Week 3.

I am somebody who would most certainly lose an L-Train battle.  My playlist^th Floor Elevator and Serge Gainsberg to Guns n Roses and Kanye West. If my playlist was spied on by a complete stranger they would probably conclude that I had a personality disorder.

 However, I I’m a serial offender when it comes to judging people based on their music tastes. Not quite to the extent it seems of those on the L-train. I don’t share the opinion that if a band is hard to find they must be good; quite the opposite. It seems common sense to me that if a band is at least half decent their music would be in a record store or at least on iTunes. Yes, a record store.

So if what this week’s reading by Levy and our lecture content is true, does this mean my personal and social capital would take a beating? With a somewhat hypocritical view of music snobbery I must say it most certainly would. The reading by Levy linked Goffman’s theories of impression management to deliberately making playlists "trendy". I dont see this happening to my admittedly terrible iTunes account. I dont listen to the music I do to be cool, I listen to it because I like it. Sometimes that means Beck is playing, and sometimes it's Meat Loaf.

Reference List

Levy, S. (2006). The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture and Coolness, New York: Simon & Schuster, pp. 21-41. Available on Course Materials Database (CMD) via QUT Library website.