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Female Music Appreciation Month--A Concern
While I am loving everyone's Female Appreciation Month posts (keep em coming people!) there is something that has started to bother me when I think of all the artists I plan to blog about. And that is that my list is about as anglo-centric as the original triple J list was male-centric.
It occurs to me that the reasons for this are pretty much the same as the likely reasons for the male-centric hottest 100 list too. Basically, I am looking at this project from the same point of view as voting for the hottest 100. I am looking at artists and songs that make my all time favourite list, songs that have a strong emotional impact on me and that have meant something important to me at various stages of my life. Like most people I suspect my music appreciation has been enthusiastic but essentially passive--the music I have come to love is a selection from that which has been presented to me by radio, tv, and by family and friends. I think another contributing factor is that a large part of my enjoyment of music comes from lyrics and the ability to sing along, so I generally enjoy music sung in English more than other languages (or instrumentals). Not great excuses, but I guess this is what it comes down to.
I am not entirely sure what to do about this, but I did want to bring it up and note it as something I could work on in the future. For this month I am going to stick with my intended list, that is, things I either actually voted for in the hottest 100 or would have given more than 10 votes, because at this stage I am blogging for comfort more than anything and that means talking about stuff that I already know and love. But I didn't want this to go unmentioned as I can see how I may be just replicating the behaviour that led to the hottest 100 man songs of all time just with a different set of rules and exclusions. I think that committing to a process of discovery and adding to diversity to my music collection at this stage feels a little beyond me as a project right now (dudes I am 8 and a bit months pregnant!), and though I am also very tempted to say 'give me your recommendations' I kind of feel that is still falling into the passive appreciation trap.
So yeah, no solutions here, but it is something important I wanted to acknowledge.
It occurs to me that the reasons for this are pretty much the same as the likely reasons for the male-centric hottest 100 list too. Basically, I am looking at this project from the same point of view as voting for the hottest 100. I am looking at artists and songs that make my all time favourite list, songs that have a strong emotional impact on me and that have meant something important to me at various stages of my life. Like most people I suspect my music appreciation has been enthusiastic but essentially passive--the music I have come to love is a selection from that which has been presented to me by radio, tv, and by family and friends. I think another contributing factor is that a large part of my enjoyment of music comes from lyrics and the ability to sing along, so I generally enjoy music sung in English more than other languages (or instrumentals). Not great excuses, but I guess this is what it comes down to.
I am not entirely sure what to do about this, but I did want to bring it up and note it as something I could work on in the future. For this month I am going to stick with my intended list, that is, things I either actually voted for in the hottest 100 or would have given more than 10 votes, because at this stage I am blogging for comfort more than anything and that means talking about stuff that I already know and love. But I didn't want this to go unmentioned as I can see how I may be just replicating the behaviour that led to the hottest 100 man songs of all time just with a different set of rules and exclusions. I think that committing to a process of discovery and adding to diversity to my music collection at this stage feels a little beyond me as a project right now (dudes I am 8 and a bit months pregnant!), and though I am also very tempted to say 'give me your recommendations' I kind of feel that is still falling into the passive appreciation trap.
So yeah, no solutions here, but it is something important I wanted to acknowledge.