Boring is the New Boring

Last.fm

As someone nearer to her forties than her twenties, I listen to a lot of "boring" music. Boring, I realize is not only a loaded, but an ambiguous, term, though for most music fans boring means the kind of pleasant, unchallenging "grown up" rock typified by the adult contemporary radio your parents used to play in their Taurus. Today it means long-time critics' favorites like Wilco and Feist. Steven Hyden for the Onion's AV Club  examines this new brand of boring:

Boring” is its own genre. It is a code word that instantly conjures artists with clearly definable attributes. “Boring” music is slow to mid-tempo, mellow, melodic, pretty in a melancholy way, catchy, poppy, and rooted in traditional forms. It is popular (or popular-ish). It is tasteful, well-played, and meticulously produced. (Or it might sound like it was recorded in somebody’s bedroom under the influence of weed and Sega Genesis.) It is “easy to like”—or more specifically, “easy for white people to like” (“white people” being a sub-group of white people singled out by other white people). It is critically acclaimed (perhaps the most critically acclaimed music there is), and yet music critics relish taking “boring” musical artists down a peg more than any other kind of artist.

He goes on to say that boring isn't the critical death it seems to be, and that making music for adults is a fine thing to do; however, he only briefly touches on the correlation between "boring" music, and music made by white people for other white people. Boring can also means a sort of cultural paucity -- a lack of "exoticness," which is troubling because it others artists and their audiences who fall outside the white, middle-class standard. (And artists who step out of that often risk appropriating styles that aren't theirs -- see Vampire Weekend.)

Hyden made another good point about "boring" music not resonating with the listener. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this, as the myth of universality is just that -- a myth. I don't think fans should have to force themselves to listen to music like a five-year-old choking down his vegetables. If it's not happening, it's probably not  gonna, and I think there's too much made -- among critics and fans -- about not "getting" a certain artist. Everyone brings their own cultural baggage, and liking something, even if it's a silly piece of pop music, is often more complicated than "I just don't like the way this sounds."