"You need time and attention to cultivate popular tastes, too."
Nope. I can just walk into Borders or B&N on the way home from work, and buy whatever's bestselling in the CD section. Done in a minute or two. (I walk to work.) What's featured or popular on iTunes? Done in a minute or two. I can just listen to what's on the Radio. Heck, I can just go to retail outlets, and they're playing this stuff for me.
The mainstream is still the most convenient, because it has the most resources behind it, because it's still the most profitable. Additionally, the mainstream is an enabler of uncultivated taste -- the ultimate convenience, the ultimate luxury of ignorance.
(In the interest of disclosure, I have played Irish Trad music for over two decades, and my preference for entertaining myself musically is to make it myself!)
You know, you'd be surprised but I don't have the slightest damned idea what the best selling music is right now. A pop song can come out and I don't hear it for weeks. And I don't own a radio outside of my car.
There's a slight bump when you get into something esoteric for the first time, but afterwards, you just kind of naturally lose touch.
There's a slight bump when you get into something esoteric for the first time, but afterwards, you just kind of naturally lose touch.
Not only have I been doing Irish Trad for 20 years, I've also taught it in a music school and competed overseas in it. Thanks for letting a newbie like me know what it's like to get into something esoteric for the first time.
To be fair, you edited your post after I replied to it. I didn't mean any disrespect; I was simply stating a point.
Are you saying it's more difficult for you to keep up with Irish Trad than it is for you to keep up with pop music? (It obviously takes more time and effort to be a practicing musician than to simply listen to music, but that is a separate question, one that rather confounds my original question.) In other words, are you disagreeing with me, or simply being disagreeable?
But that's my point--playing it yourself is what takes more time, not the obscurity of the music.
It's possible to listen to J-Pop, outside of Japan, for almost as little effort as it takes to listen to local pop on the analog radio. I'd count that as part of the long tail (at least from an American perspective).
Even if you just take the obscurity into account, there is a bit more effort involved. But it's true that we denizens of the Long Tail have used the Internet to make things easier for each other.
My point is that Pop music can get to the point of ubiquity where it takes less than zero effort to get exposed to it. It's just floating out there. The economics drives this.
Nope. I can just walk into Borders or B&N on the way home from work, and buy whatever's bestselling in the CD section. Done in a minute or two. (I walk to work.) What's featured or popular on iTunes? Done in a minute or two. I can just listen to what's on the Radio. Heck, I can just go to retail outlets, and they're playing this stuff for me.
The mainstream is still the most convenient, because it has the most resources behind it, because it's still the most profitable. Additionally, the mainstream is an enabler of uncultivated taste -- the ultimate convenience, the ultimate luxury of ignorance.
(In the interest of disclosure, I have played Irish Trad music for over two decades, and my preference for entertaining myself musically is to make it myself!)