One of the perks of rejecting toxic masculinity ideology is the vast library of enjoyable music that opens up.

I feel like it’s taken for granted that men often don’t like women as lead performers. It must be a Western thing, as I can mentally think of many non-Western examples, the most obvious example of which is Korea.

Unrelated, but my gf was questioning why there’s so few male lead singers in the DPRK. I just assume that it’s because of conscription, but what do I know.

All my cishet guy friends when wet ass pussy starts playing

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Guilty. I remember being a shithead about the Spice Girls waaaaaaaaay back in the day. I don’t even remember why I thought it wasn’t cool.

Because you are supposed to sing along to music in your heart.

If you sing the lady songs, then you aren’t straight and cis.

It doesn’t matter how good the song is.

I sorta want to explore this experience as an outsider, but I’m curious, what was that like?

I don’t think I really thought of my tastes based on the gender of the performer in my youth, I just was into Linkin Park and adjacent stuff because I was an edgy 13 year old rejecting my mom, but to be honest “and adjacent stuff” didn’t include many (any?) female performers. As a ~9 year old I did hate Hansen because a girl I liked liked them (I couldn’t explain how that makes sense, it seems absurd to me in retrospect also), but they were all dudes (target audience was young girls though IIRC). By the time I was making my own listening choices (as a kid, had no influence on the car radio) I didn’t hate pop, just didn’t really seek it out. Hated 80s stuff because my mom only listened to that and “praise songs” but I’ve grown out of that.

Did you listen to artists you liked in secret?

Except to the degree that I was avoiding getting my CDs snapped in half for being “Satanic” no.

How are your music tastes now?

Indie rock/pop mostly. Favorite bands have a mix of male and female vocalists (Stars, San Fermin) some are fronted only by women (Misterwives, Lake Street Dive, Purity Ring, Lucius).

Any recommendations on music that feels different on a revisit?

I like 80s music okay now I guess? Just the hits, don’t seek it out so I don’t know any niche stuff. I definitely recognize that my earlier ill feelings toward it were tied up in “anything my evangelical mom likes is bad by virtue of her liking it.”

I’m telling you all that Cool for the Summer by Demi Lovato is an absolute banger

dudes be missing out

I remember some shit head coworker from McD’s that heard my techno playing in my car once and said “omg bro ur listening to N’Sync?!?!?” And I never heard the end of it. Fuck I hated growing up as a boy. And I hated the shame put on me for certain things, so I ended up listening to my stuff more privately. In public, it was crappy early 2000’s metal.

Umm, I never noticed. I’ve always listened to anything I like. I have lots of female artist in my MP3 collection.

I love Alicia Keys (seen her in concert), Sarah Barellis, Lana del Rey, Nora Jones… lots more!

In my personal experience it feels like people have been better about this sort of thing. Or maybe it’s just that as I’ve grown older and am around older people we just don’t give a fuck anymore. But I do remember when I was younger there certainly was that stigma.

Guilty, and i was pretty aware of it as I grew older.

Its been less so as my perspective on gender changed over the years. Plus gaining interest in more types of music, and particularly also making music, chopping up vocal samples

https://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/interviews/burial_unedited-transcript

Wire: The people on the album seem like wounded or mutilated angels: angels whose wings have been clipped, or who have been trapped or betrayed.

Burial: Yeah. When you think of some of things people go through, everyday troubles, relationship things, other stuff. Everyone knows those sorts of feelings. I wanted to do songs about that low-key stuff. There are a couple of tunes with the vocal to do with angels on it. Sometimes I’d be hearing a song … I was worrying, I’d made all these dark tunes, and I played ‘em to my mum, and she didn’t like them. I was going to give up, but she was sweet, telling me, ‘just do a tune, fuck everyone off, don’t worry about it.’ My dog died, and I was totally gutted about that. She was just like, ‘make a tune, cheer up, stay up late, make a cup of tea’. And I rang her mobile twenty minutes later and I’d made that ‘Archangel’ tune, and I was like, ‘I’ve made the tune, the tune you told me to make.’ And I heard this vocal and it doesn’t say it but it sounds like ‘archangel’. I like pitching down female vocals so they sound male, and pitching up male vocals so they sound like a girl singing. It can sound sexy as fuck.

Wire: That works. When I listen to the record, I can’t work out whether the vocals belong to males or females. And angels aren’t supposed to have no gender.

Burial: Really? Well that works nice with my tunes, kind of half boy half girl, but that can be dark too. Sometimes in a mirror people see the devil’s face for a second, that wrong aspect, the eyes, in your own. When you are young you are pushed around by forces that are nothing to do with you. You’re lost, most of the time you don’t understand what’s going on with yourself, with anything.

Wire: I’ve read you say that you think it’s Ok for women to like your music, that people shouldn’t be frightened of making tunes that women will like.

Burial: But girls love the dark tunes too. I understand that moody thing, but some dance music is too male. It’s dry, Some jungle tunes had a balance, the glow, the moodiness that comes from the presence of both girls and boys in the same tune, there’s tension because it’s close, but sometimes perfect together. Men sometimes exist in this place where they don’t have a fucking clue what girls go through and vice versa. I was brought up most by my mum, I’m my mum’s son. I look like her. I am her. I own female dogs. I don’t know what I’m trying to say, but with my new album – blokes might be, like, ‘what the fuck is this?’ But hopefully their girlfriends will like it. [page break]

Wire: But I think a lot of men want more than blokey music is giving them.

Yeah? They should listen to some Todd Edwards, his tunes melt anyone. People are different, but the media, the world has made them afraid to create their own space around themselves, when they should just close their eyes and trust in themselves. Sometimes a man needs a break from the darkness, and just needs a dose of chirpy, buzzing tunes.

Dua Lipa is more powerful than most men

It’s a deep-seated combination of homophobia and machismo. Singing along to pop music is a very female or queer coded activity in American culture, even though most straight cis men feel exactly the same emotional connections with the song and the desire to sing along. It’s only in very accepting and safe situations that we let loose (and even then, it’s usually a “tee hee I wouldn’t normally do this” sort of situation). I think a lot of men listen to and sing along to pop music while driving, because it’s a private place where they can make a lot of noise without being overheard.

Tbh, I think that the answer is a lot simpler than what you’re expecting, or would prefer. Which at least in my case is mainly that a lot of pop music doesn’t really speak to me at an aesthetic, or emotional level at all.

But I’m also an asshole, who’s music tastes are mostly encapsulated by videogame OST’s. Or if not that, then like very dumb male-led goth rock.

There are also a handful of women-led pop songs that I have liked over the years, but they are almost universally songs from before I was born, for example “Self Control”.

But I ask: Why is it considered bad for straight men to want to listen to a song about how a woman wants to fuck? Volcel Pledge, notwithstanding.

Well I always assumed they were talking about somebody other than me there, so that’d be your answer there.