Waking up late and being in a rush to get to college is bad
enough, but when you also can’t find your earphones to help you get through the
day – that’s even worse.
I think this is something pretty much everyone will agree
with me on because there is such reliance upon music in today’s society. But
the thing is; most people you will speak to love music but are the first people
to jump on others’ back when they dislike what they like! I thought the point
of there being so many different
kinds of music is that there's something for everyone?
On Thursday night, Zane Lowe interviewed Kanye West and they
discussed things like his latest fashion line with adidas, giving North a
sibling, Four Five Seconds, his
upcoming album and that rumoured tour with Rihanna. So when I went into college
yesterday I, of course, was running to my friends to discuss the interview. I
was shocked when one of my close friends who is also a big music fan turned
round and said she hated Kanye and wasn’t a fan of his music. And then my
Economics teacher piped up and said Kanye was a, quote, “gimp” like, no offense,
but I don’t think Kanye is overly affected by what you're saying: “I said shit I'm chilling, tryna stack these
millions” (I Am a God from Yeezus). But on the other hand, I can’t help but
take it personally when people slate my favourite music.
New Slaves from Yeezus is probably one of my favourite songs of all time. I like
that he discusses the struggle of fame and race, although some may see it as
conceited, is there any difference between him rapping about that and Taylor
Swift singing about all those blokes she's slept with? I can’t see a
difference. Who else could compare the Roman Empire and a packet of condoms in
a song titled Black Skinhead – he is
lyrically genius.
I'm not narrow-minded and I'm not going to write about just
Kanye West about how much of a legend he is, especially after that Nando’s
stunt. I am a fan of a ridiculously wide range of music genres including rap,
pop, indie, rock, 80s, dance and house music. And I embrace it all with an open
mind. You give an album a listen on Spotify and if it doesn’t take your fancy,
you move on. To others it’s probably the greatest album of all time and you may
disagree but that’s okay because how boring would the world be if we all liked
the same albums?
My friend Laura is a big house and dance music fan and she
can mix a sick playlist. She would be my go to for new dance tracks that I need
to motivate myself to get some work done; how else are you supposed to
crash-write that 4000 word piece of coursework that is 3 months overdue? I
don’t listen to dance music all the time but I feel that it plays an important
role in society. What would Kiss FM or Danny Howard play on a Friday
evening if there was no dance music? What would you dance to in a club if there
was no house music? I don’t own a compilation album or constantly go clubbing
but I know that Settle by Disclosure
was a class album. Then again, how is I'm
Not That Easy by Ricky Raymont from TOWIE a real record…
Indie music is such a wide genre and has that awful social stigma attached to it that
makes some fans ashamed of saying that this is their music of choice.
Commercialised bands like Bastille, The Wombats or Foals only get more airplay
on radios and the music channels on TV because they're just that –
commercialised. It then becomes difficult for them to balance success and
popularity with trying to do something that is true to them. Why do you think
that we haven’t heard from The Wombats or Foals in years, or why Bastille
toured Bad Blood for so long and are
taking time out to make a new album? It’s even worse when fans of bands like
The 1975 and Arctic Monkeys jump on new fans. You have so much in common, why
are you going against each other?! AM’s instant
success simultaneously pleased and disgusted Arctic Monkey’s fans. And I get
it. It’s like your own little secret that is shared with a select few around the
world, is then blown up and plastered on billboards and underground tube
station posters and you sort of lose control of that little bubble. But that
expansion of the fanbase is something that all bands have to cope with if they
desire commercial success and, fundamentally, money.
It’s also weird to see fans send hate to older fans that have
been fans of artists since they were small. I was at the second Alexandra
Palace gig that The 1975 performed where they pulled up a teenage boy on stage.
I’ve followed him on twitter for ages before the gig so when he started
hysterically crying on stage I was one of the first to understand why. Like me,
to have the band that you have such an attachment to and who probably changed
your life to a certain extent, notice you would be overwhelming. So it was
probably horrible for him to log into twitter and see dozens of tweets from
other fans who were plain jealous and couldn’t control themselves. And when the
same lad won a limited edition of the Medicine
vinyl, the new fans were the first to send messages accusing him of tweaking
the competition somehow or using his mild twitter fame to get a copy. Maybe he
had a lot of email accounts subscribed to the newsletter (which was how the
winner was chosen) or maybe the competition was fixed and he was chosen by the
guys to get a copy because he bloody deserved it. Either way, he was having the
last laugh when he showed Matty the tweets backstage and they laughed over it,
he got free merchandise, recognition in radio interviews later and he posted
several pictures of him and the whole band on Instagram only to get hundreds of
likes. Indie music truly is a weird world – but people love to hate it.
Pop music gets an even more negative press from publications
like NME who think it’s cool to nominate Harry Styles for their Villain of The
Year award alongside Nigel Farage. To like a band like One Direction or Fifth
Harmony is the ultimate social suicide. These bands are so hilariously uncool
it becomes almost impossible for you to properly convince people that you like
them, but also enjoy indie music and house music and 80s music. The only reason
why I felt able to wear my ‘lol ur not harry styles’ tshirt on school photo day
is because the support from fellow fans that I carry round in my phone on
twitter is so strong. The amount of hate that you receive from saying you like
these kinds of artists is so ridiculous, people have multiple twitter accounts
because having a personal account and
tweeting about music you like is so unacceptable. I think because we’re so
close knit it only increases our self-confidence and strength. These ‘fandoms’
are so strong and powerful they can do so much from winning awards to starting
and ending careers (note the careers of The Wanted and 5 Seconds of Summer who
the One Direction fandom literally ended and started). I don’t even understand
why it’s so bad to hate pop music?! Yeah I love a good bit of One Direction or
5SOS or Uptown Funk (who doesn’t though), but why does that mean that my
opinion on other kinds of music is automatically disregarded? Pop music,
whether you like it or not, is a vitally important part of our culture and it
always had been. Was it cool to like Never
Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley at the time? Probably not but it’s a bloody
good tune.
80s music is a weird one because it doesn’t fall under a
specific category but it’s mostly associated with lovers of indie music. I
think there's a bit of a consensus that, if you love Oasis or The Cure, then
you’re trying desperately hard to be cool. The word ‘indie’ itself is widely
used negatively to hate on people who relate to, or even just like the sound of,
80s music. The influence of the 80s and 90s culture is so well-reflected in
today’s society as seen through the rise of vintage shops and the rerelease of
records on vinyl and I think this is just another way in which music affects us
all through culture.
Bound 2’s success was so wide spread and
everyone had it playing on their iPhone. It even spread further into popular
culture when James Franco and Seth Rogan recreated the video with a comedic
slant. It’s weird how this commercial success was so acceptable but the rest of
Yeezus wasn’t. The other tracks on
that album and albums like it such as Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late talk about things that bloody
matter. Your parents probably won’t agree with the pure quantity of expletives
but how is it any different from the explicit version of the Blurred Lines video that has over 38
million views on YouTube? Kanye’s basically muted performance at the BRITs on
Wednesday probably would’ve been the talk of the night if it wasn’t for
Madonna’s hilariously awful trip during her performance, but it doesn’t detract
from the fact that most music isn’t accepted by other people if it isn’t what
they like.
Like I said, losing your earphones in the morning is so
catastrophic because music is so important to everyone. Everyone has a
fall-back genre of music and that resonates within everyone because it’s an
integral part of culture in the 21st century. But why does differing
music tastes simultaneously mean that we’re all different? It’s another form of
social inequality and, although it’s obviously not as important as issues such
as racism or feminism, it’s something that I think young people face daily and
it’s something that needs to be addressed. But in the meantime, as you listen
to your respective artists, have a little consideration that your musical
snobbery doesn’t affect others and they are going to continue to listen to One
Direction and Kanye West and The Smiths whether you like it or not.
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