Common opinions--what's at work?

Ayn Rand is turning in her grave.

 

I was joking with a friend once. I told him that his dislike of some album was "incorrect". He replied, "But I was so sure!"

 

I actually like Radiohead's first album. I don't care if they like it or if "fans" say it's not worthwhile. It's some of the later crap albums I don't care about. I think King of Limbs is crap.

 

It all boils down to emotional connection......

 

Decades ago I was out with three friends and we were discussing our favourite songs by various groups. Out of a couple of dozen the only one we all agreed on was Supertramp with Hide in Your Shell.

 

There’s a bloke I used to work with, and who I still run into, occasionally, around town, who is a walking cliché for collective musical prejudices. It’s like he’s gotten them all from some old edition of the NME, from the late 1970s, and he’s not prepared to deviate from them one iota. More than that, he’ll get quite sniffy, if you attempt to discuss anything that threatens his world view. He clearly enjoys music, but I find him very difficult to talk with.

Bob Dylan is a good songwriter, but he can’t stand his singing voice. Won’t entertain listening to anything by Dylan. Won’t discuss his work in a rational manner. I suspect he hasn’t actually heard much beyond the odd radio staple.

Roxy Music were worthless after Eno left. I enquired as to whether he’s ever heard the Stranded album. No, not interested.

The Velvet Underground & Nico is the only essential album by them. I mentioned that my favourite is White Light/White Heat, which provoked the kind of facial expression usually reserved for stepping in dog sh!t. Has he heard the album? No, doesn’t care to.

The list goes on.

He’s missing out on a lot of great music, but it’s not my cause in life to open up his mind. It’s quite sad in a way, but I guess he feels safe, and even cool, within the parameters he’s chosen for himself.

 

No . That would be Roger Waters.

 

And you type that like it is a bad thing. Tsk-tsk.

 

Yes, a lot of people go with the herd of conventional wisdom and critical consensus. I agree with you about Pepper. By design and circumstance, it was a brilliantly marketed album... not just out of the box, but for decades after. It's difficult for people to question it's supremacy, just as it is for me to overcome my initial 13-year old disappointment, "Was George on vacation in India for the entire recording session? A harp, on a Beatles record!?!"

I do think that Plastic Ono Band is Lennon's best album, by far. But I can understand why a lot of listeners would find it to be too intense... disturbing, even. And timing plays a big part. I was 16 when it came out. I wouldn't want to hear a confessional album from a whining 20-something millionaire today.

People have varying degrees of tolerance for confessional intensity as well as musical intensity; that will always be a line in the sand. I don't think that it's in our DNA, but it is ingrained in our cultural perceptions, just as some people can't go to the movies and enjoy a drama/character study with no slapstick laughs or SFX action. Conversely, there's an aversion to the overly commercial. Do Ya Think I'm Sexy sold a lot more copies than Gasoline Alley, but...

 

Funny stuff.

It's a complex world, and circling the musical wagons with absolute certainty probably does make him feel safe. It's one arena in which he can feel totally secure, without question. And some people only want to listen to the best of the best of the best... time is short, why waste it?

 

Yes, a more music-centric time.

I doubt if younger people compare notes the way older rock-centric music fans do. I have a hard time imagining a group of people getting into a heated debate about which LCD Soundsystem album is THE BEST!

 

Almost none. This would mean that all members of a family would have musical tastes/opinions that aligned.
From experience I (& I wouldn't be the only one) know that this is not the case

Extremely relevant.

A couple of books to read on this subject written by Richard H Thayer who was awarded the 2017 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

Misbehaving : The Making of Behavioral Economics
Nudge : Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness

 

I used to own & operate a second hand record shop. I have met this person numerous times. He also appears repetitively on this & other similar forums.

 

I have no doubts what so ever that these younger people exist.
I don't know anything about LCD Soundsystem but I am 100% positive that there are people somewhere sometime having such debates.

 

I suppose. I have two daughters and even though one of them is very much "into" music, there's a kind of PC acceptance these days that other people's opinions are equally valid. No judgments. She may feel passionate about an artist, but she wouldn't get into a debate about ranking albums and such. Then again, girls don't square-off about this kind of stuff as eagerly as boys do.

 

Get them to start up a debate on shoes & see how that goes.

 

Out of those choices, only bother with the six Black Sabbath albums.

 

I only agree with the first two sentences.

 

I think you misspelled Imagine.

 

I know it sounds crazy, but maybe those albums mentioned in the OP are the most popular because they actually are the best albums by the artists?

Sometimes there is consensus on opinion for a good reason.

 

I believe that taste becomes objective within a community of taste where criteria become widely agreed. So while there is great disagreement about which Miles Davis album is the best, if you survey a wide range of Jazz fans they will tend to go for KoB because enough criteria are held in common. But if you take a smaller community of taste (Jazz fans who incline to more out playing and Jazz-Rock criteria) they will agree that Bitches Brew is the best. Both groups are ‘right’ relative to the community that arrived at the consensus.

If someone tells me that so-and-so is the best Hip-Hop album (a genre to whose community of taste I don’t belong) I only need to know that the person telling me is sufficiently familiar with the genre to have an educated opinion.

The next step is to ask whether one community of taste has objectivity better criteria than another: is Jazz, with its more complex criteria with regard to harmony and rhythm, objectively superior to the Pop community of taste with its preference for simple diatonic chord sequences? I think it is, but by pushing that contentious question off to a higher level of debate you avoid the situation so destructive to musical discussion where one person ends up dismissing an entire genre.

 

The thing is, I would run into him at gigs by newish indie bands, so he liked to keep up with what was going on. That said, I would never see him at anything too out-there. It was always the two-guitars-bass-drums kind of bands, usually with a hot, female lead singer: Best Coast, Dum Dum Girls, PINS, that kind of thing. I think it was the closest he ever got to standing near an attractive, young woman. That sounds a bit mean, but you know that photo of Syd Barrett from the Wish You Were Here sessions? The guy looks a lot like that.

 

I trust you understood that the "...or they just think they're cool" part was sarcasm.
I've been accused of this on more than one occasion by members of the herd.

 

In a forum like this, there should be a [:sarcasm;] emoticon. It goes over a lot of people's heads.