Music elitism begone!
Emily Beech thinks Felix Music needs more Wham!
What does your CD collection consist of? Oh, wait a second, I remember now. Nobody buys those things anymore… it’s all about the Internet nowadays.
At the risk of sounding old fashioned and out of the loop, I will admit that I have only ever downloaded two songs: one a rather funky number by the electro-swing group The Correspondents, and the other? ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham! I realise that the confession I am about to write will win me no friends in the ‘cool’ music crowd but I want to start the fight against music elitism!
I didn’t buy that song because it was Christmas. It was, in fact, January. I bought it because I can honestly say that I am a Wham! fan and that song is a classic all year round. I am often told by a close friend to not mention the presence of Wham! in my music collection to new acquaintances in order to avoid the inevitable backing away, “Sorry… I have somewhere else to be…” scenario. But to tell the truth I often use it as a test. In my book, if you can’t accept my love of Wham! then you are not worth having as an acquaintance.
I am no 80s freak. I don’t own a pair of leg warmers or have pictures of George Michael adorning my walls. But I do love a good melody and something that can make me dance: ‘Club Tropicana’ just does that for me.
Snowflakes, dandruff or... cocaine? Well, it is the 80s
Snowflakes, dandruff or... cocaine? Well, it is the 80s
I am not ashamed to say that since becoming a student over two years ago, I have been to see LCD Soundsystem, the Jonas Brothers, Rufus Wainwright and Brad Paisley, amongst others. A mix for sure but something I feel like I should be able to write about without fear of reprisal.
Be sure that this ‘lack of musical taste’ is not down to being uninterested in music. I will listen to anything and I can generally find something I like about it. In all honesty, I don’t listen ironically to any of the questionable things on my iPod; I really do just enjoy listening to them.
Like the classic body-image/magazine argument, perhaps the Felix music section is just not representative enough of Imperial’s surely diverse music taste. So I say this to you. Come out of the woodwork fans of all things kitsch or previously-considered-awful! We must not be made to file our music under the category of guilty pleasures!
I am one of the Music Editors, and I thought I should address some of your comments.
Firstly, I acknowledge that the music we cover is almost exclusively underground and this is clearly a problem. There are reasons for this bias:
1. Gig reviews are usually written for gigs that we can get press tickets to. Because we are a small newspaper, we aren't able to get tickets to see more popular musicians, and so only the more obscure artists get reviewed in Felix.
2. For whatever reason, the non-gig articles we get sent by students are mainly about obscure albums/bands, very rarely do we receive articles about mainstream music. Therefore we necessarily print obscure articles.
As the Music section prints obscure articles we ostracise those with more mainstream tastes, which means only those people who like underground music send us articles. In other words, we are stuck in a vicious cycle which entrenches obscurity in the section.,Evidently there is some annoyance amongst the student body about