Suspect Music: Mediocre Taste

Kenny G (or any smooth jazz for that matter)
Michael Bolton

Easy targets I know.

Elitist music nerdery really is the most annoying of the nerdery.

(Though I do the same thing with books. I get..suspicious..around Dan Brown and cat/baking mystery cozy readers)

I think people should listen to whatever the fuck sounds good to them

You must be as indie as Adam Warren to post on this board. If you do not meet this requirement, please accept our apologies.

What a wild concept. Are you a communist, son?

I think the people who listen to strange, indie bands no one has ever heard of in an effort to gain some sort of street cred is worse of an offense.


Mediocre is certainly better than bad or no taste whatsoever. That's far more frustrating.

I used to work with a guy who was the latter. All he had in his collection was Best Of's by just about everyone. Including such greats as Garth Brooks, Shania Twain and Rod Stewart. (Gag!)
Had no sense of style history or any ability to reference what to whom and why. THAT"s far worse.

I would ask what defines BAD taste?

I'm wary of shaking the warm, soft, clammy hand of a Coldplay fan.

Sometimes I like to curl up with a good cat-baking mystery. So sue me.

That's made funny by your Tom & Jerry avatar, friend. Good times.

Yeah, I love indie music, but this is ridiculous. U2 isn't my cup of tea, and never has been. I find the music bland. But, to make the leap from "I find this dull" to "You are a person whose tastes are wholly suspect for buying a CD" is baffling. I mean, I LOVE Motown, and while it gets a lot of lip service as great music, I'd wager the average person in my generation finds the music as dull as I find Jack Johnson.

Everybody loves Motown.

I can wildly disagree with someone about their taste in music, but as long as they can explain to me WHY they like it I have no problem with them. I'll respect their opinion (even if they're a massive Celine Dion or Michael Bolton fan). I just can't handle people that only like what's popular for no other reason than IT'S POPULAR. I'm talking to YOU, 'Mr. Coldplay is hot right now so I need to buy a Coldplay cd to be hip and pretend to listen to it and say that I like it.'

It would be a boring world if we all had the same taste in music. There is talent in every genre, even (cringe) rap. You want to get into a debate about metal bands and guitarists, bring it on. If you want to debate the merits of which rapper is the best, I'll listen to you and probably learn something from you about what makes a good rapper...but I doubt it would change my liking of rap music. Once again, that would be a personal taste issue. To each their own.

Sufjan Stevens' Illinois sitting next to Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane By The Sea very suspect.

Seriously, they all have warm soft handshakes. Creeps me out.

I remember U2 and Hootie & the Blowfish were referenced a few times in that lovely sitcom Friends.

That seems a good way to find your selections Adam, look for pop band references in American sitcoms. (and their soundtracks)

Blink 182, Sum 41, Maroon 5, Third Eye Blind... bands with numbers in their names often (but not always) fare poorly.

I agree that a Friends endorsement is a cast iron stamp of blandness. On the theme of TV comedy-endorsed artists, I'd personally beat a hasty retreat if I saw a Vonda Shephard CD in someone's house.

Why start my own thread when it pertains to this one. I think they are red flage that you have suspect taste in music. But now that you mention it, yeah, they would also fit quite perfectly in the "You might be an indie snob douchebag if..." thread. It's all fucking stupid anyways. I listen to Tom Jones, so fuck you all.

Negative rep in 5....4....3....

Any No Doubt album.

The Complete Madonna collection. That's an investment in mediocrity.

Sarah McLachlan's album. The one with her song on it. Pick one, they're all the same.

Clannad.

Any 54-40 album.

Van Halen - OU812, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.

As for suspicious . . . beware any Bette Midler, Bernadette Peters, or Kraftwerk albums.

- Disturbed.

- I'm surprised no one has mentionned Nickleback/Theory of a Dead Man/Creed.

- Evanescence.

- Red Hot Chili Peppers

- Eminem

When I become dictator of this country, everybody will listen to what I tell them, rap artists will be exported to the moon, and anybody that posted in this thread that's comment annoyed me will be shot on site. Having said that, I'm off to a TOOL concert. But only for the expensive beer.

Hey! 54-40's Smilin' Buddha Cabaret is one of my favorite albums ever! You are definitely getting voted off my island.

What?! You're fucking nuts. Ok, half-nuts. Well, 1/4 nuts.

Tragic Kingdom is great. I don't care much for anything that came after that.

Blink 182 didn't fare poorly either. My friend has a great theory that everyone under the age of 25 is a Blink 182 fan, or a closet fan.



But Angels and Airwaves...yeah thats a red flag.

you forgot to specify any of her countless Live cuts.....by candlelight.

For No Doubt, I suggest the greatest hits album. They've got a lot of good, fun songs, just no great album.

Same thing for Blink-182. They were a very good pop band. I don't own any of their albums but I thought the last one was pretty good.

Angels and Airwaves is just horrible.

Anyone who bases their taste entirely on music that's played on the radio is a complete fucktard, in my opinion; but, then again, being a fan of noise and industrial music, you can feel free to take that opinion with a grain of salt

Post Californation, sure, but not before that.

Okay, let's clear up a misconception.

About half the people I know listen largely to what you'd probably consider "strange, indie bands no one has ever heard of." To my knowledge, barely any of them do so in an effort to gain cred. They do so because they're well-listened enough to have already memorized Led Zeppelin and the Who, to love Dylan and Van Morrison, to have grown up on U2, REM, and the Cure, to know Motown, to know Public Enemy and Metallica, and they want something new. Once you've hit the classics, you move on. You start listening to indie rock, underground hip-hop, obscure metal, avant-garde jazz, IDM, regional folk, whatever. That's not pretentious. That's what you fucking do. Just like when you've seen Scorsese and Spielberg, you move on to Melville or Cassavetes.

Simple as that. Obscurity is not a goal, but the natural result of being a well-educated person in a certain genre.

Same thing. I think this is what Adam's talking about. A person with mediocre taste is essentially a person with no taste.

Since we're talking musical history, Rod Stewart used to be fucking amazing. Check out the Faces sometime (and, oddly, I'd recommend their greatest hits disc, Good Boys... When They're Asleep, as a good primer). This sure as shit isn't the Rod that your former co-worker was listening to, but I found it interesting that he was the last artist mentioned in a negative light before you brought up the idea of musical history.

A lot of "best of"s are a good signal, actually (although select greatest hits in a larger CD collection don't really suggest anything about the listener). Having multiple albums with one great pop single on them or having only bad or mediocre albums by a popular artist (for instance, owning only new Metallica or only Pablo Honey because of "Creep"). Having small CD collections that are JUST large enough for the owner to convince him or herself that he likes "all kinds" of music.

A lot of variety can go a long way in either direction. If you have an album each by the Dixie Chicks, Bach, the Black-Eyed Peas, Miles Davis (probably Kind of Blue) and Nine-Inch Nails, it just shows you've listened to some radio and maybe taken a music appreciation class, but don't really have many definite ideas about music. You're kind of boring.

If you have an album each by Neko Case, Wu-Tang Clan, John Cage, Thelonious Monk, and the Clash, it shows you've done at least a little listening beyond radio and done some searching on your own. You may not have super developed ideas about your tastes, but you're at least working on it.

A nice mix of current popular music, acknowledged classics, and obscurities shows a well-rounded listener, IMO. If you're just into popular stuff, you're not really a music fan and probably shouldn't care if people don't regard you as one. If you're just into classic stuff, you may consider yourself a music fan, but you're reactionary, fucking boring, and deliberately ignorant, as you display the misguided attitude that nothing new is happening in music today. If you're a Fiery Furnaces completist, but never bothered to check out the Who or the Talking Heads, you're also suspect.

People who buy those compilations made up of singles that are currently in heavy rotation on radio...

Why so many rules for music appreciation? Doesn't that conflict with the whole spirit of rock and roll?

I remain boggled that you include Kraftwerk with Van Hagar and Sarah McLachlan.

I would like to add Muse and Cake to the list, please.

Yes. Also: Tilly and the Wall.

Limp Bizkit, Creed, Papa Roach, Nickleback, Saliva, POD. All interchangable.

Muse has four great records.

Lies. They have some cheese and overwrought stuff along the way, but this is yet another example of "just not liking a band personally" rather than the band sucking. Listen to RELAYER.

Well, POD is a Christian band. That's something for them to stand out. Barely.

Not that I'll defend this shit in any way (well....except for the first Limp Bizkit album which i still have kind of a soft spot for), but Creed and Nickelback certainly sound absolutely nothing like Limp Bizkit or POD. One might call it a saving grace, really.

Also, hang those who would blaspheme against the band that made Knights of Cydonia.

Incubus.

On review, me too! I don't especially like Kraftwerk, I find it awfully repetitive for music that's supposed to be so groundbreaking, but that's not the same as mediocrity. Kraftwerk gets a reprieve. But if you're going to feed me early electronic music I'd rather listen to Gary Numan.

Absolutely.
and don't forget Switchfoot.

(what fucking kind of band name is "Switchfoot"? What the fuck does that even mean?)

It means the doctor who was reattaching that poor girl's feet stayed up way too late the night before.

Put Dashboard Confessional on the list.