No PC Blues

My computer's brrrrrroke.

So unless you wanna keep humpin' it up, you should go check out Frank Kogan's new column, Rules of the Game, in the Las Vegas Weekly -- #1 Joining In.

EDIT: My first comment went up yesterday, and instead of comment-bombing the first post, I'd like to artiuclate a few points (so as to maybe guide the responses to something more productive...cut out some of the bullshit).

My main point is that when we discuss "like" and "dislike," we're not talking about a level playing field. We can think of the process as reaction/justification, or reaction/analysis, whereby a reaction "just happens," while analysis/justification must be thought out. So when we SAY we like something, we're not just liking something. (Maybe my problem is with the word "like" itself, since the reactions I have to a song can be more complex than "like" suggests, or maybe we need to think of "like" in a more complex way -- but, e.g., the unconscious kinaesthetic elements of a dance song may cause me to ultimately define my reactions as like, even when I'm not strongly compelled to dance (Pantha du Prince), and a particularly strong compulsion to dance might actually contribute to my ultimate dislike, or not-like-THAT-much (Sophie Ellis Bextor...for now).

"For now" in that last parenthetical is crucial, though, because something else I'm arguing is not that we can be "dishonest" about dislike, as I suggested in my comment (which, looking back, was a little sloppy...well, if "like" is a set of reactions, so is "dislike," so we can never say that the set of reactions was "honest/dishonest," hence I rescind this part of the comment). What I think I'm trying to argue is that we can always change our mind and decide that a reaction-set signals LIKE rather than DISLIKE, but it's extremely difficult to do the reverse. The deck's loaded toward LIKE.

This gets at something Frank brought up once re: the Disco Sucks movement -- to him (the "rock guy") disco was never the enemy -- it was soft rock, a set of social/aesthetic connotations that could be said to be within rock, i.e. as a "rock guy," you cannot ignore soft rock because it invades the radio, friends, social circles that you already associate with.

Disco Sucks, on the other hand, is entirely predicated on ignorance. "Rock guys" don't sit around listening to disco to make a series of comparative judgments; they just don't listen to disco, and argue (essentially) that it's not WORTH listening to. That it sucks.

Similarly, an indie kid doesn't really see, say, Brooke Hogan as a threat unless he/she comes into contact with her. I'm thinking of Pitchfork specifically here, which for the most part simply avoids Fergie, Ashlee, Aly & AJ (unless I'm writing about them), Lindsay, etc. etc. unless, for whatever reason, they are thrust into them, cannot avoid them. In the news section, say, or because they're trying to "expand" the scope of their singles reviews to include some chart pop.

I think there might be a more balanced dichotomy in "like/ignore" than "like/dislike." Aside from certain music critics, I really can't think of anyone who actively listens to dislike a large amount of music -- e.g. a few of the Pfork song reviewers who, back when they paid attention to chart pop, frequently rated it unfairly, including the Brooke Hogan song review by Sam Ubl whose main point was that the song should be worse than it was. Now Pfork has a legitimate excuse to ignore chart pop: they want to offer free downloads, and this is impossible with most major label music of any kind. This is actually fair ignorance, since there's an institutional explanation as to why we shouldn't be paying attention to chart pop -- because we can't download it. I don't agree with this, but it's a principle Pitchfork does stand for, and it's not really one that can be disputed.

For the most part, we pick what we like and define ourselves in relation to it, but the "dislike" is precisely where we're socially/aesthetically etc. prone to change our minds, and change who we are. Because if I dislike something without knowing much about it, what I'm really saying is that I've chosen to ignore it. And if someone comes along and tells me how much he or she LIKES this music that I know so little about, I'm more likely to try it and like or dislike it -- but more importantly, I might finally LISTEN to it at all, on terms that I was previously unfamiliar with, and my taste will have been altered.

And this is where taste gets interesting, because again, I can never let go of my previous likes, I can only redefine myself in relation to them (and possibly try to hide my old likes from my new friends). I've discovered this new music, say Italo disco or freestyle or teenpop, and all the old layers remain intact; I carry them with me and in any moment can reference them when I (if I'm Frank) listen to "Yummy Yummy Yummy" and can imagine or understand liking and disliking it simultaneously, while in the present I like it a little, but not as much as when I was 12 (or again at 18). Or if I'm me, I listen to Britney Spears and I hear no fewer than three stages of "like/dislike": the initial listen when it was on the radio (hm, catchy tune, not really my thing but my girlfriend really loves it and it's fun to dance to it all goofy-like with her friends), the "sophisticated" listen in the indie phase (hm, catchy tune, but think of the harmful effects on all those poor 12-year-old girls), and my listen now (hm, catchy tune, I like to dance all goofy to it MYSELF, what was I talking about with that "poor 12-year-old girl" bullshit, anyhow?).