Music gender traitor

[sabotabby]

The following is coloured, of course, by my own musical tastes and latent Canadian patriotism.

I was nodding along to this until she mentioned post-rock as an example of "dude music." Because Sophie Trudeau is definitely the noodlingest member of Godspeed You! Black Emperor/Silver Mt. Zion (as well she should be; as far as I can tell, she's the most musically talented one in the band) and on a macro level, their music reverses the polarity of chick singer/male musicians.

I also don't like the implication that dudely music is an exploration of form over content (i.e., wanking on guitar and singing about nothing important), while lady music is the reverse. I don't like wank for the sake of wank, but one of the things I love about post-rock is that it's really both. The lyrics are absolutely all about the oppressed, while the music is unpredictable and multifaceted.

Anecdotal evidence:

This is not "music that has nothing to offer people who are disenfranchised or oppressed, because it either is totally uninterested in their disenfranchisement/oppression, or actively profits from it," and, video-aside, if you listen to it rather than watch the video, the three female musicians are the ones in the foreground. Also, they're doing something interesting, unlike most, uh, socially conscious music.*

Anyway, I think the phenomenon Silvana talks about is definitely a real thing. It's just that one's taste in music is so highly subjective (at least when we're talking about popular music) that it's nearly impossible to map onto politics. Even if "he has a shit-ton of records, but none are by women" is a pretty good indication that a dude has Issues With Women.

(For the record, I snerked at the mention of Pavement, because for utterly personal reasons, Pavement will always read as a dudely band for me. Also, I have a slight preference for female voices over male, which widens to a huge preference when it comes to, say, opera.)

All this is to ask: Am I the only 30-something feminist who doesn't see what the big deal about Sleater-Kinney is?


* Not that I always need something interesting going on in my music. I'm fine with breathtakingly poetic lyrics and music that just sounds good, or vice versa. But when it's both, I do get really excited. When it's neither, no amount of political solidarity will keep me from mocking it.

Comments

[rbowspryte.livejournal.com]

My musical taste has never really progressed past about 2002.

My punk sensibilities moreso.

As far as my S-K worship goes I like them but recognize the sun and moon do not go down on Ms. Brownstein.

I listen a great deal to the queer-core bands from around the 1997-2002 time and earlier.

I'm a bad music consumer. Plus I'm getting the old.

[sabotabby]

I think my punk sensibilities stall out in the 80s. Though there's some good modern stuff. You know, just not much of it.

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Listen, it's very simple.

I'm a progressive egalitarian person. Thus, everything I like reflects those values.

Other things—that stuff I don't like—must run counter to those values.

See?

[sabotabby]

I see you are also a fan of David Rovics.

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Oh darn, now you made me Google him. "Songs of social significance"? He sounds like a total asshole.

[sabotabby]

He's a very nice person.

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Then he needs someone to rewrite his website copy.

[sabotabby]

And the anarchist song is pretty cute. Otherwise, he's very sincere. I am not a fan of earnestness in music. I am a fan of scansion.

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

So would Belle & Sebastian et al. strike you as too earnest or not enough?

[sabotabby]

Well, they are twee, but in a way I appreciate. They are utterly ironic and hilarious about their earnestness.

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

I feel almost ashamed* to admit it, but I <3 <3 <3 Belle and Sebastian. So so catty.

She had a stroke at the age of 24. / It could have been a brilliant career / Painting lines in a style that was too well known...

*"Almost ashamed" does not constitute actual shame in this case. My actual music shame I reserve for, um, kind of liking Vampire Weekend.

[sabotabby]

I am not ashamed of liking anything. I don't think I've heard Vampire Weekend, though.

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Oh, he even has a list of his songs "by topic"!

[sabotabby]

...and that is the problem right there.

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

Cagefighter Vagrant does that. He won't listen to music that isn't copyleft, even if it's awesome, and I can't understand being that ideological about music.

(I can't wait until I can afford to move away from him.)

[sabotabby]

I'm not ideological about my music at all. (I listen to Wagner ffs!) It's just that most music written by right wing artists suck. Most music written by explicitly left wing people sucks too, but in a different way.

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

Every time I listen to his advice and start trying to comb Jamendo for bands that don't suck, I'm reminded of this.

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

I've noticed people tend to do this with their fetishes, in ways that are immediately apparent to everyone else as mega-absurd (e.g. Momus.)

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

I kind of like Sleater-Kinney, but they didn't do anything that R.E.M. hadn't done 15-20 years before them.

[sabotabby]

That would make sense. I never got what the big deal with R.E.M. was either.

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

I like R.E.M., actually. If you wanna get ideological about it, they were Southern dissidents and I identified with that from a young age.

[sabotabby]

Oh, I like their songs. It's just when I was growing up, they were like THE alternative band that everyone talked about. Whereas I never felt they were doing anything that exciting, just doing it well.

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

I have long since accepted that when people start making broad essentialist distinctions between Men's Music and Women's Music (or, especially, Wymmmoon's music or insert-alternate-spelling-here), I lose all my feminist points very quickly.

I like a certain level of intensity in music that people who categorize things that way don't seem to consider Appropriate For Young Ladies -- er, sorry, sufficiently female-identified or whatever the current buzzword may be. And for me to want to listen to an artist, they have to actually be musically interesting, not just lyrically. Of course, it's best if they're both, which is why I tend to regard that whole men's music/form vs. women's music/content thing as a bit of a false dichotomy. A lot of the most interesting stuff is somewhere in the middle.

Am I the only 30-something feminist who doesn't see what the big deal about Sleater-Kinney is?

I don't think I've ever even heard them. But I'm kinda past 30-something, so I may not count. But in general, despite having considered myself a feminist ever since I first learned the word (sometime when my age was still a single digit, I think), I tend to be wary of any artist presented to me as what feminists are officially supposed to listen to. Because I almost invariably find them really bland.

[cannibal-x.livejournal.com]

heh..thanks for posting it, even though I don't share her taste in music either (stuff she likes or dislikes)--it was a good read, i totally see where she's coming from.

[rantipole6.livejournal.com]

"Am I the only 30-something feminist who doesn't see what the big deal about Sleater-Kinney is?"

No, you aren't. I thought I was the only person who felt that way.

Although come to think of it, I'm still in my 20's. Looks like you are an island.

Edited for clarity.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

Personally, and this may be my Midwest showing, I think it's telling that S-K got a Gap Ad and C.B. now blogs for NPR while Marcy Mays co-owns The Surly Girl Saloon in Columbus, Ohio and her lyrics and samples of her songs are almost nowhere to be found on the web, including no digital versions of their two best albums, so I can't give samples of her work, which deal far more explicitly with class.

helloooooo

[snarkitysnarks.livejournal.com]

I got to play "God Bless Our Dead Marines" for my friend Dax on a drive home last weekend. He was silent for like the whole song up until right before the last movement, and then said "GIVE ME THIS SONG."

Your music sharing is being shared and appreciated.

(Also, the song wasn't over when we got to the house, and I was about to turn it off and he was like "naw let's wait here." )

Re: helloooooo

[sabotabby]

THIS IS THE CORRECT REACTION TO "GOD BLESS OUR DEAD MARINES." (My mom did the same thing, by the way.)

Re: helloooooo

[snarkitysnarks.livejournal.com]

I have been waiting to play it for someone with the right reaction. The wrong reaction was when I played it for my sister and she got annoyed at the voice.

I don't know how I knew Dax was the right person to play it for, but I did. I told him the voice might be annoying and he was like "it's like how the guitar makes Neil Young's voice work. It works."

And then Dax played a song that I probably need to put on the next pros arch mix. I only have two songs to put on it so far though.

Re: helloooooo

[sabotabby]

I'm up to like 9. Ten if you count the one that's about Blade Runner but works well musically.

Insufferable music snob fail. cyborg_kitty100 needs to send me more music; she's my main dealer.