Opinion: What is music oppression?
Alec Harris, Staff Writer
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The views and opinions expressed in this editorial are solely those of the original author(s) These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of The Vision website or North Greenville University.
Music is a universal language. That being said, some languages are not as appreciated as others. Most people have specific music preferences but can appreciate the commonly loved genres. For some reason, some music genres and artists seem to be shamed and attacked without question by almost everyone. There seem to be a few genres that people feel the same way about around the North Greenville campus.
A genre most people were willing to shut down was screamo music. People have different music tastes for a lot of different reasons. What they listened to as children, the type of music that was present at important times in their lives and other influences are all factors into a person’s music choice. A lot of people don’t have the connection to screamo that a person needs to enjoy it. The people that vouch for it attest to the emotional rawness of the style that no other music genre can touch. Emotional or not, a fair amount of people don’t find it enjoyable.
Another genre that receives a lot of ridicule is a variation of country. Country is beloved and praised by many, but the modern counterpart which is pop country is a pretty generally hated style. There are occasional good songs that appear but they are considered to be few and far between. The people that hate this style the most are the die-hard classic country lovers. They see pop country to be a stain on the country name. Most of the country fans will not admit to any good songs coming out of pop country.
Classic music is not as much disliked as it is just not liked. People can’t really jam out to it. Classic music still definitely has a place and a fair amount of fans, but on the whole it is definitely a less appreciated grouping of music.
Most of the fans of classical music are music majors. Besides them there are not a lot of people who enjoy it. Then again, some classical songs such as “In the Hall of the Mountain King” are universally loved. There are a few reasons for this, most of which come from the music being used in movies and being associated with intense moments.
Nickelback is one of the most universally disliked bands to date. If anyone were to wear their merchandise they would be the object of a fair amount of teasing. There seems to be a cult that consists of the majority of the world dedicated to trash talking the band. The fans of the band live in a fear of mocking if they were to admit to liking the music. The people that don’t like Nickelback tend to absolutely hate it. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of room for a gray area in the debate of liking or hating the band.
There are several other styles of music that are seen as bad and immediately passed off as incapable of making good music. Taylor Swift has become one of the individuals people see as bad without giving a genuine listen to the music. As a whole there are a lot of styles of music that are attacked without question. The people who enjoy those styles don’t need to justify their enjoyment of the music. Everyone can enjoy the music they find to be the best, there doesn’t have to be a universally agreed upon list of good types of music.
