Can you judge a band by their fans?

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Do you get put off by a band's fans? Does a cool following encourage you to like a certain kind of music? Hvae you ever got to a gig and thought: urrggghhh, don't like the look of this crowd!? Vice versa? If so, is this a regrettable state of affairs, or is it all part of the experience of an act, for which the band is entirely responsible in one way or another, and therefore an entirely reasonable reaction?

― Daniel, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I try not to let things like that affect me but I notice that it RILLY bothers me when a band is marketed or behaves like they have loads of fans when they really haven't any. (i.e. ALL nu-garage rock) I'm not saying I'm right though. This is purely reflexive. I mean, I'll still give the whole Strokes album a listen, even though I feel mildly stupid as I'm the only person who does.

― dave q, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Sadly, Pavement has been ruined for the most part for me by their online constituency. Well that, and the fact that Malkmus is a pompous ass.

― paul, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes

― Zanny G, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

While I don't really like the Grateful Dead, I think they're much cooler than their typical fans. Too bad for them.

― Dave225, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It's one of those thigns that shouldn't matter but does, probably. it's great meeting someone nice with good taste and having them turn you onto things, but it's awful when you find something all on your own and then you realise utter knobs are into it. i find it helpful to remind myself i don't own the music any more than anyo ther fan does.

― Andrew, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Kreator/Sodom/Destruction. Brilliant music, but their fans are all fat beerswilling Germans in their 30s. Come to think of it, so are the band members...

― Siegbran Hetteson, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

people ruin EVERYTHING. seriously, avoid them if you have any interest in preserving your love for a band or a genre; s'why i only go to shows about once a year. terrastock is going to be a fucking nightmare (800 people who think those trust-fund brats damon and naomi are talented vs...me).

― your null fame, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

quick question: what band has the highest number of cute (and legal) girls as fans?

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"It's not the band I hate, it's their fans"

- Sloan, "Coax Me" from "Twice Removed" 1994

― Matt, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Rather than fans, I've been put off by many a song title...I'll come back with some examples.

― Jez, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

quick question: what band has the highest number of cute (and legal) girls as fans?

Planning a night out, Tracer?

― adam, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i just want to know what band to like! (NB my definition of "cute" is somewhat atypical)

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

800 people who think those trust-fund brats damon and naomi are talented vs...me

You might not be alone.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes, you can. Bands get the fans that they deserve. If bands don't like their fans, it means that they don't like THEMSELVES and that they should destroy their old images and reinvent themselves anew, Blur or Radiohead stylee.

(and then discover that they like their new fans even less.)

― kate, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

sure can, soon as you see a dirty barefoot hippy with a grateful dead patch on his/her hemp backpack how can you not think the grateful dead are shit.

― Chris, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

quick question: what band has the highest number of cute (and legal) girls as fans?

Heather Nova seems to be a contender, judging from a show I attended this winter.

― Siegbran Hetteson, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Usually i don't judge a band by it's fans. I listen to the band first and then i decide whether i like them or not. However, there was a band that i was completely turned off by their fans and i found that when i did listen to their cd...not only did their fans suck...but they sucked too. that band was linkin park...and they...just suck...

― Celeste, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Can you judge a band by their fans?
Honour the Fire!

― john-paul, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The young (legal) ladeez seem to love the Lucksmiths! They always have spunky fans

― electric sound of jim, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tracer: depends what kind of ladies you are looking for. I mean, you could go to a Lilith Fair type show that gives you a high percentage of females but a lesser likelihood of hookin' up.

― bnw, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I didn't say anything about hooking up eh?????? however lilith fair couldn't possibly be my new favorite band. too lilithy.

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 8 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

For a while I've actually been considering starting a thread called "Is popular music good because it's popular?". Because I think a large part of the value popular music holds to its audience is its social context. Part of the appeal of listening to, say, psychedelic rock is the associations it has with 60s counterculture and associated values (possibly idealism or free thinking or mysticism, drug experiences, community, etc). The music just wouldn't mean as much otherwise. Similarly reasons for hating the same music would often revolve around negative associations with that counterculture. And the music only takes on these associations because it has been embraced or created by this social group. This applies to current forms of popular music as well - rap, nu- metal, pop, punk - these all mean what they mean in large part because of their social associations. (The majority of [white middle- class] kids at my middle school liked hip-hop. They also glamourized a romanticized stereotyped notion of urban blackness. I remember girls who would brag about being able to get black guys to their parties. Similarly many people love or hate nu-metal because of its associations with the white American male teenage 'rebel'. So often the people I know who hate pop do so because they associate it with the 'stupid masses' - my friend actually used this term about David Usher's audience, which, I suspect, was a major reason why he hated watching him on Canada Day. I mean, once you take away all these social associations, all these musics are for the most part relatively simplistic and formulaic. Not that that's a bad thing or anything.) All this by way of saying that a music's, or a band's, fans are perhaps an essential aspect of that music or that band. So maybe it's just as legitimate a measure by which to judge a band as any other.

― sundar subramanian, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Why limit this just to popular music for that matter? Perhaps a part of the appeal of modern composition comes from associations with the ideals of modern Western academic culture, say.

― sundar subramanian, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Sean C hates the Doors because he associates them with macho homophobic jerks. I love, or at least respect and maintain a sentimental affection for, them because I associate them with a whole other, even contrary, set of associations, values, and ideals rooted in a romanticized notion of the 60s culture they were part of that I'm at least able to buy into when I hear the records or at least that I bought into when I was 12 - partly in opposition to the snobbery, shallowness, materialism, and, yes, machismo that I would have associated with trendy kids at the time and their hip-hop and dance music. (Classic rock was my indie!) Yes, I think he was a good singer (and way less limited, FWIW, than, oh I don't know, Robert Smith or Ian Bunnyman) and I think they were good and distinctive players but that only means they were able to effectively, even powerfully, communicate sentiments and ideals that would have meant something to - and were in turn given their meanings by - their audience.

― sundar subramanian, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

And so, to conclude, if you hate their audience, then that's all the more reason to hate the band.

― sundar subramanian, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

''I mean, once you take away all these social associations, all these musics are for the most part relatively simplistic and formulaic. Not that that's a bad thing or anything.'' sundar- what you're saying is that the music is easy to get into. It's getting into the set of ideals that the music puts across that is difficult. I think that is only partly fair when it comes to pop- related musics you mention.

''Because I think a large part of the value popular music holds to its audience is its social context. Part of the appeal of listening to, say, psychedelic rock is the associations it has with 60s counterculture and associated values (possibly idealism or free thinking or mysticism, drug experiences, community, etc). The music just wouldn't mean as much otherwise.''

for most ppl that might be the case but even when you strip all it's assoaciations it still is great. When i first heard the doors I thought the same as you. The band had a good sound. jim morrison's vocals were really good (i don't get the 'he's really limited' thing that so many have been saying). But i had no idea of what the conterculture was, had no idea of the history. I didn't even know they took drugs and so on but I enjoyed it. And then when i got to know abt the history it didn't increase my enjoyment or decrease it, it didn't even change my attitude towards them.

''And so, to conclude, if you hate their audience, then that's all the more reason to hate the band.''

it can add to the hatred but only if you already hate the band. I don't care abt what the fans are like. I mean, how could you know what they are reall like as ppl really.

― Julio Desouza, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Cf. Pynchon on how to "love the people"?

― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"Classic rock was my indie" -->> Sundar you rule

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 9 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

speaks volumes and volumes that free/avant jazz shows are often sausage parties don't it ?

― mike bott, Thursday, 11 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

What's a sausage party?

― Christine "Green Leafy" Indigo, Saturday, 13 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I think it's a kind of barbecue.
Or Bar-B-Q.

― Ray M, Saturday, 13 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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