Burge 1

Sydni Burge

Professor Gardiakos

ENC1102

7 April 2023

The Indie Music Complex: How does the Way People Discuss and Critique Popular Music Differ from the

Way they Discuss and Critique Music they Perceive as “Underground”?

Introduction

Music is, and has been for thousands of years, an integral part of human culture. It is non-

negotiable that, music is a universally defining characteristic of culture. Thus, conversations

surrounding music are a frequent tool used to connect ourselves to those around us. I thoroughly

believe the language people use to discuss popular music vastly differs from the language people

use to discuss music they believe they “discovered” themself. In this text, I will be focusing on

culture and music in the United States of America, as it is the culture and music I am most

familiar with and can do the most thorough research on. There is a deep sense of hyper-

individuality that is often praised in American culture, and I believe this creates the idea that an

individual can be “better” than someone else simply because their taste in music is more unique.

I have a hypothesis that, particularly in online forums, people are more likely to praise music

they champion themselves for uncovering, and oppositely, they are more likely to use bold and

harsh language when critiquing something they think a bigger demographic of people are

familiar with. In the research synthesis section of this research paper, I aim to explore the ways

that hyper-individualism and internalized misogyny in the United States of America can change

the way people discuss music. Additionally, I conducted primary research on both Reddit forums
 Burge 2

curated toward discussing music and long-form content on YouTube, and will be discussing, in

the Methods section, how my findings here connect to hypotheses proposed and secondary

research conducted in the Research Synthesis section.

Research Synthesis

Hyper-individualist culture in the United States of America

Cultural norm in The United States highly emphasizes the idea of being completely self-

sustained, we are meant to move out at 18, and we are praised when we work multiple jobs to

put ourselves through college and pay our rent, so why wouldn’t we want to develop taste that is

hyper-individualistic as well. In this section, I would like to contemplate this question: “Does

our population, as a whole, feel more isolated than others? How does that affect our psyche, and

the way we interact with popular culture?”

Before I present the data I am analyzing, It should be made clear, that when referring to

American culture, I am referring to the dominant culture in the United States. Culture in non-

mainland states such as Hawai’i and Alaska, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam are

generally outliers in this sense.

Based on data collected, The claim that the American population is highly individualistic

by virtue is heavily supported. Takeshi Hamamura brings up many insightful points about the

link between individualism and the Modernization Theory in his article “Are Cultures Becoming

Individualistic? A Cross-Temporal Comparison of Individualism–Collectivism in the United

States and Japan”, The modernization theory states that individualism is a direct cause of

modernization, as modernization is the cause of stratified socioeconomic status (SES), and SES

leads to a rise of individualism in the culture of a society. (Hamamura, 5). Essentially,

individuals of a higher SES are more likely to crave a sense of uniqueness that is linear to
 Burge 3

propelling their status. Though American culture is not a monolith, it is clear that (especially

when the subject being studied is of a white, Anglo-Saxon background) being an individual with

high SES is a value held high in American society. Collectivism, oppositely, among individuals

of a non-American background, does not correlate with an inherent need for uniqueness.

Additionally, places with a higher Collectivism Index have lower SES per capita (Vandello and

Cohen, 284-287). So, if a sense of cultural hyper-individualism correlates positively with

socioeconomic success, it is clear why it is an ideal most American citizens chase so closely.

It is also important to note the ideal of “freedom” upheld so intensely in American culture

is also a pillar of individualism. The very ideas are so intertwined, making it clear why

individualist culture is so engrained in the United States. Richard M. Ryan found it was difficult

to differentiate between autonomy and individualism when discussing self-determination theory1.

If the idea of individualism being so equivalent to autonomy adds insight to the American

psyche, it is a very human desire to be fully autonomous, thus, when we equate this to

individualism, we believe that to be autonomous is to be unique.

This concept, in and of itself, Is also nothing new. Music has always been an avenue for

escapism and to express one’s uniqueness and a counter-culturalist identity. Progressive rock

fans in the 1970s even began to turn sour to their favorite bands when they believe it is no longer

a unique interest. It is human nature to want to be interesting, and oftentimes, enjoying the most

popular thing is something we view as inherently nonspecial.

1
Self-determination theory is a psychoanalytical macro theory connecting human growth tendencies to psychological needs. It is

studied in the absence of external influence and pertains to motivation behind choices. Cites autonomy, relatedness and competence as the

deciding factors for motivation.

 Burge 4

these ideals are more likely to heavily critique what they perceive as popular, and praise interests

they believe they developed on their own. It should also be noted that cultures of a lower

collectivist culture ranking have lower rates of behavioral self-control, as seen in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1- Li, Vazsonyi and Dou on "correlation between individual-level individualism and collectivism with attitudinal and
behavioral self-control"

It is possible that the lack of importance placed on behavioral self-control culturally leads to the

individualism complex.

“I’m not like other girls: I don’t like Taylor Swift,”

This portion of my paper will be dedicated to observations of how people perceive music

that is made by women, or primarily enjoyed by teenage girls. I have a hypothesis that, when

breaking down psychoanalytical research on the ways music in primarily female spaces is

received, I will be able to find a link between female hatred for music enjoyed by women and a

culturally imposed “need” to be differentiated from other women. In essence, the hyper-

individualist desire to feel special. Utilizing secondary research, I will be answering the

following questions “Why do we (American women) care?”, and “Does it all come down to

other’s perception of us, and thus, our perception of ourselves?”, “Do women believe they are

only good enough, if they are different from other women?” and, lastly “How does this tie back

to hyper-individualism in America?”.

The deep-rooted institution of misogyny greatly impacts the way we interact with music

created by or primarily enjoyed by women. It can be assumed a lot of this comes from the
 Burge 5

religious-fundamentalist framework American culture was essentially founded on. In a research

paper on the sexist ideology of young women, Adrian Dehlin and Renee Galliher make

interesting points about how if religious fundamentalism is so deeply engrained in the brains of

young women, prevalence of gender roles in the fundamentalist framework creates deep

internalized misogyny (355). They state that internalized misogyny is comprised of both “self-

objectification,” and “passive acceptance of gender roles” (256). They also hypothesize that

“conservative religious and political affiliations support adherence to traditional, rigid gender

attitudes,” and the very same rigid religious affiliation is deep-rooted in the American

Conservative political culture, and women raised in it would clearly be more susceptible to a

misogynistic outlook. Similarly, in Sue Einhorn’s article, she makes the assertion that,

“The [first level, public persona, second level, critical chorus and third level, the

secret cage of emotions] aspect of female development…are part and parcel of

becoming a daughter and a woman. A mother wants to protect her daughter from

the dangers of the world outside the home. One of the safest ways to protect

daughters is to encourage conformity. This will include the importance of

inculcating shame, including the shame of desire.” (488)

Einhorn also consistently references two works of painter Paula Rego in her analysis,

both painting depicting motherhood and the concept of the “invisible woman, pictured below:

Einhorn, piggybacking off these

paintings, makes many

intriguing points about what she

coins as “generational torch

passing,” of internalized
Figure 2- Paula Rego's Painting Him In
Figure 3- Paula Rego's 54 of 55
 Burge 6

misogyny. Generational fear creates a compliance to the will of men, masculine ideals and the

patriarchy.

In Sarah Baker’s article, “’Rock on Baby!’: pre-teen girls and popular music,” Baker

makes compelling arguments about young girls creating the demand for popular music. Young

girls interacting with music helps them form a “cultural identity,” by which they navigate the

world (367). Which creates an interesting perspective when combined with above evidence

depicting evidence of the origins of internalized misogyny, and I believe this provides a valuable

insight on why American women interact with popular culture the way they do.

In Diane Pecknold’s paper “The Politics of Voice in Tween Girls Music Criticism,”

through group discussion with girls ages eight to thirteen, analyzes the practice of policing

women’s voices in intellectual musical conversation. Pecknold notes that the “critical

judgements [of teen girls] are routinely dismissed, especially when these are made publicly

visible as expressions of shared emotion and fandom.”

Additionally, Sam De Boise makes many interesting points about men interacting with

music primarily made and/or enjoyed by women in his article “Music and misogyny: a content

analysis of misogynistic, antifeminist forums.” De Boise makes an interesting observation about

how anti-feminist forum members discuss Meghan Trainor:

“Megan Trainor was the third most commonly mentioned artist, although all of

these posts were negative. Most of the posts about her used overtly misogynistic

language (for example ‘bitch’ or ‘slut’) and there was hostility to two songs in

particular (‘All About that Bass’ and ‘Dear Future Husband’), which were widely

played on radios in English-speaking countries in 2014 and 2015 respectively.

The number of mentions she received here may therefore be explained by the
 Burge 7

intersections of increased popularity of MRA sites and discussions of messages in

music from 2014–2016, the airplay that the songs received and what were

perceived as the ‘feminist messages’ of the song.” (470)

Whereas, when discussing artists such as Eminem and Kanye West, comments were “more

positive than negative,” (471). It should also be mentioned that “. Negative judgments were also

significantly more likely to be exercised,” when acknowledging female-led bands.

Women have a deeply engrained and highly individualistic idea that to be worthy of an

autonomous existence, they must differentiate themselves from other women by any means

possible. Thus, women will interact with popular culture with the underlying nuance of

generationally passed down internalized misogyny.

Methods and Results

r/MyMusicIsBetterThanYours

My primary research is really honed in on the way music is discussed and critiqued in a

Figure 3- Reddit Bar Graph from post on subreddit r/rap casual setting. The nature of Reddit, its

highly specific chat forums and vast user-

base, makes it the perfect place to study

conversations about music. For multiple

days, I dove into subreddits r/rap, r/Music,

r/indiemusic, r/hiphop101 and r/fan-

tanoforever, looked into posts I found

could incite criticism, or ones that flatly

encouraged it and took notes on the lan-

guage of the users replying. There is a

 Burge 8

post on r/rap that begs the question “Who is this?” followed by a bar graph, pictured above (Fig-

ure 3), and votes were cast in the form of comments beneath the post.

Receiving the most votes out of the 321 comments I originally studied, was Isis Gaston

(known professionally as “Ice Spice”), who received an astonishing 89 votes. Multiple comments

critiqued her by stating things like “she’s only famous because she’s attractive,” which I believe

showcases blatant refusal to acknowledge female success beyond physical attributes. Ice Spice’s

audience is primarily that of teenage girls, as Pecknold would argue, “dismissal of girls’ critical

response to music,” is commonplace, and “ when we fail to take girls’ musical engagement seri-

ously, we overlook an opportunity to understand one of the central mechanisms by which they

become political thinkers and actors,” and, it can be argued that dismissal of Ice Spice’s wide-

spread success is a dismissal of the tastes of young girls involved in the musical criticism dis-

course community. It is

common in this dis-

course community to

equate women to sex

objects, members of the

subreddit are often un-

able to recognize at-

tributes existing outside

of the male gaze.

Artists such as

Aubrey Drake Graham

(known professionally Figure 3- statistics of the contents of replies to above-mentioned r/rap post.
 Burge 9

by the monomer “Drake”), Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. (“Snoop Dogg”) and Justin Bieber are

also commonly critiqued on said Reddit post, amassing a total of 86 votes combined. All three

artists were referred to most commonly as “overrated,” followed closely by “corny,” and, a com-

ment that stood out in particular was referring to the artists as “cringe.” It is my personal belief

that the reason for this is their lack of appeal to the individualist complex, and the American re-

fusal to embrace that which can be seen as a conformist interest. Hamamura suggests that the re-

fusal to enjoy something “collectivist,” arises from a desire to “afford means of autonomous de-

cision making,” (5). Everyone (even outside of America) knows of them, thus enjoying them is

not unique nor “autonomous,” (5).

It is also important to note the widespread (and highly criticized) popularity of Matthew

Raymond Hauri (known professionally as “Yung Gravy”) and Jack Harlow, and their combined

43 votes under the above-mentioned post. Both artists are primarily enjoyed by young women on

the app TikTok. The primary criticism they were given beneath the post included the term

“corny,” and they often received flack for a lack of creativity, and only receiving success be-

cause they were “cornering the market of the funny white rapper,” Both Hauri and Harlow have

received criticism for becoming famous from a gimmick, and it can definitely be asserted that

neither artist appeals to the North American ideal of individualism.

It is important to mention, that on Reddit forums such as r/music, pop artist Taylor Swift

receives mass amounts of criticism from anonymous Reddit users. Though Swift is consistently

praised for songwriting by professional music critics, she tends to face intense criticism online.

She is hitting, what I like to refer to as the female musician glass ceiling, defined by the idea that

women can only become so successful in the music industry before they’re surrounded by more

criticism than praise. Swift is also often toted as “corny” on Reddit, and “overrated.” Addition-
 Burge 10

ally, if you go back to commentary about Swift from about 2014, they often refer to her figure as

“boyish,” and demean the artist for a lack of curve in her figure. However, now, commentary

about her music is overshadowed by comments proceeding her recent weight gain, with many

Reddit users asserting she might be pregnant. Once again, it is commonplace on these forums to

equate women to sex objects and base her worth on how attracted to her they are. It should also

be noted that Swift is one of the most popular artists internationally, surpassing 87 million

monthly listeners on Spotify, and 37 million monthly users on Apple Music. Thus, it can be

noted that Swift also does not appeal to the ideal of individualism.

Long Form Album Reviews on YouTube

I find that YouTube is a hub for incredibly detailed musical analysis. I also believe peo-

ple are a little less emboldened on YouTube than they are on Reddit, as YouTube lacks in Red-

dit’s anonymity factor. Considering that, I found YouTube to be a valuable source in analyzing

the semantics of those who review music online. In particular, I will be analyzing Anthony Fan-

tano’s reviews of Billie Eilish’s debut album WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE

GO? and his review of her sophomore album Happier Than Ever and comparing and contrasting

the descriptive language he uses in his review of both. Additionally, I will be analyzing the same

creator’s reviews of Claire Cottrill’s (professionally known as Clairo) debut album Immunity and

her sophomore album Sling.

Fantano gives Eilish’s first album a “soft seven [out of 10]” and refers to her former mu-

sic as “boring”, stating he doesn’t particularly care for her EP Don’t Smile at Me. He later praises

the EP as a good introduction to the music world and praises her lyrical skill throughout the track

list. Uncharacteristically, Fantano praises the lead single on the album, “Bad Guy”, which is un-

like his critiques of other lead singles from the next three albums I will be discussing. He does
 Burge 11

occasionally state he doesn’t quite understand her rise to fame and attributes it partially to the na-

ture of her mother formerly being an actress. However, it is my belief that this may just be his re-

action to Eilish hitting what I have previously referred to as the female artist glass ceiling, as he

does not make the same claims about her brother, FINNEAS.

Fantano gives Eilish’s sophomore album a “solid six [out of ten]” and additionally de-

scribes the album as a “disappointing follow up” to her “promising,” debut LP. In this review he

praises WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? for its stylistic choices, in order

to critique stylistic choices made in this LP. However, it should be noted that, in his review of

Eilish’s debut album, he critiqued these very same stylistic choices he praises in this review.

Fantano also refers to this album “lacking organization” occasionally, despite the fact that it has

been critically acclaimed for its continuing themes and throughlines. Additionally, he critiques

the lead single on this album, entitled “Happier Than Ever” in spite of its widespread critical ac-

claim. He states the stylistic switch in the middle of the track is “jarring” and claims the rock-

style backing instrumentals sound like they were “stolen off a Radiohead album from the 90s”. It

can be said that Fantano’s declining taste for Eilish’s music aligns greatly with what Johnes ob-

served about public reception of the band Genesis. Johnes states that in spite of Genesis’ rise to

fame due to their anti-conformist style, they later had “gone commercial,” and many fans com-

plained of things like the fact that “their mother liked the last single,” (128) and I believe Billie

Eilish is being critiqued for similar things following the album Happier Than Ever.

As for Clairo’s debut album, he gives it a “solid five [out of ten]”, in spite of the album’s

98% enjoyment rate on Google Reviews. In this review he also praises Clairo’s music and niche

before the success of her viral hit “Pretty Girl”. In this review he refers to the album as “half-

baked,” and “lacking originality”. There is a point where he describes “Sophia”- arguably the
 Burge 12

most popular song on the album, and one of the most popular songs in Clairo’s discography- as

“some bedroom pop vocals layered over an instrumental she could’ve stolen from the Strokes”.

Lastly, Fantano rates Cottrill’s sophomore album Sling a “solid seven [out of ten]”, again,

in spite of a 97% enjoyment rate on Google reviews. Fantano also refers to Cottrill’s music as

“generic bedroom pop,” when she has been referred to by critics as someone who has been

“praised for her candid and unguarded songwriting,” (Rhian Daly) which is a wildly contrasting

statement from the first one. Unsurprisingly, in this review, he critiques the most popular song

off the LP, “Blouse” as being both “boring,” and “generic,” however, he does praise Cottrill’s

lyricism on the track, and states he appreciates the message of the song.

Discussion/Implications

I believe based on the evidence that I have both analyzed and collected it is clear that

American ideals of both misogyny and individualism greatly impact discussions made in the

music criticism discourse community. Both Baker and Pecknold made interesting points, and

really drove home the idea that femininity is equivalent to weakness creates the idea that women

cannot contribute anything intellectual to conversations concerning music critique. Young girls

create popular fan culture, so if pop culture can be equated to femininity and femininity can be

equated to weakness, enjoying popular culture becomes a negative attribute. Which also creates

the idea that women cannot create music that is integral or worth note to the music industry,

connecting Baker and Pecknold’s findings to that of De Boise, whose primary research was a

great inspiration for my own. De Boise’s findings, combined with my own research conducted

on Reddit forums, really solidify the idea that there is indeed a glass ceiling for female creators

in the music industry.

 Burge 13

Additionally, I believe my primary research conducted on Anthony Fantano’s YouTube

channel greatly reflect claims about American hyper-individualism made in the first section. I

believe both avenues of research can be considered an insightful way to view the community.

If I were to do this again, I would have liked to allot more time to conducting research on

long-form content on YouTube, as I believe I could have gone further in depth with my claims

had I analyzed creators separate from Anthony Fantano. Regardless, I think interesting points

were made about the implications of hyper-individualist and misogynistic complexes of

(specifically American) members of the music critique discourse community.

 Burge 14

Works Cited

Baker, Sarah. “‘Rock on, Baby!’: Pre-Teen Girls and Popular Music.” Continuum (Mount Law-

ley, W.A.) 15.3 (2001): 359–371. Web.

De Boise, Sam. “Music and Misogyny: a Context Analysis of Misogynistic, Antifeminist Fo-

rums.” Popular Music, vol. 39, no.3-4, 2020, pp. 459-481.

Dehlin, Adrian J., and Renee V. Galliher. “Young Women’s Sexist Beliefs and Internalized

Misogyny: Links With Psychosocial and Relational Functioning and Political Behavior.”

Psi Chi journal of psychological research 24.4 (2019): 255–246. Web.

Einhorn, Sue. (2021). “From a woman’s point of view. How internalized misogyny affects rela-

tionships between women.” Group Analysis, 54(4), 481–498.

Fantano, Anthony. “Billie Eilish- Happier Than Ever ALBUM REVIEW” 5 August 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wSYxjEIAr8

Fantano, Anthony. “Billie Eilish- When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? ALBUM RE-

VIEW” 19 April 2019 https://youtu.be/L9fWqfDby9U

Fantano, Anthony. “Clairo- Immunity ALBUM REVIEW” 7 August 2019 https://www.y-

outube.com/watch?v=7kJNJCzFeFM

Fantano, Anthony. “Clairo- Sling ALBUM REVIEW” 21 July 2021 https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=VJylCsmlXUk

Hamamura, Takeshi. “Are Cultures Becoming Individualistic? A Cross-Temporal Comparison of

Individualism–Collectivism in the United States and Japan.” Personality and social psy-

chology review 16.1 (2012): 3–24. Web.

Johnes, Martin. “Consuming Popular Music: Individualism, Politics and Progressive Rock.”

Cultural and social history 15.1 (2018): 115–134. Web

 Burge 15

Li, Jian-Bin, Alexander T. Vazsonyi, and Kai Dou. “Is Individualism-Collectivism Associated

with Self-Control? Evidence from Chinese and US Samples.” PLoS ONE 13.12 (2018):

e0208541–e0208541. Web.

Pecknold, Diane. "The Politics of Voice in Tween Girls' Music Criticism." Jeunesse: Young

People, Texts, Cultures, vol. 9, no. 2, winter 2017, pp. 69+.

Vandello, Joseph A, and Dov Cohen. “Patterns of Individualism and Collectivism Across the

United States.” Journal of personality and social psychology 77.2 (1999): 279–292. Web.