| Author | Message | ||
     Catherine Vaughan Member Username: Catherine Post Number: 342 Registered: 05-2005 |
Based on my recent purchases, Amazon has just made the following recommendations to me: Microdisney - Daunt Square Edwyn Collins - Home Again Band of Horses - Everything all the time So far so good. The first I already have, the second I intend to buy. But the recommendation that got really up my nose... The Dangerous Book for Boys... BOYS!!! Bunch of F*ckwits!! It really annoys me when it's assumed that if you've got tits, the only music you're into is Celine Dion, or f~cking Westlife!!! On more than one occasion, when buying music magazines, they're held on the same shelf as FHM, Nuts, and Busty Betty's got her tits out - or whatever they're called. Maybe you persons with testicles wouldn't see it as such a big deal, but it's really annoyed me. | ||
| spence Member Username: Spence Post Number: 1880 Registered: 05-2005 |
Cathereine I have man boobs too! No, I know what you mean. I would find it and indeed do find these things very patronising. The marketing was prob triggered by some white male with NO EFFIN IDEA and you were the recipient. Funnily, I was only thinking about this kinda related thing the other day. In many ways, I suppose a lot of people (mostly males) unless of course Genesis P Orridge is on here under an alter ego, Kev!? (only joing!!) on this board vouch for the white boy pop way of music. I think this is sepecially true of myself, througout the 80's, all the bands I ended up liking following were all white soul brothers, where were the black soul brothers? (Chrissake that's where music comes from, if it wasn't fo black music, no one would have anything. Full stop), but where were my females too? I still fell the same actually. Most of the groups I listen too are inoffensive white boys (ssave for Cathal!). Its actually very boring. When I look back, most of the music I was into/heard most of in the 70's every early 80's was black music. From a sister who was obsessed with Stevie Wonder, Gaye and Otis, to me adoring the Ska movement of Specials, The Beat, The Selector (great black female fronted band) etc Not to mention the reggae and dub influence of my friends' mother's father's and sisters playing it all the time. Combine this with a lot of solo female singers that i seem to remember beelining for the charts at this time, I really miss that aspect of my life. Its all to 'white' and male if you know what I mean. That's why some days I turn it all off, and bang on the Trojan box sets, or a Joni album or two or three...BRING BACK THE SLITS! | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 1412 Registered: 03-2005 |
Oh man! I gotta go to work and this is one of my absolute favorite topics. The music inevitably reflects our cultures' social pathologies. It's still a stunningly sexist universe. One of my absolute favorite 60s female artists is Jackie DeShannon. She wrote her own stuff and had very definite ideas about how to do it but she spent her entire career having to tart herself up for men and basically prostitute herself just to get anything to come out the way she wanted it to. And a lot didn't; there was a lot of girly-singer formula crap, particularly in the middle of the 60s. She literally married one of the bigwigs at her record label in the 60s in order to make sure that she had a career. That's a pretty crappy way to have to do things. The same goes for race. The U.S. is still a profoundly segregated society, although it does improve in this respect at slightly better-than-glacial speed. If you grew up in a white neighborhood you listened to one type of music and if you grew up in a black neighborhood you listened to something else entirely. It's a little better now, but not all that much because white people have a very narrow notion of what black people are about and what they can do and they reject it when they do something that doesn't fit within this narrow notion. I remember the heroic efforts of Nona Hendryx to push through the "a black woman can't do guitar music" barrier. God bless Keith Richards for giving her a little boost in that effort. Ultimately she gave up and did dance music. She needed to eat. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 1414 Registered: 03-2005 |
I wish I knew how to spell the scream I made when I read about Spence's man-boobs. | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 2452 Registered: 03-2006 |
I only pick up "Busty Betty's Got Her Tits Out" for the articles. | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 1025 Registered: 08-2006 |
The Scream - the Munch version - would be a handy and much-deployed emoticon around here. And, LK, anytime you read anything for the articles, my BS detector goes off. Weren't you the guy who confessed to reading "War and Peace" for the pictures? | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 2453 Registered: 03-2006 |
Naw, man. You know that ain't me. I would never even be seen tackling anything that even remotely looked like "literature"....eeeuuwwww...it sounds like it's good for you, and we can't have that. | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 876 Registered: 01-2005 |
Other than the few cuts that Johnny Hartman recorded in his short time on this little planet, I prefer female jazz singers to male overwhelmingly. | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 818 Registered: 09-2006 |
False dichotomies rule what we do, say, feel to an often insane level...based almost entirely on (whatta surprise) fear and insecurity. In the male/female divide, it seems to me that one doesn't have to dig too deeply to find that so many of the traits that society ascribes to one gender or the other are present in both. Then there's the dichotomy that crosses and intermingles with the above one, the idea that boys playing music that's not overtly aggressive or expressing normal human emotions is considered weak and wimpy (with the converse being "true" for girls)...thankfully I think that's one we don't have that much problem with around here... | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 726 Registered: 08-2004 |
Unfortunately this kind of stereotyping is true most of the time. This board for instance has been a bit of a lads club until recently. Thanks to Catherine's leading lady role there's been a much needed oestrogen boost to the sweaty, beery, arse scratching, sit around in our pants fraternity of old.  We'll all have to hold in our guts & keep the moobs under control from now on. | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 1028 Registered: 08-2006 |
I'm really happy there's more of a female presence around this joint - the estimable Catherine, Dr. Girlfriend, Georgina, the elusive Abigail. I've always been surprised there weren't more women posting. The GBs certainly don't seem like a "guy" band. | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 1609 Registered: 04-2005 |
Speak for yourself about the "sit around in our pants" stuff, Jerry! The U.S. contigent prefers to post sans pants. | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 1029 Registered: 08-2006 |
USA! USA! Pantless and proud, baby! It does suck in the Chicago winters, though. | ||
| spence Member Username: Spence Post Number: 1882 Registered: 05-2005 |
"Pharp!!!!!!!!!!" "Pharp!!!!!!!!!!" "Pharp!!!!!!!!!!" See Viz... | ||
| joe Member Username: Dogmansuede Post Number: 330 Registered: 07-2006 |
you know, the only other artist board i post on - the official bananarama message board - had this exact topic (well, maybe the vernacular was slightly different) being discussed the other day. i swear it to be true. though i've got to say, they used a lot more cheesie icons over there...jaw-droppingly fabulous avatars though!!! | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 811 Registered: 10-2004 |
you know, that reminds me joe, we really need avatars on this here board. | ||
| joe Member Username: Dogmansuede Post Number: 331 Registered: 07-2006 |
it's true....i actually thing we can attach them to our profiles - they just don't show up on the board. anyone here a mod (the other kind....)? | ||
| joe Member Username: Dogmansuede Post Number: 332 Registered: 07-2006 |
"thing"....my catholic education serving me as well as ever... | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 729 Registered: 08-2004 |
This is similar to one's political bent. Those more inclined to listen to left field music are more likely to have a left wing viewpoint. I'm sure there are few Republicans or Tories here, but why? I don't think religious bigotry is rife either in Go-B's land. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 1838 Registered: 05-2005 |
BBGHTO is a very fine mag and I sometimes pick up a copy along with Uncut, Mojo, NME and The Word. Rob, I disagree about The Go-Betweens not being a guy band. I think they very much are. This board proves it. Any Go-Betweens concert I've been to also proves it. It's not, obviously, that their music is aggressive in any way, it's that their music appeals mostly to obsessive, trainspotterish types. And that generally requires XY chromosomes. mmm Coopers Red is a lovely ale. | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 1030 Registered: 08-2006 |
Padraig, I didn't mean "not a guy band" in the sense of not appealing to guys. I guess I meant it more in terms of them playing a kind of music that would seem to appeal to women as well as men. If their female fan base is small compared to their male one, I think it's largely because men are more likely to be obsessive and trainspotterish, making it more likely they'd discover and embrace a pretty obscure band like the GBs. Most women I know are music fans, not music obsessives, and I think the GBs just fall under the radar for them. I really don't think it has anything to do with the music, which seems squarely equal-opportunity to me. | ||
| spence Member Username: Spence Post Number: 1883 Registered: 05-2005 |
Rob, that's not stricly true from my experience, young females are more obsessed and know more about abnd follow the new groups and music than ever before. The Internet has allowed this to happen more so than many moons ago. Female friends I know and friends and girlfriends of people I know, are as obsessed as I was years ago. The newer generations are much different to the older. They know where its at man and they are obsessed! Actually, when the riot girl thing was big in early 90's, you try going in to a Camden pub at a Huggy Bear gig and try saying they were'nt obsessed! You'd have had have your cobblers chopped off sir! | ||
| Dr Girlfriend Member Username: Doctor_girlfriend Post Number: 15 Registered: 10-2007 |
that's right, spence--we are obsesssed! i think rock and pop music is less masculine than it used to be, esp. the current indie bands. so young women are more into those kind of bands now. i think the dudes who are into macho music are listening to rap and metal, which is kind of an underground style again after being "overground" for awhile. anyway, if the Go-Betweens were a young indie group now, i think lots of chicks would be into them. the reason more aren't is probably because they never heard of them. | ||
| Catherine Vaughan Member Username: Catherine Post Number: 345 Registered: 05-2005 |
Randy, you touched on the other aspect of the problem, which is just as bad - that women in the music industry are instantly at a disadvantage. That is, unless they're willing to be marketed as little more than w#nk fodder. It really bugs me - my teenage nieces are really into music, and have dreams of starting a band. Trying to find some suitable strong female role-models for them was a damn difficult job. Even going back 40 years, the list is pretty sparse. Lindy made it - The pussyclit sluts didn't... Dr G, in spite of yourself, you went straight to the stereotyping I was talking about. Who's to say that the current indie bands are "less masculine"? Is a woman deemed less feminine, if she likes rap, or metal, or punk? Is a bloke less masculine, if he's a Shins fan?? As to the association of what we here would collectively consider good music with the male gender, and its marketing alongside so-called lad's magazines: A good number of you have some combination of daughters/sisters/nieces, and I'm sure you like to introduce them to the kind of music you listen to, and the associated music magazines. When they next reach for a copy of Uncut, Mojo or NME, and beside it sits BBGHTO, are you inadvertently giving your daughter/sister/niece the message that a woman has no worth other than as something to be ogled? | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 2464 Registered: 03-2006 |
I think Meester Padraig is onto something. The obsessive, trainspotterish behavior is totally a hallmark of the smelly, hairy XY types. This is based totally on anecdotal evidence, but none the less seems true. I've met precious few women that have been into music the way most of us on this board are. For instance, I don't know any women who have more than, say, 100 records. Not that most women I know don't love music, they're just not so obsessive about it in the same way. And as much as I deplore gender-stereotyping, because it's dumb (and hey, I loves me some Joni Mitchell and Feist), the Amazon recommendation thing that vexed you so much, Catherine, was just reflecting reality, a simple correlation of people's buying habits - back. There's no prejudice built into it, I don't think. I believe it's just an algorithm that, based on some pretty voluminous data, correlates peoples' choices: people who bought a also bought b... So, it's society that's f-ed up, not Amazon (at least not for those reasons). I confess, though - those recommendations annoy me -usually because they're so accurate. | ||
| Catherine Vaughan Member Username: Catherine Post Number: 348 Registered: 05-2005 |
That was what was most annoying - other times they have been scarily accurate. As regards gender stereotyping, I decided to hold off on the irate letter to Amazon, though - I figured if I complained, they'd start recommending Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, or The Gossip/Indigo Girls!!! | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 2465 Registered: 03-2006 |
I know what you mean - I was completely demoralized when I bought something and got back a recommendation for the Pussyclit Sluts. I guess it was that subscription to "Maxim" I bought. | ||
| XY765 Member Username: Judge Post Number: 363 Registered: 01-2006 |
Yoiks, form now on please refer to me as 765! | ||
| XY765 Member Username: Judge Post Number: 364 Registered: 01-2006 |
LK, 'hairy XY types'?? I'm the other kind heh heh... | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 1034 Registered: 08-2006 |
That whole Amazon recommendation thing is a mixed bag. I've been ordering from Amazon for years, but you order one Lilly Allen record and suddenly your "recommended for you" page is filled with sparkly lip gloss and Hannah Montana DVDS. I buy a lot of cookbooks, (take that, gender police!) and I have gotten some really good recommendations in that area. In music, though, they don't seem to know what to do with a genre-hopper. I think it confuses their algorithms. | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 820 Registered: 09-2006 |
LK, It might be just me, but I'm a little confused...if obsessive music love/collecting is a hallmark of the male...then where are all these new obsessed female fans mentioned above suddenly coming from? Is DNA changing? Or, more likely, was that obsessiveness always lurking within many women but (as within so many other societal arenas that've changed over the years) now it's far more encouraged than it used to be, so women are stepping forward? | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 821 Registered: 09-2006 |
Agreed with your point there, Rob. | ||
| spence Member Username: Spence Post Number: 1885 Registered: 05-2005 |
It depends who you know as to if you think people not just men are obsessed with music. Of all the people I have known over the years, the females were not just hangers on, they had big record collections. There were gangs of females who used to run clubs and bne in bands around the C86 time and before and beyond that period. I spent most of my late teens and twenties with people who were maing their living out of being succesful in music, and people who were not successful in music, women were there all the way, with the same amount of passion and trainspotting bollocks as the hairy arses! I tell ye all, I saw it with me very own eyes mista!!! | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 2467 Registered: 03-2006 |
Dunno, Allen. That question's above my pay grade. I was just, as I said, speaking from anecdotal evidence. Possibly things are changing - maybe a really smart evolutionary psychologist like Robert Wright could answer that question. As much as I abhor intellectually lazy stereotyping, as well as any intimation that the sexes aren't equal, at the same time, there are hardwired differences that are impossible to ignore. To pretend otherwise is, I think, naive. | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 822 Registered: 09-2006 |
But it seems (also just from my own personal experience and what I've read) that once you start asking people what exactly those hardwired differences are you get tons of different answers...and each person has a different answer as to what possession of those differences "means". I do have a fairly personal stake in these things, as ever since I was young (probably ever since I was born) I've been more on the cusp of gender - male in basic biological form, with a number of personality traits societally ascribed as male, but just as many that are ascribed as female. And I don't think I'm an exception. | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 2469 Registered: 03-2006 |
Lucky you, Allen. I would imagine that affords some extra smoothness and simpatico in your dealings with the womens. | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 824 Registered: 09-2006 |
I dunno if lucky is the word... , more, say happy with the way I truly am. And not to belabor my point ad nauseum, but I did want to add that in my observation there are plenty of people who truly dolean more toward the traditional male or female type, but there are also plenty of people who are somewhere else along the scale between those two types. I think we need all three, that the world would be a lot happier if everyone were exactly who they felt they were inside, and that building up the kind of false dichotomies I mentioned way back at the top does nothing but hinder that and make people ashamed of who they are. OK, stepping off the soapbox now... | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 2471 Registered: 03-2006 |
Well put, AB. And, to me, the best way to avoid false dichotomies is to remember that the differences don't equal deficiencies. Just because women are smarter, more intuitive and empathetic, and communicate and smell better than we males, is no reason for them to get all superior on our asses! | ||
| spence Member Username: Spence Post Number: 1886 Registered: 05-2005 |
Jeez you two are like Frasier and Nialls Crane! I feel like Marty! | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 825 Registered: 09-2006 |
Is that some kind of insult, spence, huh, is it? Oh, and just to thread-jump for a sec: LK, if you're interested here's a pretty thoughtful sumup of Eyes Wide Shut by Roger Ebert. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs .dll/article?AID=/19990716/REVIEWS/90716 0302/1023 | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 2472 Registered: 03-2006 |
Hey thanks. Well done summing up. That might be the first time in my life I've heard the expression "rumpy pumpy". Btw, I was set to watch another flick from the Kubrick set, but realized I didn't have the cojones. Way darker than I've been in the mood for. Ironically, I realized that the ultra-bleak Eyes Wide Shut is the lightest movie of the bunch! I watched the extras disc for EWS and, though it was a little light on stuff about the themes of the movie, it had some interesting insights into the man. Nice little crib and cabbage patch he had, eh? Solly, Spence. All posts in future will revert back to the hallowed subjects of sex, drugs and rock and roll! | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 826 Registered: 09-2006 |
Indeed, and I like his priorities a lot...passion for making his movies, but it has to be within a day's reach of his house, so he's not separated from the family. Sort of gives the lie to the idea of him as a cold motherf***er. I've heard the term "rumpy pumpy" before, but I can't remember exactly where...Google, here I come. And 2001 is actually very optimistic, though as I'm sure you know it moves at a very meditative pace. Maybe try the extras for that one first... | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 1416 Registered: 03-2005 |
Are you reading this thread, Christina? This is a perfect place for exploration of the different ways the genders communicate. I personally love stereotypes. I drive the people I know crazy with them. But, generally, they are my own stereotypes founded on my own observations and I always try to remember to attach an asterisk to each of them. When I am proven wrong for the umpteenth time, I just recite "that's the exception that proves the rule!" Allen's right; there's a continuum for just about everything in people. The point to my first post on here is that the music world tends to want to shove people into little boxes, really small arbitrary ones. If one of those boxes fits you well, you are lucky. If not . . . . Catherine, my thought is that your neices can use anybody as a model. They can use male bands as a model and then introduce their variation on it by being unselfconsciously female. That can be their contribution. | ||
| joe Member Username: Dogmansuede Post Number: 333 Registered: 07-2006 |
nice one randy. further still, other music nuts will put you in said boxes. they're kind of pervasive like that. i think you have NOTHING to worry about catherine. paris hilton hasn't got anything on the influence your nieces will grant you. just make sure you're there when they come a looking! everything i learned up until the age of 15 i got from the women that raised me.....my mother, four sisters and madonna. to this day i'm alarmed at how much time in my life i allocate/make for women, as opposed to that i do for the other lot. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 1845 Registered: 05-2005 |
Rob, what you said was exactly what I meant! Your NPR training allowed you to flesh it out a bit more is all! |