"High brow" elites moving towards "low brow" culture in the Understanding Society blog. (Via Mark Thoma) I put in quotations because I question the definition, but we'll get to that. The article covers a few articles researching the music-listening habits of people divided into high status and low status categories. The theory is that high status people would flock to "high brow" elite culture whereas low status people flock to "low brow" mass culture.
(much longer post, so click below to read more!)
I'm not sure it's entirely clear why certain genres of music would necessarily be "high brow" elite culture. Even within the stereotypical high culture of classical music, there are musicians/composers who are held in higher esteem than others. My girlfriend is a middle school band teacher who knows her baroque/ classical/Romance era music history and has a solid understanding of the time period and the musicality of the genre, and she points out (which I tend to agree with) that liking Mozart shows no depth in understanding classical music. It's like listening to only the Beatles and saying you know rock music. What's more, what distinguishes Mozart's ability to compose music, and say Barry White or Thelonious Monk? Barry White notoriously had no formal training, didn't know how to read music, yet was able to compose some amazing pieces in his head. Jazz composers also had plenty of layers in their music, and their understanding of how to create something unique each time they improvised is brilliance in itself. If one extends this to other forms of art and leisure, you could point to graffiti artists (not people who tag bathroom stalls, mind you) who have created works of art with a medium that is nowhere as controlled as paint brush on canvas.
Is the "elite" status merely endowed to something that is restricted to high status people through their snobbery? If such is the case, what is the standing of Yo Yo Ma playing a complex classical piece in the subway station? I doubt there is anything inherently and consistently more complicated and deep in "elite" culture. Bolero contains the same phrase (or two...) throughout the whole piece, yet is performed in the "high brow" setting of a concert hall. Even if the distinction between rich and poor is growing, nothing particularly "elite" has arisen, and it's unsurprising to see rich heirs and heiresses involved in very very not-high-brow culture.
Rather, being involved with a college radio station which avoids mainstream music like the plague (and has DJs who proudly label themselves music snobs), I think distinguishing between genres in the musical medium, and what constitutes "mainstream", is a more interesting phenomenon. I think it would be difficult to find someone who abhors all jazz music, as it is the forefather or close cousin of many genres we hear on the radio dial today, yet it's rare to find on an iPod. Conversely, I think it would be difficult to argue against the catchy-ness of pop music. While I refuse to make any effort to purchase or consistently listen to top 40 rap, I will admit that Lil' Jon does wonders before a basketball game, as the lyrics are mindless and the strong bass pumps up my adrenaline and testosterone. Further, I would bet that drunken crowds at a club can hardly differentiate between Chuck D's lyrics over S1W's cacophony of samples and the typical bass-heavy simplicity of mainstream rap's overproduction. Pop music has it's place in the world, even if it's unfortunately more popular than it should be, given the effort put into the musical aspects (I understand the commercializing aspect is immense).
It's not like people go out of their way to avoid more interesting music or to pursue mainstream music. Also, it's not like mainstream music is completely devoid of quality artists - Adele has fantastic vocal skills and lyric-writing abilities and sticks to a less mainstream genre of neo-soul(ish), while Esperanza Spalding won a Grammy playing the upright bass. In contrast, I doubt that less mainstream artists would refuse being in the limelight. I think the distinction lies in what the music industry decides to push. Liking what the music industry pushes is convenient, and with so many options in every aspect of life and so many different things happening, liking what is convenient is arguably a necessary evil. By choosing to go deeper in the musical realm, flipping through old albums and reading the history of these older artists, I'm choosing to forego skill or understanding in something else, thereby choosing the convenient option. Those who stay within the mainstream of music can (not saying that they do) of something else. I'm pretty sure my fellow DJs at the radio station don't know as much about cars, sports, technology, etc. and choose the convenient thing (or completely ignore) in those fields.
It's all about the effort you (or they) need to put in to find the right combination of tone and tempo. Push the right notes to someone who only tunes into mainstream radio, and you can get them interested in something less mainstream. Unsurprisingly, mainstream music is bland to attract as many people as possible - I have no patience for good metal or good electronic music, even if it's good within their respective genres. It's easy (convenient?) being condescending about the blandness of mainstream music, but I'd like to think that the music industry knows that it's putting out bland, thoughtless, easy music. I think the appropriate stand is to understand the place bland mainstream music has in society. It's not for a lack of culture which makes people tune in to tasteless radio.
If people frown upon mainstream radio, they need to make an effort to educate those who have little time to do discovery of their own. I have friends who are more than happy to listen to mixtapes I put together for them - they just don't care to search for the songs, albums, or artists themselves. Choosing to be condescending about the music industry and not putting in the effort to educate others is being just as guilty as the people who listen to top 40 of doing the convenient option. High brow versus low brow is a false argument, and so is good versus bad music. Culture evolution creates blurry lines, and it's foolish to be a snob standing far to one side of the line without a deeper analysis of the spectrum of subcultures.
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