Genre bias: bands we love to hate
Someone higher up made the questionable decision to give me a weekly column to tell you, or rather, rant to you about my week’s musical ponderings. I could try to explain this, or I could just dive right in. Being on the lazy side, I’ll opt for the latter.
There are a multitude of successful bands who have proven to be skilled at what they do; they’re passionate about their craft, authentic for their fans, who also find themselves victims of the new phenomenon of music listening: genre bias. Obviously, genre bias has always existed to some degree. But with the birth of the internet, genres and artists have emerged that never would’ve been discovered without it, as well as a new forum for fans and critics to discuss their opinions.
Suddenly, genres are more than just musical preferences, they’re your identity. Hipsters sneer at the pop-preps, classic rock heads claim real music is dead and Hot Topic makes bank off the backs of pop punk. These types of successful, skilled and passionate bands, such as Muse, Taylor Swift and Mumford & Sons, find that they’ve become a new channel for music fans to assert their dominance through hatred and critiquing. For years, I was no better than them. Everyone from celebrities I idolized to kids on my high school campus would trash-talk Coldplay. It didn’t take me long to buy into the peer pressure. I would loudly sigh if they came on the radio, roll my eyes if I met a fan and vocally declare my disdain for Chris Martin. But if you stayed calm enough to ask me why I was so down on them (which few were), you’d see I had no reason except that it was cool. The latest trend in music is hatred.
Last semester, I was lucky enough to intern at Billboard. I sat beside my senior editor, Katie Atkinson, and we often talked about our personal tastes. At one point, she got the opportunity to cover a Coldplay concert. The excitement in her eye when she got that email and in her voice as she recapped the event to me the next day made me wonder, why the hell did I avoid Coldplay all these years? So with that in mind, I’m devoting this week’s column to the bands that have battled bad reps merely for being popular or belonging to a certain genre. And of course, we’re going to start with Coldplay.
On Monday, I put my shoes on and headed to class. I forwent my beloved Cage the Elephant, took a deep breath and clicked play on Coldplay’s most recent album, A Head Full of Dreams. I eased myself in by starting with their Tove Lo collab “Fun,” and what I heard almost immediately was a big f-ck you to me. Throughout the album, I got this message over and over. As the band played, their sound evolved and Martin sang, all I found was four musicians who didn’t care at all about those who love to hate them. They didn’t care that hipster credibility is rooted in despising bands just like them. In the electronic post mix, the rock-influenced instrumentation and the pop-beat, there was an authenticity that spoke volumes. I’m a creature of habit, so I can’t deny that after one listen to the album, I returned to my normal morning music. I haven’t given myself the chance to address whether Coldplay is a new favorite for me. It would take multiple listenings to move past this realization and into the actual music itself. What I did realize is that they don’t deserve the bad rep, but they’re going to get it anyway. Those who don’t let the opinions of others stop them typically get the brunt of them.
That evening, I couldn’t help but think about this theme once again. What other bands have been given certain reputations unfairly? And had I always bought into this bias? I felt awful. I pride myself on loving music with no genres left untouched, and the bands I follow on Instagram range from The Front Bottoms to Raury, Nicki Minaj to Taylor Swift and whatever classic rock idols have managed to adapt online. I tried to convince myself I wasn’t like that, so I reminded myself of the Fall Out Boy albums I still buy on iTunes despite having Spotify, all the times I recommend Selena Gomez’s newest album to friends and that I study to the sound of Linkin Park’s greatest hits. I realized that, though I love to paint myself as some saint of musical taste — a country lover, pop music dancer and indie aficionado — even I have fallen prey to this latest trend. All I can hope is that owning up to it is the first step to recovery.
Malorie McCall is a junior majoring in philosophy. Her column “Mal’s Mix” runs on Fridays.