playing favourites

[darren_stranger]

I was going to do that 20 Favourite Bands meme that's doing the rounds, but i got bogged down in trying to pick the bands. I mean, what exactly are my favourite bands? Does it include those bands where i think most of their songs are crap but the good ones are really, really good? Or those that i used to like, and still listen to the old stuff, but think they've produced mostly shit for the last decade? What about those bands i only own one album by but listen to it all the time, or those that i've liked for 20 years but which haven't been near my stereo for months? What about that local band who i like seeing but never listen to their cd, or the one whose cd i play all the time but never go and see, or that band where i've been listening to the same half dozen .mp3s over and over for the last year but don't know any other songs of theirs?

By the time i managed to pick 20 bands from all of that, and then decided (sometimes almost arbitrarily) on just one song of each as my 'favourite', i'd forgotten just what the point of the exercise was.

Truth be told, i probably don't have 'favourite' bands any more, just bands, songs and styles i like. And of those, i often don't have favourite songs (especially in cases where most of a band's songs sound the same or, conversely, when a band has several different styles that i like for different moods). That's probably become moreso in recent years, where i'll very often get cds mainly to fill holes for styles i might like to listen to, and i'm forever saying "i already have one Dead Kennedys/Cradle of Filth/Cherry Poppin' Daddies cd, so why do i need another?" (Hmm, maybe a band could be a 'favourite' if i do feel the need to seek out more of their stuff, though that's not necessarily what i'll spend more of my time listening to anyway).

Maybe i should do a different meme connected to my favourite songs (i think i still have those) or lines that mean something to me or somesuch.

Edit - Oh yeah, that's what i was going to say: Aside from the question of whether i do have 'favourite bands' (i guess i do have a few), the other reason i didn't finish doing it was because i realised no-one's likely to know these things anyway, so it really wouldn't mean anything if no-one guessed my favourite obscure Damned track, someone picked the obvious Adam Ant song or had a lucky guess on the Ramones. It might be good for a Few Of My Favourite Things name-check, but i tend to use the Current Music box for that anyway.

Comments

[bar-bar-ella.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. Apart from The Damned and Died Pretty, all my other "favourite bands" are just this huge, seething morass... :)

As for collecting stuff... I tend to collect songs, too. It's songs, more than anything, that I'm always trying to track down and have at my disposal. There's only a couple of bands I ever attempted to collect a catalogue of (Damned, obviously, though it's impossible for anyone to own absolutely everything of theirs; Died Pretty, only ever a bit half-heartedly; and The Spikes, a band with limited output so I was actually able to collect "everything" *grin*).

I didn't realise just how difficult to guess most of mine were going to be until I'd posted them up. Maybe I just don't articulate enough to my friends and such "Oh, this is favourite song by XYZ"? *shrug*

Plus, my favourite songs by bands tend to gravitate toward obscure album tracks rather than the "big" obvious songs. I guess I've always tended to go for something that feels like it's a bit more "for me" rather than the masses. Snob that moi is. ;) It doesn't mean I don't love and hug those obvious songs, just that I often seek out something that I feel I can hug tighter to myself than something that was Number 1 for 20 weeks on four continents and one in every three people have it in their record collections.

Or something. Now I'm sounding like a tosser. *shrug*

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

I kind of vary between the obvious and the obscure, depending on what grabs me. Trying to work out my favourite Damned song, i decided in the end on 'Beat Girl' - something i've only known for less than a year, and a cover at that, but that's the one that grabs me most at the moment (and there's another problem - is your 'favourite' the one you like this week, or the one you've had the softest spot for over the years?). On the other hand, for Adam Ant i still couldn't go past 'Stand and Deliver' - sometimes something is overplayed because it's just such a fucking good song (though by the same token, 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' has pretty much been ruined for me by nightclub overkill, which is a shame as it has some of the most poignant lyrics ever).

But as for the 'favourite bands' thing, i don't think i even have a Damned or Died Pretty in that sense, where i can never get enough of whatever they've done (i did once upon a time with the Cure and the Psychedelic Furs, but that was a lifetime ago). The closest these days may be the Ramones, though i always want more of their stuff simply because i've played what i've got to death and need a change. But i still don't go out and buy every Ramones album i can, or even every one i see cheap, as i don't have that "have to have it" eagerness. That's the kind of fandom i haven't had for a long time, and kind of miss to tell the truth.