often the speaker’s unwillingness to face some more personal truth - it’s easier to attribute it to some generalization about the sexes. Examples 1: person A who justifies her fiscal irresponsibility because “All women love to shop”. or person B who got rejected and decries all men as jerks, when it was simply a case of “he’s just not that into you”.
To the OP, I don’t mean to suggest your question arose from such defensiveness. This sounds like a simple case of your data sample being skewed, i.e., you just don’t happen to know women who are into PF, and I admire your curiosity for investigating further.
Slight hijack, but - I disagree regarding your assessment of Apatow’s movies. They’re chock full of male characters who never grew up, but grow up over the course of the film. That’s Apatow’s thing - in Superbad, The Forty-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and so on. He shows men who’re in a state of arrested adolescence, come to realize that this state is undesirably, and become functional adults. His films actually have a relatively conservative theme to them - consider The Forty Year Old Virgin, for example, in which the title character remedies his lifelong fear of relationships and sex by:
Entering into a serious relationship with a woman he does not have sex with, eventually marrying her, and only then doing the deed.
Or, for that matter, consider Knocked Up, in which the loser stoner character forces himself to grow up so that he can be a good father to his child.
I’m not saying you need to like Apatow’s films, of course - everyone has their own taste in comedy. But I don’t think it would be fair to suggest that Apatow’s films approve of protracted adolescence. They disapprove strongly.
