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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "Jason Damas" <jason.damas@gmail.com> |
| Subject | Re: Franz Ferdinand (more, sorry, but hopefully it'll clarify my points a bit) |
| Date | Fri, 7 Jan 2005 18:20:18 -0500 |
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<< >
> It seems to me a bit like sour grapes because The Well Wishers (or the
> Spinning Jennies before them) aren't doing nearly as well. And I
> understand
> (even if I can't directly relate) how frustrating it must be to lead an
> indie band with all the best intentions and find that you aren't as
> recognized as a band who were lucky enough to get the kinds of
> promotion/attention that you couldn't.
I won't speak for Jeff, but nonetheless WILL say that I know this is not
the case as Jeff has a very, very realistic perspective on what his music is
about and the reality of reaching an audience beyond where the market for it
is. >>
Actually, I just want to clarify--just to show that I wasn't being an ass so
much as addressing the elephant in the room--that I didn't mean this to be
an indictment of the quality of Jeff's music at all. I own (and enjoy) two
Spinning Jennies records, and despite getting heated with him on several
occasions like this, on issues where I wind up questioning the root of my
enjoyment in those records, I haven't sold them. This is despite feeling
that Jeff's opinions on music are sometimes so contrary to my own that they
undermine some of my basic beliefs about the stuff, so you know that they
must be decent discs for me to not toss them out the window in frustration.
I haven't heard the Well Wishers yet.
And--as Bruce addresses--it's not that I think Jeff went into it with the
idea he was going to be a star or anything, it's just that he's (perhaps
justifiably) frustrated that another band is (seemingly) handed some of the
accolades that he works damn hard for. I'm not a musician, but I would not
be surprised if others of the (many, talented) musicians on this list feel
similarly. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, I just think Jeff
takes it too far when he says that the proudly-held preferences of the many
well-educated consumers on this list were created solely by hype.
To show that I at least understand such a plight, I offer this: I was a
journalism major (with a music industry minor) who graduated magna cum laude
from my program. During school, I did two lengthy internships with the
Boston Globe and acquired hundreds of different types of clips in about a
half-dozen publications. After school, I applied for hundreds of writing
jobs, many of them doing cruddy "just-starting-out" type things like writing
obits, and heard back from none. My freelancing career, which couldn't
support me to start with, dried up to the point where the only publications
where I could get published weren't paying me anything. In the end, I wound
up paying my rent (and later mortgage) by making barely more than minimum
wage running a cash register. It's pretty damaging to your ego to find that
something you worked very hard for and specialized in isn't worth paying a
dime for. I don't offer this to solicit "oh, you poor thing!" type comments,
but to show that I at least have some idea what it's like to work hard and
pour yourself into something and still be ignored, and thus to extend an
olive branch to prove that my intent was not to belittle Jeff's art/efforts.
But that said, I don't go screaming "You're all assholes for reading David
Fricke columns!" to a list full of people I barely know.
<<That doesn't negate
the
fact, however...that highly-publicized albums have an upper hand at working
themselves into the lives of even to the most astute music aficionados.>>
That's true, and had your original post actually been about that then it
would've been a different story from the outset. But that isn't what you
said.
I don't want this to become a "you said something asinine, so i'm going to
say something even more asinine" debate, because everyone knows that's
silly. I'm just disappointed that you really think so little of the tastes
and judgement of those on this list to say that we only like some record
because we were told to. For people who care so much about music as we do,
that IS just plain insulting. You do it a lot, and that's the reason why
people have bothered to respond--because we don't enjoy being called names,
and we take pride in our own delicately-chosen tastes. I guess I'm just
asking you to question why you feel the need to be so vocally critical of
our TASTES, rather than to simply stick to being critical of Franz
Ferdinand, which is perfectly acceptable.
Stewart posted something awhile back that mirrored my own experience; how
when I was growing up I found bands entirely on my own (without the help of
cooler friends or older siblings or anything), and this often lead to other
kids making viciously personal attacks on my taste, often taking the form of
"You faggot, you can't like _______". I made the decision very early on that
I cared less for these people than I did for my burgeoning love of music,
hipness factor be damned. When I see anything that looks suspiciously close
to a comment like that, it ruffles my feathers immediately. I find it
especially alarming when I come across it in a forum such as this, which is
built upon the premise that our members have a wide taste in music and a
deep appreciation of its history and scope. Power-pop may be the common
bond, but we do go in many directions from there (and, as I've noted before,
it seems that power-pop fans have come ONboard from very different
directions). As such this has very little to do with Franz Ferdinand, and
everything to do with how we, as members of a list like this, are going to
respect and treat one another. And from your consistently degrading comments
about the TASTES of those who like any band who achieves commercial success
(rather than of the band themselves!), I just feel that you must not respect
us very much.
And I apologize to anyone who is sick of hearing about this, but it just
struck a chord and I was hoping that a good deal of this sort of rings true
with several people here, because frankly I wish we all could get along a
little bit better sometimes. --Jason Damas
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