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

[Whiskeyrebel]

That's a lyric in a Sloan song. Interesting concept. Maybe peculiar.

Is your enjoyment of a song, band or performar affected by your perception of their fans?

If you find something enjoyable in a piece of music or performer, but feel like the folks who like them don't connect with you, does that get in the way of you being able to enjoy the music?

 

[somecafone]

For this question, I gotta say the Dead and the Deadheads.

Some years ago, I was dating a woman who was a fan. Maybe not quite a Deadhead in that she bathed and held a job.

We went to go see the Jerry Garcia Band on the UCLA campus. I'd never heard a lick of their music but I enjoyed it a lot.

Later, on a Fourth of July weekend, we went to see the Dead at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View.
From the moment we stepped out of the car, I was miserable.
"I need a miracle!!" No, you need a bath.
The venue was very new and the lawn in the lawn seating area was not yet grown in, or even planted as far as I know. It was all dirt. All the Deadheads started in with their cosmic-keyboard swirly dance and kicked up a huge dust bowl.

 

[pbradt]

I guess that says it all. Thinking about it because a lyric in a Sloan song that goes "It's not the band I hate, it's their fans".

If you find something enjoyable in a piece of music or performer, but feel like the folks who like them don't connect with you, does that get in the way of you being able to enjoy the music?

Not by fans per se, but by those who try to copy said artist, yes.

 

[Neer]

No, why would it? That's all social clique ********.

 

[rob2001]

Not one bit.

 

[stevieboy]

It certainly happens for a lot of people with sports teams.

As far as music goes, these days because I'm old I don't get much interaction with fans of newer music. Though I do listen to some of it, I don't really know what the fans of each are like.

I think though that most bands are an image of their fans in a lot of ways, or vice versa--doesn't really matter which is the chicken, and which is the egg. So if a band projects an attitude the rubs me the wrong way, I suspect many of their fans are similar. But the older I get, the less I worry about stuff like that, and the less likely it is that a band will rub me the wrong way.

It's easy enough to hate the music itself without needing to bring in the fans!

 

[Whiskeyrebel]

I had a feeling this was the type of response the question would bring. That is why the lyric really caught my ear and stuck out at me as an odd idea. I really ought to edit the thread to put the lyric as the thread topic title.

In fact I will.

 

[greggorypeccary]

Being a Deadhead, as well as Phishhead, I've heard this sentiment too much.


Personally, I don't give a damn who the fans are. I'm not going to be all judgemental and let somebody's mere presence affect my enjoyment of a show. (this doesn't include the loud, drunken types...)

Then again, as stated above, I'm a Deadhead, so maybe my mere presence, as well as my hippie dance, bothers someone else!
But that's their issue, not mine.

 

[TubeStack]

It's a cheesy lyric that is typical of Sloan's hipper-than-thou BS.

 

[84superchamp]

It's a cheesy lyric that is typical of Sloan's hipper-than-thou BS.

it's only in that concept that i would dislike fans, that if you don't "get" their music, you're a lesser human being.

 

[colin617]

it's only in that concept that i would dislike fans, that if you don't "get" their music, you're a lesser human being.

This is the reason I don't like Rush fans. I "get" their music, but that doesn't mean I like it. Ayn Rand has a horrendous style of prose, objectivism isn't a valid form of philosophy, and the lyrics aren't mindblowing (in fact, a lot of them are quite lame).

 

[84superchamp]

This is the reason I don't like Rush fans. I "get" their music, but that doesn't mean I like it. Ayn Rand has a horrendous style of prose, objectivism isn't a valid form of philosophy, and the lyrics aren't mindblowing (in fact, a lot of them are quite lame).

heh..we also agree on Rush.

 

[RockManDan]

being that i went to college at the University of North Carolina in the early 00's, Dave Matthews Band rules this thread for me. Never have I lost faith in humanity more than when i discovered the sheer number of poseur and sorostitute 'music fans' that wont give a musician the time of day unless he plays 'dave'

 

[Whiskeyrebel]

It's a cheesy lyric that is typical of Sloan's hipper-than-thou BS.

I never really picked up on that from Sloan. At least not in the sense that they were self-consciously going for that attitude. I just got the impression that they were writing without making any effort not to alienate listeners whose experiences are different.

Maybe coming from the US I just gave it a pass on the assumtion that I was hearing a cultural difference as opposed to a particular kind of personality.

If Sloan bugs you on that count I bet REM must give you hives. (not an REM fan myself)

 

[Polynitro]

gutter punks, deadheads, phish fans, those people that enjoy Jimmy Buffet, emos, blues fans, and straight edgers all annoy me. But I still listen to the music (except for Jimmy Buffet)

 

[coldfingaz]

Absolutely!

Fans have no impact on the music I listen to, but they sure can factor in on what shows I attend in some cases.

 

[Tone_Terrific]

gutter punks, deadheads, phish fans, those people that enjoy Jimmy Buffet, emos, blues fans, and straight edgers all annoy me. But I still listen to the music (except for Jimmy Buffet)

No Sloan fan, but that line holds some truth in that a certain style of fan follows some bands...but then I kind of like blues...and Hawaiin shirts, too.

 

[Polynitro]

straight edge kids and skinheads are the worst. The last The Business show I went to they had to stop playing because all the skins were fighting. SO lame. Its sucks because I listen to a lot of the same music skinheads do. Whether they are racist skins or not it doesnt matter they all like to fight.

 

[doomedfuzz]

I hate it when the frat boys catch on to a band, it's just irritating. I love The Sword, a heavy rock band that's been around for a while from Austin and starting to really make it (the opened almost the entire Metallica world tour and in fact just flew out yesterday for more dates, I ran into the guys at the Sleep concert). Anyway, last time I went to see them, they played this little club like always and it was super packed. Once they hit the stage, the drunken frat boy types pushed their way up front and started to mosh. This is not a mosh type of band IMO. Was really irritating, but I guess that comes with getting bigger.

 

[chervokas]

I like that lyric. It picks up a colloquialism that I've heard people say so many times. What's the song it's used in?..I assume its a character speaking it and/or that it possesses a bit of irony.

Usually when you hear people say this they say it about the Dead and Deadheads but someone said it about Bob Dylan fans in the Neil Young/Bob Dylan thread (I didn't know that Dylan has a typical set of identiable fans, but apparently to this guy he did)...people say it all the time. (Personally I love the Dead, and I like Deadheads generally, though I don't think the Deadhead phenomenon was so healthy for the band.)

Usually, when I've heard people say that, it usage seems to be revealing more about the speaker and the speaker's own sense of cultural identity than it ever seems to be saying about the music or the band certainly (with whose music the speaker is often only marginally familiar) and often says more about the speaker than the group of fans he or she is identifying.