No Accounting for Taste

I’m dropping the Raindrops on Roses label for a second because, although I’m going to be making a recommendation in this post, I’m more interested in reflecting on three different albums and the popular reaction to each of them. With that thesis out of the way:

Justice (or Jus✝ice if you’re being particularly pedantic), is a very popular French House duo, perhaps most well known for their debut album, “✝” (generally referred to as “Cross”, which even the non-pedants use). Songs from this album -- Genesis, D.A.N.C.E., and Waters of Nazareth in particular -- have been used in all sorts of media, from game soundtracks to trailers to even being heavily featured. The film The Square, winner of the 2017 Palme D’Or at Cannes Film Festival, for example, featured Genesis heavily in one of the more prominent scenes in the film (though it is erroneously referred to as “Track Five” when it has never, ever, shown up as the fifth track on any of their albums. Like, it’s not that hard to check that sort of thing, come on). They’ve also done a handful of remixes -- We Are Your Friends, a remix of Never Be Alone by Simian, being the most popular -- and a pair of live albums, but what I want to focus on more is the reaction to their two follow-up albums: “Audio, Video, Disco” and “Woman”.

A popular phrase I’ve seen used to describe the music in ✝ is a prog rock album where they forgot to add the melodies. Obviously this isn’t always true, the three songs on the album with vocals, for example, but Waters of Nazareth especially sounds like a droning baseline with drum hits. And people love it. So when Audio, Video, Disco started adding guitars and other melodious instruments, and when Woman added even more, there was a lot of push back from the people who wanted more of the same.

There’s this idea of fandom and how fandoms develop that revolves around this feeling of ownership. More specifically, people come together around a piece of media because they all like it, but when more media is produced, it naturally fractures the fandom group. Just because they all liked the first thing doesn’t mean they naturally enjoy the second, of course. But because the community exists in the first place, people desperately want the general opinion to match theirs.

So arguments happen. And gradually, as more and more media related to the fandom is released, as the fandom becomes more and more split, the arguments multiply and take over any influence the original creator might have had. I’ve noticed this especially with music, as length between new material is directly proportional to the amount of hype and subsequent backlash that can fracture a group. Audio, Video, Disco wasn’t “✝ 2.0”, so to many it was inferior and not worth even the single listen required to make that judgement.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this. Personally I like both Audio, Video, Disco and Woman, even if some of that appreciation is comparing them with their predecessors. I guess I just wanted to caution against this sort of fan-related groupthink that can occur. “Everyone has their own opinion” is one of those near-meaningless platitudes that people tend to hate, but I hope I explained the sort of viewpoint that leads to it well enough, and maybe in the meantime I gave you one more musical artist to listen to. Just don’t talk about it on the internet.

-F