Music and the idea of "Guilty Pleasures"

Let's just start off with a bold statement: there are no such thing as "guilty pleasures".

     What I mean to express by this is that there is music that one likes and there is music that one dislikes, and there are no guilty pleasures in the purest form of consuming music. Only when you use listening to music as a personality crutch, can something you might listen to become a guilty pleasure. Because at that point, you become worried enough about revealing that listening habit to others that it becomes alike in how you dress yourself, if you listen to something you actually audibly enjoy, and decide against pursuing it because of personal image, you are not consuming music correctly.

(stock images are great, don't @ me. I'm lazy and don't want to create a header.)

Preference:

     I have been guilty before of hiding aspects of my musical tastes to homogenize my tastes as a "Metalhead" when I was younger, I even contacted spotify to unlink my facebook account because I would feel like invisible eyes were judging my tastes (ridiculous I know). As I've matured I have realized that living like that; not enjoying a hobby as much as you could because you're worried what others might think, is very tiresome.

     Now on the flip side, I am aware that the term "guilty pleasures" does exist in a sort of tongue-in-cheek way and a good number rightly have no shame regarding their music*, if your friends are all distinctly aware that you enjoy Black Metal and you mention loving a Luke Bryan song or even vice versa, you know people might find it amusing and if someone actually has a problem with it or can't understand why you might like something so different than your surface level tastes, then it is not up to you to change their mind or adapt to that, they just have to deal with it.

*

A graphic created from a poll held by the University of Warwick's Student Newsletter, The Boar

     Please don't get me wrong, this does not mean one needs to like all music. God forbid. I can find something in any genre to appreciate(I even love some country music), but there really are songs and artists whose music I really dislike, this includes genres which I would consider my favourite. For example, I love Metal but I can find an artist, album, or song in every subgenre that I would say I hated musically. It all just depends on preference (ha).

     Another thing I have seen that bugs me involves music critics (I know on this blog I critique music lol, but anyways). Though what it is that bugs me is more to do with people who write off a genre, artist, or song, because a critic didn't like it. Critics are just people with opinions like you or me, and they only thing they can bring to the table that you or I may not be able to is a more well informed background on an artist or genre. I know I will never tell you not to listen to something and often try and express that anytime I rate something it is simply my opinion.

Musical Taste:

     Another aspect of this idea that I think is very important, is that I believe there truly is no bad musical taste. Music is subjective as is how you enjoy music. My musical taste is not better than yours, nor is yours better than anyone else's. I would reason that everyone has good musical taste, because the only person that musical taste should matter for is oneself and no one is going to put effort into listening to music they really dislike, not to mention that the only person who can actually judge your taste accurately is yourself.

     You can be pleased with someone else's taste if it is very compatible with your own, but thinking someone's taste is bad because they like different music than you is a shitty kind of behaviour. The statements "I like good music" or "You have bad musical tastes" are both untrue, cause is there really a way you can actually quantify that? No.

     The only way you could argue one piece of music or musician is better than another, is if we look at talent. Music may be subjective, but Talent is objective. A Pianist who has played for decades is objectively more talented than someone cobbling together a soundcloud song or a Vaporwave track. Songwriting is a talent that should not be overlooked in this idea however, someone like Leonard Cohen is not a talented singer but he is an astounding writer, and talent cannot be measured on a two-weight scale so I will admit this is a difficult point to swallow.

Fandoms:

     I see one thing a lot especially now that I've discovered the world of Kpop: fandoms. People can be put off of listening to a specific genre of music because they think they might not fit the mold of that genre's average listener, or they might be cautious of that genre or artist if they might have a toxic fandom. As for myself, upon discovering and delving into the music of a couple popular Kpop groups, I personally did find their fandoms to be sometimes a bit awful (you can find awful fans anywhere, Kpop fans are just more present on the internet because that's where you'll find that music in North America) and uncritical. What I mean by this is that I find that many fans will eat up any piece of music released from their favourite group and never stop to think if they themselves actually like it.

     Funnily enough, I see the most overlap with this kind of mob popularity and conformity in the Metal community. There are bands and albums which are almost blasphemous to criticize and it goes against an important part we've already broached, you can like and dislike things without having "trash taste".

     As for Kpop, one thing I find is you can totally ignore the fandoms and still enjoy the artist, because for a fan or R&B and Hip-Hop, there really are a lot of great Kpop acts that will appeal right to that taste.


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Examples:

     I know I have linked some songs in the body of this post, but it would feel remiss to not feature some more music on this music blog. While I have talked about being unashamed of my musical tastes, and how one should love their musical tastes, I should show for it. A younger and less wise(up for debate) Kellan would call these his guilty pleasures, or avoid them altogether so as not to seem weird, but 2019 Kellan is free as a bird. So here are some songs I do like that I may not have been willing to be open about in the past:

Motionless in White - Abigail

Wande Coal, DJ Tunez - Iskaba

SUNMI선미 - Siren(사이렌)

Dorian Electra - Man to Man

Faun - Diese kalte Nacht 

     The truth is, we(me included) all need to learn that those around us don't care nearly as much as we think they do about what we consume media-wise, and honestly if they do then they probably aren't the kind of person you should worry about preserving your image for. The biggest thing to take away from this is that all music is great to someone, and your musical taste is great!