Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Straight from my iPod

The Saving Abel cover below came up when the song "After All" started playing on my iPod.


Damn it.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

You actually listen to Saving Abel after hearing "Addicted"? That's some serious compartmentalization.

Misogynist, fratboy-rock trash.

Amelia said...

In all honesty, I'm not sure where I got that song from. A lot of my music is stuff I've had for a long time. It is, however, the only song I have by Saving Abel.

Something I find really difficult is dealing with the fact that I like the sounds of some bands that are just plain misogynist. This is such a big problem in the music industry that it would be rather difficult to find enough music that I liked listening to if I were to weed out all of it that was misogynist.

At the moment, I've settled with (and actually, this started happening unconsciously) making mental notes of sexist music when I hear it. It helps me separate the music from the lyrics (and art) in a way.

What do you think about that?

Unknown said...

I think we've discussed this on other posts before, but I listen to a lot of music which could be said to have misogynist lyrics. However, I think there's a difference between songs that actively promote misogyny and an unhealthy view of sex and gender, and songs that explore sex from an artistic perspective. There's bands that talk about things like wealth, power, violence, sex, et cetera, but are able to do it with some actual artistic intent; Queens of the Stone Age, Eagles of Death Metal, Tool, Soundgarden, Belle & Sebastian, Nine Inch Nails; generally, musicans that have some credibility, if you will. Then you've got crap like Saving Abel, Theory of a Dead Man, Nickelback, Hinder, et cetera; bands writing songs that do little more than glorify and idealize the most worthless parts of white American patriarchal society so as to appeal to the lowest common denominator. So, I guess to answer your question, whatever works for you is cool by me, but it might be easier to separate the art from the crap if there's actually some worthwhile art there in the first place. (Yes, I'm a huge music snob.)

Anonymous said...

What I don't understand, is the expectation that ALL music, all media, all forms of entertainment, should be "feminist", or cater to your worldview/ideals.

That's odd, to me.

Amelia said...

Oh, Anonymous.

I think it is absolutely fair to say that people should be free from sexism, racism, and other -isms when they are partaking in entertainment media, unless they're being used to educate people, which can be a fine line to walk, although it is possible.

But blatantly treating women like objects meant to be used for the pleasure of men, that is a hurtful message that no one should have to listen to.

But of course, jump to conclusions based on the very little commentary I gave, and assume that I am demanding that all media be catered to my feminist tastes. Nice work.

Unknown said...

@Anonymous: Not all music MUST be properly feminist and supportive of the Glorious Socialist Revolution(tm). But, in general, misogyny, or more generally, promoting the social status quo, is associated with terrible, terrible music.