From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V19 #81 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Saturday, October 8 2011 Volume 19 : Number 081 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: How do you work this thing? [Rex Broome ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 8 Oct 2011 09:43:04 -0700 From: Rex Broome Subject: Re: How do you work this thing? On Sat, Oct 8, 2011 at 8:20 AM, Miles Goosens wrote: > I get 'not judging a band by its fans,' and I belong to a couple of > subsets myself (the Cure, the Smiths/Morrissey) where I wouldn't > identify myself to a new acquaintance as a fan right away lest they > think they're going to be subjected to my dire death-dirge poetry, > which I'll be reading to them from my ER bed as I recover from my > fourth botched suicide attempt. But I have never had a particular > negative association with the R.E.M. fanbase, at least before the new > wave of shallow strummy yuppies who came into the fold after OOT and > Automatic. So this caught me a bit off guard. I hear this completely (although I'm not a Smiths fan, you could certainly plug in a not dissimilar band from among my favorites). I do have somewhat of a negative association with the R.E.M. fans who've been moaning about the death of the band since forever... that's a drag, move on, people. We've all had our moments of disenchantment with favorite artists, but some R.E.M. fans seemed to have a really hard time moving on. However, that negative steretype can't possibly register outside fandom... normal people would have no more clue about that than the name of the songs on the latest disposable Rush album, I'd think. Miles makes a point by mentioning the SSY's (sing "shallow strummy yuppies" to the tune of "Shiny Happy People") but I've never been sure if that fanbase considers itself ardent supporters of R.E.M. per se (outside the realm of facile support of their "right-on" politics)... I have tended to see those people as liking the folky strummy sensitivity thing but overall wishing that R.E.M. would be less weird, hence the need for Live, Toad, Gin Blossoms etc. to begin with. I could be way wrong. ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V19 #81 *******************************