My mother in law is just back from a two week holiday in Seville. One night she saw what she described as a fantastic musician, some guy playing amazing flamenco guitar with all sorts of fancy backing tracks. I am sure that fired up by the holiday atmosphere and the wine it must have been a good night, and she made a point of telling me all about this guy, as she knows me as “the music lover”.
“I bought a CD from him, so I will lend you it, I’m sure you will love it!”, she told me, ominously.
She dropped off the CD the other morning with a handwritten note to me. I won’t tell you the musician’s name because that would be rude. Not that I think any of us will have ever heard of him. I’m sure he’s a very nice guy and he seems to be making a pleasant living from his music, so more power to him and I don’t want to mock him.
And, as expected, the music is… well, nothing special. Nicely played, inoffensive, but bland. I only got about half way through. Muzak, in other words. 2am Ceefax music.
The next time I see my mother in law she will no doubt ask me about it. I’m going to have to decide whether to just act innocent and tell it was very nice music and I’ve followed him on Spotify (or whatever)… or just be the brutal, honest, music snob that I know dwells within me and always fights to come out, and just tell her it’s a bit rubbish.
Feels like a dilemma out of High Fidelity.
I know the right answer of course. But just wanted to share. Why does it feel so hard to be polite and non-judgemental about music?
Sheesh, I should have read that title back and edited it before posting. “… As Much As You ARE” not “DO”, obviously.
“ Why does it feel so hard to be polite and non-judgemental about music?”
It does? If someone got me a thoughtful present which I don’t like but don’t hate, thinking that I’d like it because of interests they know I have, I’d say thank you, that’s really sweet of you, thanks for thinking of me. And then when they asked me if I liked it, I’d lie and say yes. None of this would be remotely difficult, and sneering at the choice wouldn’t occur to me. (Actually it would be the same if it were something I actively loathed: I just did a thought experiment where someone lent me a Joe Bonamassa CD and… yep. Same.)
I suppose the contradiction here is that I’m pretty judgemental about any grown adult being judgemental about someone else’s music taste. We’re not 14. But then, why is my judgementalism any more valid than yours? Hmmm. Mak u fink yeah
Also, in the case of a loan:
“What did you think?”
“It wasn’t really my cup of tea, but I can see why you liked it. Lots to like, just not quite my thing. Thanks for the loan, though!”
Well, it’s the lying part I don’t like, which is I suppose is the problem. I’m hopeless at lying, even just those little white lies.
“Thanks for the CD, it was very nice! He’s an excellent guitarist.” That doesn’t sound so hard. Will need to just practice that!
I’ve just posted you Elton John’s CD ‘Leather Jackets’ so you can give it a try.
Thanks for that, I will definitely give that a listen. He’s an excellent performer. I think Elton John has definitely managed to stay relevant over the years and has not at all just surfed on the success of a few early fabulous songs.
No, no, no, no, no. It’s: “Thanks for the CD, it was very nice! He’s an excellent guitarist.”
“He was excellent in Twin Peaks”. Might try and drop that in as well.
I’ve tried that. In real life people humourlessly say, “but he wasn’t in Twin Peaks”. And think you’re a dickhead. Not like on here at all.
🤔
In answer to your question, though… yes, it DOES sometimes feel hard to be polite and non-judgemental about music.
Have you seen Whiplash? I think that’s a really good film for showing both the danger and the beauty of being TOO devoted to music (and could apply to any art, or human pursuit really). That bit where Fletcher is talking about Charlie Parker is the key bit I mean: Where he says the two most dangerous words in the English language are “good job”… If the guy who threw a cymbal at Charlie Parker’s head had just overlooked his fluffs and laughed and said “that’s fine, don’t worry about it, good job” instead, Charlie Parker would never have had the fire and inspiration to improve and become Charlier Parker. The world of jazz just smooths over and nothing disrupts that.
What am I talking about (you might well ask)… Well, I just mean that music as a thing is an incredibly passionate, important thing for me and (I think) for humanity. The more we just accept it as being a background, floaty thing that people just like and each to his own, etc, and it’s all cool and dandy whether you are buying Joe Bonamossa CDs or Flamenco Muzak CDs, then the good stuff just gets buried under so much mush that it’s impossible to tell what’s good any more.
I’ll live. I try to be a nice person and I’m happy enough living in a world where for the sake of politeness you just accept a nice intention or a gift for what it is… but yes, that passionate, sneering little demon inside me is screaming to say, “Muzak is not music! It can be better than this!”
I might need therapy…..
Whiplash is in the same category as Team America for me. It’s a satirical film about how Americans try to turn absolutely everything into the Army, which is sort of ironic considering that they haven’t been much good at fighting actual wars in the last 70 years.
That’s an interesting take, I’d never actually made that connection.
Moose, you are Al Murray and I claim my tray of slops..
You wait until you hear my critique of Das Boot
…
There’s a good New Yorker piece about how shit Whiplash is as an actual depiction of how music works. The “good job” thing is nonsense. I spent my entire childhood and teens working in professional and semi-pro classical music, and when I watched Whiplash, my first thought was “this is quite entertaining, but it’s not about music, and I don’t think the filmmakers know anything about how any of this works”. The technical demands of elite choral singing and national-standard orchestral playing are absolutely insane, but nobody behaves like that. It’s nonsense. People work hard, but the idea that music is important enough to suspend normal human interactions? No.
Also the Charlie Parker anecdote is false. Didn’t happen. Or rather, sort of happened, but not at all as it’s told in Whiplash.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/whiplash-getting-jazz-right-movies/amp
Whiplash bears as much resemblance to the inside of a music college as Captain America does to the inside of the US Army. Soz.
I don’t think that’s the point of the film though?
I just realised that the whole film reminded me of the bit in Father Ted when he says, “Let’s CLEAN this mother!!”
That’s an astute article HP, & I think it broadly reflects how I felt when I saw the movie.
I wonder if the ‘competitive drilling’ aspect also owes something to the fact that Jazz is now the music of the conservatoire & therefore there is a career path open which is incredibly competitive to get on to.
What struck me most of all was that the process seemed predominantly joyless. Jazz is immensely complex in its disciplines & origins, but fundamentally always seems to me about transcendence. When top drawer players are improvising in the moment, it really does feel like flying & to be able to do that must be astonishing & joyful, even if the realities of life are hum drum or downright sordid. The ‘Whiplash’ ethos seems forever rooted in the ‘ 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration’ idea, somehow expecting the magic to spontaneously appear as a result of the work ethic.
Having said all that, & despite him being a tyrant, Buddy Rich easily held his own with the best of them.
I don’t know, I didn’t get that from the film at all. If I gave time I will try and articulate my thoughts on it, but it seemed to be more about a wilful self destructiveness rather than a career path, is basically my thought.
I probably haven’t articulated it very well, & it was a while back that I saw it, but I’d be interested in your thoughts.
Never mind becoming Charlier Parker.
Until and unless he became Charliest Parkest, he wasn’t really trying.
That suggests, of course that he started out as plain old Charlie Park.
Correct
I remember the friend who gave me Eric Clapton and JJ Cale’s album The Road To Escondido banging on and on about how much I was going to love it -plus it was JJ- so I was a bit surprised at how little I loved it. Played once and never again. Of course I told him I loved it in the hope it would never again come up in conversation, as I would do with any present. It’s a slightly different matter when someone sends me a video link saying “check out this brilliant video, I know you’ll love it”, but even then I tend towards “yeah, it’s nice” unless the sender digs deeper, in which case they probably get “not my kinda thing, tbh”. Whereas if a fellow music junkie nerdy twat sends me a video link to shite, I’ll happily say “It’s shite. What the feck makes you think I’d like it? Ya dang fool eejit, Lodestone” or something similar.
“Of course I told him I loved it in the hope it would never again come up in conversation, as I would do with any present.” – Yes, that’s it exactly! Oh the pain of hoping it never comes up in conversation again.
Who you are speaking to totally matters. I agree, I would not hesitate in telling fellow music nerds when something is rubbish or not. I think we types have a shared understanding in that respect.
I mean, JJ Cale is rubbish and I have no qualms about pointing that out to you. See?
You’ll love this:
That’s actually all right! Serious answer there. I would have been happy seeing that live: looks like the corner of a pub or something?
That’s approximately 18 million, seven hundred and thirty five thousand, four hundred and sixty two times more acceptable, enjoyable and life-affirming as background drinking and nattering in a pub music than the shite I hear in most city centre emporia these days. Obviously, that’s just a guesstimate. It might even be as much as 19 million times better.
Maybe flamenco guy put on a great live show, with lots of theatrics, that didn’t translate well to the recorded format?
Thinking of flamenco, I was reminded of this bit in Mike Oldfield’s Taurus 3, off of out of from his pop album Crises
Listen from the start and it sounds polite, sedate, well played and inoffensive – the sort of thing from which well-polished muzak is honed. But this bit, played at the right volume, sounds like something from Metal Machine Music (I imagine).
Maybe Flamenco guy really plugged in and fedback live on stage?
This CD sounded like latter years Mike Oldfield funnily enough. And I say that as a self-described fanatical fan (declared many times on these pages) of Mike Oldfield’s EARLY years.
I guess he found a successful formula and stuck to it – even if it became formulaic.
If you don’t listen to much music, it sounds great. If you listen to a lot, weird becomes familiar and variety/difference stops music becoming stale.
Uh oh. See, now I feel bad as I’ve slagged off latter-day Mike Oldfield and it sounds like you are a fan? Maybe I’m just not cut out to be a music snob. I can sneer but then I get the immediate guilt complex after it.
For the record, I quite like Return To Ommadawn and I listen to that from time to time. Has shades of the old stuff.
Slag it off as much as you like, as far as I am concerned. Sex Pistols were a necessary reaction to him as much as to Pink Floyd.
I am not a Mike Oldfield fan. I haven’t consciously heard anything by him except Tubular Bells and Crises, which are OK – though the Bonzos did TB better and snappier with Intro and Outro years before. He seems to have a natural tendency towards bland (see also Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis, etc.) that I can tolerate in small doses before I need a quick blast of something corrupt and rotting to revive my sleepy ears. That balance between balmy ambience and dull new age Muzak is managed by few. Penguin Café Orchestra do it. Few others.
What do you mean you’re not a Mike Oldfield fan? Have you even HEARD Ommadawn? The 1976 quad remix is sublime! etc etc.
No, not Ommadawn, not Hergest Ridge, nor any other of the (checks Wiki) 25 albums including 3 more Tubular Bells and one more Ommadawn. I suspect they might be prog, and if I look down my nose at anything in the musical world, it’s prog.
What do you mean you’re not a prog fan? Have you even HEARD Close To The Edge? The 2015 5.1 remix is sublime! etc etc.
I’ll maybe give those two albums a spin and report back.
This is more my level – take two songs and throw them together to see what emerges
https://rave.dj/OXVcJ5t800BpGg
Yeah, I also love a lot of mashups and sample-based music , though my passion for it has cooled a bit, especially since that last Avalanches album wasn’t much cop.
“I picked one up. I’m happy with it”.
I’m happy with my OG Ludwig target 👍
My CD player has a button marked “prog” on it. When I press it, it changes any song into 16/5 time and adds extra moog sounds.
(That’s a rubbish joke, so please let me know if you want me to explain it. I’m not sure the punchline landed properly).
It’s fine – pretty soon after I joined this site only 10 years ago, I learned the lore of Mahavishnu Orchestra etc. I get the joke even if I don’t get the music.
By the way, I have now listened to Ommadawn – which manages to combine the virtues of bland muzak, muso tedium and sometimes quite painful tones. Never again.
Close to the Edge yet to come.
Poor, very poor…
I’m no Mike Oldfield fan, I haven’t anything by him – apart from QE2, which no one seems to talk about or especially rate. I was loaned a copy when I was ten and it blew my little socks off. I’d never heard anything like it before.
It’s OK to be into all sorts of music, but this doesn’t mean you’re going to like ALL music. Common misconception I think.
I can’t understand people who like the theatre but seem to go to shows indiscriminately, whether it’s Mamma Mia or Macbeth it doesn’t matter, so long as it’s live on stage.
Is this the difference between having Catholic and eclectic tastes?
I’m guessing with Catholic tastes you’re supposed to feel guilty about having them.
I was at a friend’s wedding a couple of years ago, and in his speech he described how he met and got to know his partner when they both went to a “classical music concert” together and they both enjoyed it. Just, a “classical music concert”.
I couldn’t relax until I got the chance later to ask them, “WHAT CONCERT WAS IT? WHAT WAS PLAYED?”.
Well… what was his answer?! You’ve just passed on the tension to the rest of us now…
Ha ha! Sorry. It was The Lark Ascending!
And by coincidence, I am actually just on my way to a Vaughan Williams concert right now at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall… the London Symphony.
@Arthur-Cowslip
Firstly, we need a review of the concert – what did you hear?
Secondly, are you familiar with Moeran?
I’ve never heard of Moeran but I will have a listen!
Regarding the concert…. I was so wary of posting this as I am honestly just turning into a grumpy old man, but I’m afraid it was actually verging on unlistenable. It was in the smaller hall at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, so wasn’t a “big” show, and it wasn’t the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra or anything, but the “Glasgow Orchestral Society”.
The problem was simple: the orchestra were out of tune. I am fairly new to classical concerts and I have no idea how these things work: I imagine it must be a nightmare trying to get an orchestra all in tune with each other. I wonder how often this happens that they are just not quite in tune? And I even started wondering am I maybe just too sensitive to this? Was anyone else noticing? I was there on my own so didn’t really get a chance to ask anyone else’s opinion.
In the first half we had a thing by Holst, A Fugal Overture. That was fine because it was very staccato and percussive, so the tuning wasn’t really as noticeable. But then we had Butterworth’s Banks of Green Willow and the tuning was really clashing with all those long notes and chords. I nearly gave up and went home during the break, but I thought maybe this was common and the conductor would drill them all properly before the main piece or something.
But no, as soon as those long opening chords started in the London Symphony it was just painful. I couldn’t work out who was out of tune, or if it was just a couple of people, but for a finely balanced piece like this it just absolutely killed it.
It was really heart-breaking as I had been looking forward to this for ages. I only got into Vaughan Williams in the last couple of years and the London Symphony has honestly become one of my favourite pieces of music. I especially love the long “1913 version” by Richard Hickox and the LSO, which is like the “director’s cut”.
I’m planning on seeing Sibelius’ 5th and another favourite VW piece – Flos Campi – later this year. Those seem to be bigger concerts (Sibelius is the RSNO) so hopefully I’ll be on safer ground there.
RSNO are Sibelius specialists (excellent recordings with Alexander Gibson conducting; superb live performances when Neeme Jarvi was conducting) so that should be great – I’m jealous.
Haven’t heard of the Glasgow Orchestral Society – are they amateurs (not that that’s an adequate excuse for tuning issues)? I’m not sure that I could have stayed to the end…I feel your pain!
Moeran – start with the Symphony in Gmin – if you like Bax and Vaughan Williams, you’ll find Moeran in the same wheelhouse.
Great, you’ve really whetted my appetite now. Can’t wait. Will let you know what I think of Moeran.
Tbe big problem with being nice “lovely, etc” is when they visit you and say, why don’t you put on that CD I bought you that we both love
The CD player’s broken. Tago Mago is stuck in it and I can’t remove it , so it’s that or nothing.
Love it!
I liked it so much I lent to Paws, who also loves it
Give them Bish Bosch by Scott Walker. They won’t bother you again.
In all seriousness I’m with Hedgepig. I’m not sure we should invest much importance in it. A gift is given with best intentions. Caring about anyone else’s taste in music is a bit of a waste of time. My own taste changes as I hear more stuff.
I feel the need to point out that this forum is not really real life and in reality I don’t come across as an insufferable music snob sneering at everyone (not all the time anyway….). I come on here to vent stuff and release that side of my persona!
Of course, that’s what we all do here from time to time…
“Yeah, it was alright” is a useful reply.
Suggests there might have been some enjoyment, but non-committal and may not get pushed further.
The alternative is something like
“Hmm, remind me of (insert name of some comparable band/artist). They’re early demos were really promising, but they just couldn’t repeat it in a professional studio. The lead singer eventually …”
At this point, the conversation may turn to the weather or the state of M4 Junction 12 at rush hour, or how it’s odd that Gary Wilmot isn’t on the telly anymore
Mother-in-law: Did you like the CD?
You: Ye-eah … made me feel …. erotic.
“You’re not a witch, you’re a love technician. Hit me like a truck”
I shall file that as Plan C if nothing else works out.
Ceefax at 2am be wilin.
Aciiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeed!
I find that I generally manage to avoid the Rock snob issue by liking Kiss. Genuinely love them. I have loads of Kiss albums. So many that, if I ever find myself in danger of dismissing someone’s musical taste, I remember that I have loads of Kiss albums. And that tends to shut me up.
Sadly it doesn’t shut up Kiss.
@hawkfall
I can’t fault your logic at all.
The first thing you need to do here is sit down with your wife.
Tell her what’s happened, and open her eyes to what’s about to happen: her mother has made a grievous error and is about to face a social defenestration so comprehensive that it’s likely to wound her for life, if not kill her outright where she stands.
Observe that said MIL undoubtedly had good intentions, perhaps a misguided belief that she could bond with you over a shared passion, but that her critical error was to assume that she could operate at your altitude. Like Icarus, her grasp fatally exceeded her reach, and now it is her destiny to hurtle earthward, all hope burned away by the roaring inferno that is your overdeveloped critical sensibility, with only the rocky shoreline below to cushion her Flamenco-induced fall.
Paint her a picture; at the next available social engagement, the MIL will undoubtedly advance upon you, the fragile light of hope still faintly alive in her aged eyes, and utter forth some idiot nonsense about whether you enjoyed her CD. Upon which, you will wheel round, rise to and beyond your full height until you seem to fill the room like an angry “music loving” Gandalf, your eyes brimming with pure, molten disdain, and before whomever is present to bear witness to the historic smiting, you will pronounce that – No, actually Bernadette, you very much did not enjoy the Flamenco music so rashly pressed upon you, and, moreover, that the act of listening to it has awoken in you a rage so powerful that it left you in mortal fear of what barbaric actions it might yet provoke in retaliation.
And then, as the MIL’s bewildered eyes begin to fill with tears, you will punctuate the matter by nonchalantly throwing the offending CD to the floor and turning your back upon her, safe to continue what had, until that juncture, been a very pleasant conversation with a mirror regarding the proper order in which to purchase the albums of Pink Floyd.
Tell your wife this. Warn her of the emotional apocalypse to come, of the ruination of her mother for all eternity. Tell her it as a kindness, so that she may arrange in advance the appropriate support networks to carry the MIL from the date of The Contempt to her eventual grave: a drooling, unintelligible wreck, quite incapable of self-care or respect.
That, and only that, is the only appropriate course of action here. And deep down you already know this to be true, and have done since long before you posted.
Sob, you’re so right. I AM Gandalf!
Come on, Arthur. Spill the beans! What was the name of the musician?
He might be one of my big favourites! Stranger things have happened.
I recently to my delight discovered that there is a Spanish music genre called Copla. It is muy grande i Espana particulalrly amng the pensioners but I suspect it has never trouble the music collections of anyone here.
Here is Antonio Molina, one of the big stars.
Quite a voice!
Back to 2022. If you want to be down with the kids, flamenco is the big thing.
Rosalia is SCORCHIO!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75pe9Y8liRo
** EDIT ** No… I had pasted the guy’s website here. But had second thoughts! i just don’t him to do a google search to see who is talking about him and then find me being nasty about him on here!
Kai, I’ll PM you! If anyone else wants the website let me know and I’ll do the same!
Here’s an idea. When asked, on returning the disc, say, “Thanks very much, I enjoyed that. I think you’ll enjoy hearing some more flamenco, so I’ve got this for you to say thanks!” and hand her a copy of Camarón’s awesome album “La Leyenda Del Tiempo” on CD, which you will have picked up on Discogs for the paltry price of a stewed cup of Starbucks’ worst. Thanks given, praise avoided, potential musical education enabled.
He’s right you know, it is awesome.
Very classy, Vulpes!
Giving her an album by one of flamenco’s greatest stars is also of course paying her a compliment. She is a woman of taste and distinction who would appreciate the great man. Can’t go wrong.
I have the opposite problem: because my mates regard me as being “really into music” they are, for the want of a better word, too intimidated to buy me anything lest I bite their heads off, although I’ve never, I believe, shown any sign that I would.
Fortunately I’m also known to be “really into chocolate”, so yum.
I have a friend who for years held off from admitting to me he was a massive Coldplay fan as I think he knew what expression my face would make involuntarily upon learning that.
There are two types of music. The music I like and the music other people like.
We are both correct
…but I must warn the panel that one of those statements is incorrect…
Will the real Pencilsqueezer please stand up?
It’s also entirely possible that everyone is incorrect except me but I’m trying to be nice.
The new Midlake release is disappointing. *Waits for someone to be completely wrong*
I have a vague notion that I nicked that from an actual 1960s panel show – damned if I can think which one…
I really wouldn’t know. I’m a stupid person.
You are incorrect. The new Midlake release is very disappointing.
Yup, I was really disappoint
That’s saved me a listen.
It’s possible[*] there is a third category. Music that nobody likes.
[*]As yet unproven.
Subject of a new thread?
“At first I didn’t like it much, so I painted the edges of the CD with my special Russ Andrews green felt-tip pen, swapped the S/PDIF coax cable to the DAC, stuck a Peter Belt sorbothane pad under one of the CD player’s feet (it’s important for maximum stability that only three feet make contact), unplugged the microwave from the kitchen, closed the curtains, switched off the lights, removed one sock (not both, obviously!)… it really tightened up the soundstage, and I swear it gained an extra DR point.”
Your MIL will never bother you again.
Well, yes…but you really can’t expect decent sound if you don’t fasten a small square of Rainbow Electret Foil to the CD…
Hoffman is ➡️➡️➡️➡️
A friend of mine writes and records his own music, a kind of electronic dance groove type of thing. He’s on his 4th or 5th album, all of which he has released himself on CD, and he has kindly given me a copy of each one. Trouble is, all of the songs sound the same, the lyrics are trite and the music is basically crap. My heart sinks each time he tells me he is working on new material as I know he will ask me for my opinion of his songwriting skills. Thankfully I can use the sample button on my CD player to listen to 10 seconds of each track before I tell him how talented he is, with the hint for next time that electronic music is really not my thing. Sometimes too much honesty can really offend.
As an aside, another friend once bought me a Katie Melua CD because she knew how much I love music. I really don’t love it that much…..
I had a similar problem years ago, when my now boss, then co-worker, would occasionally give me a lift home from work in his car and use this opportunity to play me the latest demos from his then side-career as a pop producer to get my opinion…knowing that I was very into music.
I’m not much of a music snob, and I do appreciate a well-produced track aimed at the radio playlists and charts, but this wasn’t that. It was badly written songs with anonymous melodies and cringe-worthy lyrics, badly performed by non-talents and given a generic production.
I tried very hard to be polite and encouraging, but it took a lot of inventivness to find the right non-committal phrases to say at the end of each listen and I’m certain that my face involuntary must have betrayed my lack of enthusiasm.
The only thing I can still remember saying was, after listening to a minor Swedish soap actor singing a bland effort; “wow, he’s not as bad of a singer as I feared he would be”…not exactly high praise, but all I could think to say in that moment. Fortunately the guy took this as a very encouraging comment!
I remember an episode of The Kids From Fame TV show when two characters went around being honest with everyone and soon found that they pissed them all off. That’s the teenage years for you. Rock music and what comes with it is a sort of a perpetuation of adolescence, or not growing up.
“Perpetuation of adolescence”…. what nonsense.
Also: “comes” – hur hur hur
My bane is people who know I am into reggae and African music and want to have a chat about Bob Marley or Gracelands.
Really? What is there to talk about?
1. He’s dead.
2. He pinched all the tunes.
Can I suggest a response to MIL that goes: “Thanks for the CD. I love exchanging CDs! I’m currently listening to a lot of a chap called Lou Reed. Here’s a copy of one of his called ‘Metal Machine Music’. It’s a bit different, but look forward to hearing whether you like it when we next meet. Xx” At which point you have drawn level and you have the MMM tool in your back pocket if she ever asks about the flamenco player?
And – bonus – you get the stink of MMM out of your house for a while.
For a second I thought you were talking about that tiresome Crash Test Dummies record.
I come across a different problem. People know you are a music lover. They have never heard of most of the people you like. They assume you are being deliberately obscure in order to present yourself as the member of some kind of elite. They decide you have specific likes and dislikes before you have even expressed an opinion, which they then use to back up their assumptions about you. They assign snobbery to you when you have exhibited none of its features. It is their problem.
If it was me, the genre would be the get out clause. “I’m really not keen on that type of music so it’s really hard for me to tell if it’s good or not. He may be a master at his game but I wouldn’t be able to appreciate it”. I’ve actually used this a few times and it’s lent authenticity by the fact that it’s normally true so can be delivered convincingly even when it’s a fib.
Oh God, this thread gave me flashbacks to something I’d parked in the part of my memory called ‘do not enter’.
A fellow radio presenter sent me a track he’d produced with a singer that he’d discovered on one of his karaoke nights…yes, really. It was fucking awful…so fucking awful that I actually thought he was taking the piss. So I asked him if he was taking the piss, which was possibly a mistake as he was actually deadly serious, and thought he’d discovered the next big thing. I felt so sorry for the girl as he probably told her she was brilliant.
A great ending would be to say that she was now world famous, but no….
I usually get out of uncomfortable encounters like this by asking my fave civilian repellent:
“What do you know about Ethiopian jazz?”
“….well I didn’t mind the Band Aid record…”
“What do you know about Ethiopian jazz?”
Well, they might reply with a full, detailed resumé of the careers of Mulatu Astatké, Hailu Mergia and Mahmoud Ahmed….
And if they did, I’d have a new BFF.
I avoid talking about music.
Safest approach of all.
As we all know, deep in our hearts, there are only two types of music – good and bad. The difference is purely subjective.
Easy response when you want to be polite about music you think it awful – ‘Not to my taste’.
I use “derivative drivel, frankly” to let people gently.
On my evening stroll, I encountered my newish 20-something neighbours.
Me: “Sorry about the skip and the work vans, it should be over in a few more weeks. I’ve sound-proofed one room. We have a drum kit, a bass amplifier and big speakers. I know it won’t be completely silent but I’ve taken every precaution and I hope it won’t disturb you.”
Them: “What kind of thing do you play? As long as it is the Eagles, we’ll be happy.”
I fear they are going to be disappointed.
If you don’t play any Eagles tunes, they could always move house as a … ahem … “Last Resort”. Arf arf.
They can check out anytime they like
Turn up the Eagles, the neighbours are listening…
Have an ‘up’ for a great deep cut.
Ta – one of me favourites…
There goes the neighbourhood.
A pal suggested they might be attempting to flatter a middle-aged man. If I look like the kind of person who plays Eagles records, it might be time for the Peter Gabriel reverse-mohawk and a spider’s web facial tattoo.
20-somethings, Eagles fans?? What has happened to the youth of today…?
“Oh sorry. I thought you meant the Eagles Of Death Metal”