The whole point here is that country music is strongly associated with a particular class background. Saying you wouldn't hire someone who liked it "regardless of class background" rings rather hollow in almost the same way saying you'd never hire someone with an afro regardless of their race rings hollow.
Incidentally, I rather like country music, but even if I hated it I think choosing not to hire someone because of the music they like is idiotic.
What he's getting at is that 'country' is polarizing music. Either you love it or hate it. So why would you, as a rational individual seeking the best outcome for yourself in your job application, put something so polarizing on your resume unless there's something a bit wrong with you? If the resume had 'avid Republican/Democrat' or 'pro-life/choice' as interests I would pause, not because I would try to figure out if their interests align with mine, but because I would wonder why anyone would put such a polarizing gamble in their resume.
My comment was meant to be broad and a bit hyperbolic. I hate the historical country more than the modern stuff (which is thinly veiled pop music). I found it a formulaic kind of boring, uninspiring, and moaning about the writer's current state of affairs or others not like them. What causes the hate is having grown up in the country, I was forced to listen to it for a solid chunk of my childhood.
That being said, there are always exceptions to the rule. If we were in a car together, you'd not see me protesting if you put on Johny Cash or Gordon Lightfoot (though they're arguably more early fusion styles). And I'll admit I enjoy the sound of the Eagles, which I grew up listening to in the car from my mom and their sound is heavily influenced by country style that I loathe.
Pretty predicible - modern country music is pretty much pandering to right-wing values. It's not really any different than rap - it's just a matter of who your demo is; inner city black youth with baseball hats or middle-American farm boys with cowboy hats. Either way, it's music marketed toward marginalized, uneducated people that need to cling to some sort of social identity to feel empowered.
...why do YOU know so many people that "like all music but rap and country"? We're well-to-do, educated, white boys.
Pretty predicible - modern country music is pretty much pandering to right-wing values. It's not really any different than rap - it's just a matter of who your demo is; inner city black youth with baseball hats or middle-American farm boys with cowboy hats. Either way, it's music marketed toward marginalized, uneducated people that need to cling to some sort of social identity to feel empowered.
...why do YOU know so many people that "like all music but rap and country"? We're well-to-do, educated, white boys.
In my social circles, I rarely hear anyone say anything critical about rap music, but it is quite common for people to make disparaging remarks about country music. "I like all kinds of music, except country" is a commonly expressed preference, for example. I have found the lyrics in country music to almost always be positive and optimistic, often imbued with values recognizing the importance of family and hard work. Perhaps there is something deeply wrong with our culture if we continue to have this negative association with an art form that is meant to encourage people to be better to each other.
Ha! Good point. Sorry, when I think of anyone having any opinion on country and the topic coming up in conversation my mind went straight to the US, but of course it's huge all over the place so that was dumb.
I do agree that knee-jerk dislike of country may be rooted in ignorance—but as far as social influence, I'd class that as being good at determining which bad music people like (I like plenty, and it's mostly for those reasons) or dislike, and the country on the radio in the US is, for the most part, firmly of the "you'll only like it if it's part of your scene" sort, so people with a blanket "I don't like country" opinion have very likely only been exposed to the equivalent of its Tenacious D or, at best, Styx (to expose some of my own sub-par likes). It's not their fault they assumed the genre was putting its best foot forward.
And hey, Elton John made Tumbleweed Connection, so there's that. :-)
I don't have a problem with Lil Wayne. I don't think he's particularly distinguished as a musician, though. He doesn't do anything that's really pushing at boundaries, and so when I go looking for music he kind of slips away. The moment I was trying to illustrate wasn't one where I hated somebody for liking Lil Wayne. Earlier in the evening I'd been belting out Katy Perry with some people, and Katy Perry's far "worse" than LW is.
The alienation, though that's too strong a word for what it was — this is a friend we're talking about — was more that some people were sitting around in the mood to talk about music, and she picked Lil Wayne. That's background dancing music, not sit-down music. So it wasn't like a sudden hostility based on Lil Wayne. It was just a disquieting moment that I thought would illustrate what I was writing about well.
It's not about some predefined special quality. I'm the biggest narcissist you'll ever meet, but that's because I love me, not because I love something in particular about me. But it is a trait that you find in some people and not in others, and I'd never seen an article written specifically about it so I figured I'd write one.
In the article I defined it as worshipping human creation. More specifically: It's an attitude some people have towards what they consume in which they try first to understand the goals of the producer, then appreciate that for what it is. So, some people approach music looking for hooks and that's it. Classicists will look for certain traits in music — melody, harmony, counterpoint, chord progression — and disregard every other musical element. My approach towards music is what you'd call deconstructed: First I try to figure out what the music is trying to do, then I appreciate it on those merits. So I don't look for melody in a minimalist composition, I ignore lyrics and focus on production if I'm listening to pop, and within those constraints I decide what I like and don't like. So I prefer Lady Gaga to Britney Spears, and I understand that neither of them is comparable to Mozart and that you couldn't compare Mozart to them, either. The stuff that I love is the stuff that meets its ambitions on a spectacular level; stuff without ambition is what fails to grasp me.
The reason that's important is that it's a very open, embracing, and somewhat odd way to approach art, but the people who approach it tend also to have other traits in common, which I also tried to define. The Joyce instance is one of them. Writers who like Joyce over Hemingway are also invariably writers with a more open stance on writing, and focus more on the craft than about the story. It's not like I get in a tiff when people say they like Hemingway more. It's that Hemingway developed one limited style and used that to tell the stories he cared about, whereas Joyce's style was constantly expanding. This happens in every field of creation you can name.
So the loneliness and alienation doesn't come from people having opinions. There are people with such narrow worldviews, but I'm not one of them. I like almost everybody I meet to some degree. But there aren't many people who understand that distinction between the Joyce types of artists and the Hemingways, and when your personal outlook on life is so reliant on the difference between them, it means you can't really talk about what you're thinking on a deep level. That's occasionally frustrating.
Does that clarify somewhat? Or am I still babbling?
" I don't think liking country music in the Bay Area will cause any sane, reasonable person to treat you differently or not be your friend."
It absolutely will.
If you hunt, or own a gun or into 'gun sports' it will 100% affect who your friends are. Did you hear about the employee outrage when Zuck killed is own lamb for passover (or whichever festival it was, I'm not knowledgable). Do you really think that being a 'hunter' won't affect your status at 'WeWork' - a company that enforces vegetarianism? Among a whole bunch of other values?
Listening to Country Music and driving a pickup? Not cool in the Bay - unless it's hipster/ironic. If you are 'openly' Christian, it will likely affect who your friends are as well.
These are not so much conscious thoughts people make, or outright judgements (in some cases they are) - but it will lose you a lot of points on the spectrum of social hierarchy.
I interviewed at a FANG once and the interviewer was interested in the band that I played in and asked what kind of music we played. It was a very long time ago ... and I suppose my answers were not hip enough for him because he obviously was not impressed.
Social circles, companies/startups, clubs, interests - these are all very intermixed as sad as it may be, we make judgements on these thing in life and in business.
""the Bay Area is not very liberal" may be changing slowly from an attitudinal perspective, but certainly that statement does not bear out in the polls""
I mean liberal by classical definition. You seem to be referring to the American pop-culture political definition of 'Liberal' - which frankly has very little meaning, or more like 'left wing'.
So yes, of course the Valley and Cali are fairly 'Liberal' in the pop-culture political sense and will be forever, but they are not very 'liberal' in the classical sense (though the valley has a history of being a little libertarian, which is a little more like classical liberalism, but still different).
In Texas, they really don't care who you are overall. But if you are gay, or effete, or a little weird, you might not be in the cool club. If you were the QB on your high school team, you get bonus points. If you 'never miss Church' it might get you a few bonus points in some places.
In Cali, sure, you can do or be as you please, pretty much. If you drive a big truck, speak with a twang, talk about football or fishing a lot ... you're not going to be in the cool club. Being a vegan, or having a really humbling 'rags-to-riches ethnic minority from another country story' ... will give you big empathetic bonus points. If you belong to a 'Social Justice Cause', or 'attend burning man' - it might get you some bonus points.
In both Cali and Texas - people feel a weird need to push those behaviours on others, maybe as a function of virtue signalling, and to also shame a little bit people that don't follow suit, i.e. 'if you don't support my SJW cause/attend Church you must be immoral'.
Everywhere in the world is like this to some extent, but this is slightly more common in America I think than the rest of the world, particularly bolder, more aspirational regions that are a little 'newer' and have a stronger sense of ideological identity - like Texas and Cali!
While I do agree that Collier is a musician's musician, I don't agree with the remark he should look for people who are "cooler" and the "hip-hop and dance" bullshit. That is so denigrating. Music's purpose is not trying being cool. It sells, surely, but so does Helene Fischer.
I also think that, in context, this is not exactly surprising. Country has been political for a while, a fair amount of people have been blackballed from country like the Chicks (nee. the Dixie chicks), and performers who don’t align with conservative values in country get a lot of heat (e.g. Kacey Musgraves, Beyonce performing at the CMAs): https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/culture/2016/11/4/13521928/...
And the entire notion of ‘equity’ is the current notion of ‘woke’ for others.
i think it is very interesting how some people are taking a statement that could (and does) mostly refer to broad and historical trends seen in individual practices and taking it as a statement about themselves as individuals.
if producers don't produce music of non-white people does that induce a racist bias? if educators don't include music of non-white people does that induce a racist bias? it was really not that long ago that other cultures were disregarded as uncivilized and unworthy of inclusion and in fact in need of destruction.
it does not require any active malice on your part for us to be living in a society that is the product of active and generational racism, and you might want to question why you think music is somehow exempt from this.
I hate the historical country more than the modern stuff (which is thinly veiled pop music). I found it a formulaic kind of boring, uninspiring, and moaning about the writer's current state of affairs or others not like them. What causes the hate is having grown up in the country, I was forced to listen to it for a solid chunk of my childhood.
To be entirely honest, I feel sorry for anybody who can't leave the socio-politics out of music. I mean, for me personally, music transcends all those things. Yes, context is important if you want to understand why a song/piece was written the way it was written. But beyond that, it is a little naive to try to bring cultural appropriation into music.
Especially as someone from a country whose traditional music isn't exactly known at all, I would be more than happy to have anybody "culturally appropriate" it.
Incidentally, I rather like country music, but even if I hated it I think choosing not to hire someone because of the music they like is idiotic.
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