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Originally Posted by pbradley
Fine, fair enough. But I still don't see why "serious music fans" should only chase after what is influential and have no respect for anything of the era that isn't bleeding edge.
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See, to my mind, a 'serious music fan' listens to very little with guitars. A 'serious music fan' listens to formal academic music (this needn't, strictly speaking, be scored). The notion of a 'bleeding edge' is pretty much a mis-nomer according to my understanding of 'serious music fan'. By this I mean a 'serious music fan' pores over scores and analyses fugues; s/he doesn't
actually enjoy music. Not in terms of it being any 'edge'. I know someone who is a very serious scholar of music (he's just completed a PhD) and he
almost never actually listens to music. It exists purely in the academic, so-called 'abstract' world of scores. I played him Wavves recently and he said 'there's nearly nothing here, except recording dirt. Do people actually like this music?'
This probably seems like I'm being contrary, but I only want to point out that, to a lot of people out in the real world, outside of this forum, there's a world of music in which Modest Mouse are obscure, yet-to-be-discovered - there's as many narratives to music as there are listeners. I think what pbradley's sort of saying is that there's no obligation to like one thing and thereby spend the rest of time looking for something else. Music is fun, not an obligation, and it's unfair to suggest that a restless curiosity somehow makes a person a 'better' listener (I'd negate the contrary if I could articulate it).