Class Position and Musical Tastes: A Sing-Off between the

Cultural Omnivorism and Bourdieusian Homology

Frameworks

GERRY VEENSTRA
University of British Columbia

The longstanding debate between the homology and omnivorism

approaches to the class bases of cultural tastes and practices rages on in
cultural sociology. The homology thesis claims that class positions
throughout the class hierarchy are accompanied by specified cultural
tastes and specialized modes of appreciating them while the cultural
omnivorism thesis contends that elites are (increasingly) characterized
by a breadth of cultural tastes of any and all kinds. This study tests the
applicability of these theses to musical tastes in Canada through the
application of multiple correspondence analysis, latent class analysis,
and logistic regression modeling to original telephone survey data (n =
1,595) from Toronto and Vancouver. I find that musical omnivorism, an
appreciation for diverse musical styles, is not dispersed along class lines.
Instead I find a homology between class position and musical tastes that
designates blues, choral, classical, jazz, musical theater, opera, pop,
reggae, rock, and world/international as relatively highbrow and
country, disco, easy listening, golden oldies, heavy metal, and rap as
relatively lowbrow. Of the highbrow tastes, all but jazz are disliked by
lower class people, and of the lowbrow tastes, country, easy listening,
and golden oldies are concurrently disliked by higher class people.
Consistent with the homology thesis, it appears that class position is
aligned with specific musical likes and dislikes.
Le vieux débat entre les approches de l’homologie et de l’omnivorisme
aux bases des classes des goûts et des pratiques culturels fait rage dans
la sociologie culturelle. La thèse de l’homologie prétend que les positions
des classes à travers la hiérarchie des classes sont accompagnées par des
goûts culturels spécifiés et des modes spécialisés permettant leur
appréciation. La thèse de l’omnivorisme culturel, en revanche, soutient
que les élites sont (de plus en plus) caractérisées par un éventail de goûts

Gerry Veenstra, Department of Sociology, University of British Columbia, 6303 N. W. Marine Drive,
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z1. E-mail: gerry.veenstra@ubc.ca


C 2015 Canadian Sociological Association/La Société canadienne de sociologie
Class Position and Musical Tastes 135

culturels de toutes sortes. Cette étude expérimente l’applicabilité de ces

thèses aux goûts musicaux au Canada à travers l’application de l’analyse
des correspondances multiples, de l’analyse des classes latentes et du
modèle de régression logistique aux données d’origine de l’étude
collectées par téléphone (n = 1,595) de Toronto et de Vancouver. Je me
rends compte que l’omnivorisme musical, une appréciation de styles
musicaux divers, n’est pas dispersé le long des classes sociales. Bien au
contraire, je trouve qu’il existe une homologie entre la position des
classes et les goûts musicaux qui désigne les blues, la chorale, la musique
classique, le jazz, le théâtre musical, l’opéra, la pop, le reggae, le rock et
la musique du monde/internationale comme des styles des classes au
niveau intellectuel relativement élevé. Cette homologie désigne la
country, la disco, la musique d’ambiance, les anciens succès, le heavy
metal et le rap comme des styles des classes au niveau intellectuel
relativement bas. Des goûts des classes au niveau intellectuel élevé, tous
les styles à l’exception du jazz ne sont pas appréciés de la basse classe.
De même, des goûts des classes au niveau intellectuel bas, le country, la
musique d’ambiance et les anciens succès ne sont pas appréciés de la
haute classe. Selon la thèse de l’homologie, il apparaı̂t que la position des
classes est fonction des préférences et des aversions musicales
spécifiques.

THE HOMOLOGY AND CULTURAL omnivorism frameworks have been

at loggerheads for more than 20 years (e.g., Atkinson 2011; Bennett
et al. 2009; Coulangeon and Lemel 2007; Gebesmair 1998; Goldberg 2011;
Lizardo and Skiles 2012; Peterson and Kern 1996; Peterson and Simkus
1992; Rimmer 2012; Warde, Wright, and Gayo-Cal 2007). The homology
thesis claims that class positions throughout the class hierarchy are ac-
companied by specified cultural tastes and specialized modes of appreci-
ating them while the cultural omnivorism thesis contends that elites are
(increasingly) characterized by a breadth of cultural tastes of any and
all kinds. This study provides new evidence on the relationship between
class position and cultural tastes by analyzing data from a novel telephone
survey on music and class conducted in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada.
Specifically, it seeks to establish whether elites and lower class people in
urban English-speaking Canada are characterized by distinct sets of mu-
sical tastes or distinguished from another primarily by the degree to which
they manifest omnivorous musical tastes.

THE BOURDIEUSIAN HOMOLOGY FRAMEWORK

The homology framework, belonging to a long line of cultural inquiry that

includes Thorstein Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class ([1899] 1994)
and Herbert Gans’ Popular Culture and High Culture (1974), finds its
fullest expression in Pierre Bourdieu’s magnum opus, Distinction: A Social
Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Bourdieu [1979] 1984). There the
French sociologist maintained that a multitude of diverse cultural tastes
136 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

and practices in 1960s France were fundamentally manifestations of class

habitus. For Bourdieu, class positions are distinguished by their differing
amounts of economic capital, essentially monetary wealth, and cultural
capital, valued cultural resources that include educational credentials,
which locate them in different parts of a multidimensional social space (a
society-wide “field”). Specifically, the sum total of the two forms of capital
positions agents on the primary axis of social space, that which distin-
guishes the upper, middle, and lower classes, while relative composition of
the capitals situates agents along the secondary axis of social space which
distinguishes dominating and dominated sections of the classes.
The cultural tastes of the wealthy and highly educated members of
the upper class, comprising highbrow culture, represent the “legitimate,”
“sophisticated,” and “cultured” tastes and practices of society. Members
of this class have the power to delimit highbrow tastes and appropriate
modes of appreciating them and can use their familiarity and facility with
these cultural forms to maintain and reinforce boundaries between them-
selves and others. Many highbrow tastes are especially enshrined in the
better educated but less-wealthy segment of the upper class, the home of
the intelligentsia, the dominated portion of upper-class space. Lowbrow
or “popular” tastes and practices, embraced by the less-wealthy and less-
educated members of society, are the antithesis of highbrow culture; they
serve as a negative reference for the tastes of the dominant class (Swartz
1997). Finally, middlebrow culture reflects the (imperfect) attempts of the
members of the middle class, the petit bourgeoisie, to embrace highbrow
culture and to distinguish themselves from the lower class. For Bourdieu,
then, there is a homology, a kind of isomorphic relation or one-to-one cor-
respondence, between the multidimensional space of positions and the
multidimensional space of cultural tastes.
A key principle underlying the homology of class positions and cultural
tastes, according to Bourdieu, is the opposition between the “tastes of lux-
ury (or freedom) and the tastes of necessity” (Bourdieu [1979] 1984:198).
The tastes of luxury are the tastes of people born into a habitus which
is defined by distance from necessity; these people possess freedoms of
thought and action that are facilitated by possession of capital. In par-
ticular, freedom from necessity facilitates development of the “aesthetic
gaze,” a mode of consumption which stresses appreciation for the form of a
cultural object rather than its function and tends to pass aesthetic rather
than ethical judgments on it. Accordingly, order, etiquette, and restraint
are virtues in upper-class space.

The denial of lower, coarse, vulgar, venal, servile—in a word, natural—

enjoyment, which constitutes the sacred sphere of culture, implies an af-
firmation of the superiority of those who can be satisfied with the sublimated,
refined, disinterested, gratuitous, distinguished pleasures forever closed to
the profane. (Bourdieu [1979] 1984:7)
Class Position and Musical Tastes 137

The middle class, striving for distinction but lacking the capital and
habitus needed to fully appropriate upper-class lifestyles, in turn valorizes
“asceticism, rigor, legalism” (Bourdieu [1979] 1984:331). In contrast with
the bourgeois habitus which conveys an “ethos of ease, a confident relation
to the world and the self,” the petit bourgeois habitus presents an “ethos
of restriction through pretension” (Bourdieu [1979] 1984:339). The tastes
of necessity, finally, most common in the lower class, derive from the need
to produce labor at the lowest cost; people with low levels of (especially
economic) capital tend to valorize tastes of necessity out of material ne-
cessity. Enjoyment and fun, impropriety, and fulfilling material needs are
virtues in lower class space because the functions rather than the forms of
cultural objects are of central importance here.
Bourdieu asserted that “nothing more clearly affirms one’s ‘class’,
nothing more infallibly classifies, than tastes in music” (Bourdieu [1979]
1984:18). Upper-class people, free from the strictures of necessity, tend to
have a taste for difficult, abstract music, especially difficult classical mu-
sic. For example, appreciation for Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier was
prevalent among the most highly educated members of Bourdieu’s sur-
vey sample from the 1960s. “As legitimate culture, classical music gathers
around it the highest values of aesthetic formalism associated with Kan-
tian ‘distinterestedness’” (Prior 2013:183). The French upper class also
rejected with disgust “the most popular and most ‘vulgar’ singers, such
as Les Compagnons de la Chanson, Mireille Mathieu, Adamo or Sheila”
(Bourdieu [1979] 1984:60). Middle-class space in turn tends to foster ap-
preciation for popularized forms of legitimate music (Gershwin’s Rhap-
sody in Blue was especially popular among engineers and technicians in
Bourdieu’s data) whereas the members of the lower class tend to consume
music with simple, repetitive structures (such as the popular waltzes of
Strauss) which are typically imposed on them by experts and artists in the
field of musical production (Atkinson 2011). From the standpoint of Bour-
dieu’s homology framework, then, musical tastes and distastes, seemingly
personally idiosyncratic in nature, are in fact reflections of class-based
habitus.
This represents what I think of as the strong form of the homology
thesis. It describes a multidimensional space of positions prescribed by a
specified complex configuration of capitals, namely, the sum total of eco-
nomic capital and cultural capital on the primary axis and the relative
composition of these forms of capital on the secondary axis. It is a rela-
tional visioning of entwined spaces of positions and cultural tastes that
requires relational statistical techniques, such as multiple correspondence
analysis (MCA) or latent class analysis (LCA), to illuminate the charac-
ter of the spaces in quantitative data. In the weak form of the homology
thesis, the space of positions and the spaces to which it is homologous
are not configured in as complicated a manner. For instance, while evi-
dence suggests that the sum total of economic capital and cultural capital
138 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

structures the primary dimension of the social spaces of contemporary

France (Coulangeon and Lemel 2007), Canada (Veenstra 2010), Finland
(Kahma and Toikka 2012), and the United Kingdom (Gayo-Cal et al. 2006;
Le Roux et al. 2008) as well as France of the 1960s (Bourdieu [1979] 1984),
the relative composition of these capitals does not appear to contribute
to structuring the social spaces of contemporary France (Coulangeon and
Lemel 2007), Finland (Kahma and Toikka 2012), and the United Kingdom
(Gayo-Cal et al. 2006; Le Roux et al. 2008). If one capital or the sum of
several capitals effectively delineates class positions then the weak form
of the homology thesis is evident and nonrelational techniques such as re-
gression analysis are presumably up to the task of uncovering a homology
between positions and tastes. Precisely which capitals delineate class posi-
tions and the manner in which they do so in a given context is an empirical
question.

CULTURAL OMNIVORISM

Most incarnations of the cultural omnivorism perspective in the sociology

of culture similarly identify social class as a fundamental basis of cultural
tastes and practices. They depart from the homology framework, however,
by claiming that breadth of cultural tastes has supplanted possession of
specified highbrow/lowbrow tastes as the notable cultural delimiter of class
boundaries. It is argued that, while the Bourdieusian homology storyline
may have held in past eras, elites in contemporary societies are now better
characterized as cultural omnivores than as highbrow aficionados. These
omnivores consume and practice culture speaks of many different kinds,
from hip hop to heavy metal to classical music, from grungy, muddy team
sports such as rugby to ascetic, individual pursuits of body and mind such
as yoga and tai chi, and so forth (Veenstra 2010). They seek variety and
eclecticism and are intrinsically inclusive and tolerant in their tastes, in
contrast with univores, who, displaying taste for a narrow range of activi-
ties or objects, are intrinsically exclusivist and intolerant. Members of the
upper class are therefore distinguished from members of other classes by
the breadth of their cultural repertoires rather than their possession of
any specified highbrow cultural tastes or practices. Members of the lower
class are in turn distinguished from others by the relatively narrow focus
of their cultural repertoires, by their propensities to be univores, not by
their allegiances to any specified lowbrow cultural tastes or practices. It is
the desire and ability to consume a multitude of diverse cultural forms, in-
cluding diverse musical styles, that now distinguishes higher class people
from lower class people in contemporary societies.
If the “highbrow snob” has been replaced by the cultural omnivore and
the “lowbrow slob” has been replaced by the univore then the principles,
processes, and mechanisms underlying the stratification of cultural tastes
have likely changed as well. In particular, the distinction between tastes
Class Position and Musical Tastes 139

of freedom and necessity may no longer be preeminent. Erickson (1996)

proposes that “cultural inequality is not so much a hierarchy of tastes
(from soap opera to classical opera) as it is a hierarchy of knowledge (from
those who know little about soap opera or opera to those who can take
part in conversation about both)” (p. 219). Emmison (2003) argues that
“cultural mobility entails the display of cultural competence in a plurality
of domains with concomitant social rewards accruing to those demonstrat-
ing these capacities” (p. 213). Omnivores can move easily among cultural
realms (Emmison 2003) and in business might use whatever form of cul-
tural knowledge is necessary to make a good impression in job interviews
(Garnett, Guppy, and Veenstra 2008) or build social networks to get a bet-
ter job (Erickson 1996). In short, that which is now the most useful for get-
ting ahead, namely, a breadth of cultural knowledge and familiarity with
multiple cultural forms, is what is now classed. This is presumably because
breadth of knowledge/familiarity is more readily achieved by upper-class
people but also because people who have it are relatively likely to achieve
upper-class standing.
Various explanations for the historical change in the fundamental na-
ture of the class bases of culture from homology to omnivorism have been
proposed. For example, the increasingly specialized nature of occupations
and greater mobility between occupations may have affected people’s cul-
tural repertoires, since occupations tend to foster their own cultures and
people who are required to communicate across occupations or move into a
new occupation need to be conversant with a wide range of cultural forms
(Erickson 2008). Growing income inequality may have contributed to a
growing inequality in the ability of people to participate in culture while
educational inflation may have produced relatively more highly educated
people in upper-end occupations who are conversant with a wider range of
cultural forms garnered through their experiences with educational sys-
tems (Erickson 2008). Increasing amounts of social mobility, especially
from lower to higher strata, may contribute to increasing sociocultural
heterogeneity (van Eijck 2001). Peterson (2005) suggests that snobbish ex-
clusion “was an effective marker of status in a relatively homogenous and
circumscribed WASP class [but that] omnivorous inclusion seems better
adapted to an increasingly global world culture managed by those who
make their way, in part, by showing respect for the cultural expressions
of others” (p. 273). Increasingly globalized media industries, social and
geographic mobility, and varied networks may also be at the root of the
open and varied “cosmopolitan habitus” seemingly prevalent among elites
(Atkinson 2011).
There are several useful ways of distinguishing strong and weak forms
of the omnivorism thesis. As with the homology thesis, relational (strong)
and nonrelational (weak) renderings of the omnivorism thesis can be en-
visioned. For instance, one can imagine a social space delimited by sum
total and relative composition of capitals where the upper-class section is
140 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

bursting with diverse musical tastes and the lower class section is bereft
of them, a multidimensional space of positions homologous to a top-heavy
space of (omnivorous) tastes. Alternatively, breadth of tastes might simply
be associated with one or both of economic capital and cultural capital in
linear-causal regression models.
The distinction between “omnivorism by volume” and “omnivorism by
composition” (Warde et al. 2007) can also designate strong and weak forms
of the omnivorism thesis. In regard to the former, omnivorism is defined
by indiscriminate liking of any and all cultural forms, a strong statement
of the omnivorism thesis. In regard to the latter, however, “some distinc-
tive status orientation is entailed in the patterns of cultural preferences
involved” (Warde et al. 2007:145). For example, the definition of musi-
cal omnivore employed by Peterson and Simkus (1992) required that they
like traditionally highbrow classical musical and opera. Achterberg and
Houtman (2005) operationalized musical omnivorousness as the status
distance between the most highbrow music and the most lowbrow music
chosen by a person. Explicitly incorporating dislikes into her operational-
ization, Bryson (1996) depicted musical omnivores as people who consumed
many different musical genres while simultaneously rejecting the music
genres with the least educated fans, these being country, heavy metal, and
rap music. In these formulations, musical omnivorism is prescribed in the
breadth of its manifestation.
Finally, strong and weak forms of the omnivorism thesis can be dis-
tinguished by the degree to which breadth of taste has supplanted spec-
ified highbrow tastes among elites. Some scholars suggest that highbrow
tastes are a thing of the past and the omnivore now reigns supreme in a
“post-Bourdieu era” of cultural sociology (Vander Stichele and Laermans
2006). Others contend that the omnivorism framework represents an evo-
lution rather than a repudiation of the homology framework where the
former has not (yet) overthrown the latter (e.g., Emmison 2003; Garcı́a-
Álvarez, Katz-Gerro, and Lopéz-Sintas 2007; Lopéz-Sintas and Zerva 2005;
Peterson 2005; Peterson and Kern 1996). They suggest that elites can
in fact be split into two groups: exclusive highbrows with a univorous
and exclusive highbrow taste; and inclusive highbrows with an omniv-
orous taste inclusive of middlebrow and lowbrow tastes (Emmison 2003;
Garcı́a-Álvarez et al. 2007; Peterson 2005).1 Lowbrow taste, a popular taste
that nearly everyone likes, is no longer associated with any specific class
(Garcı́a-Álvarez et al. 2007). In short, the strong form of the omnivorism
thesis does away with highbrow snobs entirely while the weak form ac-
commodates the existence of highbrow snobs and omnivorous elites, with

1.
Research in this vein suggests that exclusive highbrows tend to be older and inclusive highbrows tend
to be younger (Ollivier 2008). This age- or cohort-related factor speaks to the notion that aggregate
changes in elite tastes from highbrow to omnivore are generationally prescribed, with younger omnivore
elites replacing aging highbrow exclusivist elites.
Class Position and Musical Tastes 141

their relative weights in numbers and influence a matter of contextual and

historical specificity.
Multiple formulations of cultural omnivorism and various underlying
principles and reasons for historical changes in the class bases of cultural
tastes notwithstanding, the body of empirical research purportedly verify-
ing the existence of class-delimited cultural omnivores in various interna-
tional contexts is now voluminous (Peterson 2005). Cultural omnivorism
has become de rigueur in some circles. Other scholars uphold the con-
temporary viability of the homology perspective, questioning the evidence
for and utility in the notion of a class-delimited musical omnivore (e.g.,
Atkinson 2011; Rimmer 2012; Savage 2006; Warde et al. 2007). This study
contributes to the ongoing tussle between the Bourdieusian homology and
cultural omnivorism perspectives by investigating relationships between
musical likes and dislikes and indicators of class position in original survey
data from two large Canadian cities (Toronto and Vancouver).

ANALYTICAL PLAN

The analysis proceeds in four stages. First, I investigate whether diverse

musical tastes are widely dispersed, as the homology approach might pre-
dict, or tightly clustered, as might be consistent with musical omnivorism.
To accomplish this, I apply MCA and LCA to a set of 21 musical likes
and dislikes, illuminating contours of a musical field that distinguishes
between people who like most musical genres, people who dislike most
musical genres, and people who are ambivalent about most musical gen-
res. Second, I investigate the degree to which and how this patterning
of musical tastes is structured by various markers of inequality, namely,
city of residence, age, gender, racial identity, immigrant status, economic
capital, and cultural capital. In particular, I seek to determine whether
this Canadian musical field is structured by the sum total of economic
capital and cultural capital and the relative composition of economic and
cultural capitals as the field of cultural tastes was structured in France
of the 1960s. I find that the patterning of musical tastes previously iden-
tified is partly reflective of age, racial identity, and immigrant status but
mostly unreflective of possession of economic capital and cultural capi-
tal. Third, I determine whether a measure of breadth of musical likes
is predicted by one or more of the markers of inequality in an Ordinary
Least Squares (OLS) regression model. I find that women, middle-aged
people, and native-born Canadians are relatively likely to be musical om-
nivores but wealthy and/or highly educated elites are not. Finally, I inves-
tigate whether individual musical likes and dislikes are associated with
the markers of inequality in binary logistic regression models. Consis-
tent with the weak form of Bourdieu’s homology thesis, I find that elites
142 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

and lower class people are linked with distinct sets of musical likes and
dislikes.

METHODS

Survey Sample

Between January and June of 2009, the Survey Research Centre (SRC) at
the University of Victoria in British Columbia conducted telephone inter-
views with 732 adults living in the city of Toronto and 863 adults living in
the Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area. The SRC used random-digit di-
aling techniques to obtain residential telephone numbers, a next-birthday
strategy to select one resident per household aged 19 or older to interview,
and a computer-aided telephone interviewing system to conduct the inter-
views. The introductory script from the callers informed prospective inter-
viewees that all adults aged 19 and older were eligible for this study, that
there were potential risks of an emotional kind from questions pertaining
to racial and ethnic identity, experiences of discrimination in everyday life
and sexual orientation, and that the ultimate goal of the study was to help
to improve the health of Canadians. No incentives, monetary or otherwise,
were provided for participation. In total, callers spoke with 17,060 people
and successfully recruited 1,595 interviewees, representing a cooperation
rate of 9.3 percent.
Demographic characteristics of the survey samples and the cities from
which they were obtained are described in Table 1. Comparison of the city
samples to the 2006 Census by gender, age, racial identity, immigrant
status, and educational attainment indicates that both city samples are
biased toward women, older people, Whites, native-born Canadians, and
people with a university degree. Comparison of cases with complete data (n
= 1,503) with those with missing data (n = 92) indicates that the missing
cases are relatively likely to be non-White immigrants.

Musical Tastes

Unlike most research of its kind (but see Bennett et al. 2009; Bryson 1996,
1997; Carrabine and Longhurst 1999; Savage 2006; Sonnett 2004; Tam-
pubolon 2008b), this study focuses on musical likes and dislikes. The cul-
tural omnivore is identified by her liking of diverse cultural forms. From
the homology perspective, however, the tastes of elites and lower class
people are as or more likely to be manifested as distastes than as tastes
(Bourdieu [1979] 1984). My respondents were asked about their likes and
dislikes in regard to 21 musical genres. “For each of the following types
of music, please tell me whether you like or dislike or perhaps feel neu-
trally about each type: classical music, hip hop, choral music, folk music,
rap, opera, country music, pop, jazz, easy listening, reggae, rock, heavy
Class Position and Musical Tastes 143

Table 1

Characteristics of the City Survey Samples and Their Populations

Toronto Vancouver
Survey Survey
sample Census sample Census
N = 732 2006 N = 863 2006
Variable Categories % % % %

Gender Male 35.4 47.3 32.8 48.2

Female 64.6 52.7 67.2 51.8
Age Aged 19–34 20.4 29.7 12.5 28.6
Aged 35–44 18.5 21.0 16.4 21.2
Aged 45–54 23.6 18.3 23.7 20.3
Aged 55–64 19.6 13.0 26.9 14.1
Aged 65 and older 17.8 17.9 20.5 15.8
Racial identity Asian 3.0 13.3 6.1 23.5
Black 6.4 8.4 0.2 1.0
South Asian 4.1 12.1 5.1 10.9
White 79.3 53.0 82.7 54.7
Other 7.1 13.2 5.9 9.9
Immigrant Born in Canada 65.3 47.8 72.3 56.5
status Immigrated to 34.7 52.2 27.7 43.5
Canada
Educational Less than high 5.2 20.4 5.2 17.5
attainment school
High school 24.7 24.3 35.4 26.9
Community college 15.3 25.8 18.6 30.5
or technical
school diploma
Bachelor’s degree 54.8 29.5 40.7 25.0
or higher
Household Less than $40,000 15.4 15.4
income $40,000–59,999 12.3 11.5
$60,000–79,999 14.3 11.6
$80,000–99,999 10.1 10.4
$100,000–149,999 14.3 18.0
$150,000 or more 16.9 14.3
Missing 16.5 18.9

metal, musical theater, gospel, blues, new age, big band, golden oldies,
world/international, disco.” Respondents were also asked “You’ve men-
tioned that you like <list of likes>. Which one of these is your absolute
favourite?” and “You’ve mentioned that you dislike <list of dislikes>.
Which one of these do you dislike the most?” Distributions of these mu-
sical tastes variables for the 1,543 respondents who provided information
for them are described in Table 2.
 144
Table 2

Musical Likes and Dislikes of Toronto and Vancouver Respondents

Like (%) Dislike (%) Neutral (%) Most liked % Most disliked %

Classical 74.3 8.0 17.7 Rock 20.1 Heavy metal 33.7

Rock 67.6 16.1 16.4 Classical 15.2 Rap 26.5
Pop 65.1 13.1 21.8 Pop 8.1 Country 7.0
Blues 63.4 15.8 20.8 Jazz 7.8 Hip hop 6.0
Golden oldies 62.1 15.1 22.7 Golden oldies 6.4 Opera 5.0
Jazz 61.7 17.0 21.2 Country 5.8 Gospel 2.8
Easy listening 59.1 17.3 23.6 Easy listening 5.5 Disco 2.5
Musical theater 57.1 19.4 23.5 Blues 4.7 New age 2.3
Folk music 55.5 19.2 25.3 Folk music 4.1 Easy listening 2.0
Big band 52.6 22.0 25.4 Hip hop 3.0 Reggae 1.7
World/international 52.0 13.5 34.5 Opera 3.0 Musical theater 1.6
Reggae 46.5 28.4 25.2 Gospel 2.9 Choral music 1.5
Gospel 44.6 27.9 27.6 World/international 2.5 Jazz 1.2
Country music 43.6 27.4 29.0 Musical theater 2.1 Rock 1.2
Choral music 42.5 25.8 31.8 Reggae 1.8 Folk music 1.0
Disco 41.0 33.0 26.1 Big band 1.7 Classical 0.9
Opera 39.8 30.5 29.7 Disco 1.7 Golden oldies 0.9
New age 30.7 35.2 34.1 Choral music 1.2 Pop 0.8
Hip hop 27.1 44.6 28.3 Heavy metal 1.1 Big band 0.7
Rap 16.6 60.7 22.7 New age 0.8 World/international 0.4
Heavy metal 15.0 66.3 18.7 Rap 0.5 Blues 0.3
CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015
Class Position and Musical Tastes 145

RESULTS

Musical Field

In a relational musical field, musical tastes attain their meaning primar-

ily in relation to one another. Table 3 describes bivariate relationships
between the 21 musical likes/dislikes variables. Although most of the as-
sociations are positive, some of the stronger positive associations, such as
those between rap and hip hop, choral and gospel, choral and folk, opera
and classical, reggae and rock, and jazz and blues, may reflect blurred
or overlapping boundaries between genres. Negative associations between
musical tastes are few and far between, the strongest of which are between
hip hop and choral, hip hop and folk, heavy metal and choral, heavy metal
and easy listening, and heavy metal and golden oldies.
Bourdieu ([1979] 1984) used correspondence analysis to craft his de-
pictions of the fields of capitals, lifestyles, and habitus in France. To create
a visual rendering of a relational musical field in this study, I applied
the Burt method approach to MCA to the 21 musical likes/dislikes vari-
ables and plotted the primary dimensions derived from it in a multidimen-
sional space. The first two dimensions extracted by the MCA explained
78.3 percent of the total variability, with 53.2 percent of the variability at-
tributable to Dimension 1 and 25.2 percent of the variability attributable
to Dimension 2. The variable categories are plotted visually in Figure 1,
with Dimension 1 forming the vertical axis and Dimension 2 forming the
horizontal axis. The predominant pattern of musical tastes in Figure 1 is
the presence of distinct clusters of categories that illuminate three collec-
tives of people: the members of Quadrant 1 who like most, if not all, musical
genres (“inclusive” musical omnivores); people located in the lower half of
the field who dislike most genres; and the members of Quadrant 4 who are
ambivalent about or unfamiliar with many of the genres.
Next, I applied LCA to the set of 21 musical tastes. The loadings of the
variable categories for the three classes produced by the LCA are presented
in Table 4. Class 1 closely resembles Quadrant 1 of Figure 1, with high load-
ings for liking all genres excepting hip hop, rap, and heavy metal (“nearly
inclusive” musical omnivores). Class 2 strongly overlaps with Quadrant
3 of Figure 1, with high loadings for disliking all genres excepting classi-
cal and easy listening but also for liking classical, easy listening, golden
oldies, pop, and rock. Class 3 strongly overlaps with Quadrant 4, with high
loadings for ambivalent attitudes toward all but classical and rock and
for liking classical, pop, jazz, rock, and blues. The LCA therefore illumi-
nates characteristics of the clustering of musical tastes that are perhaps
not readily apparent in the MCA, namely, that liking classical, liking pop,
liking rock, disliking rap, and disliking heavy metal effectively traverse
all three classes and that liking hip hop, liking rap, liking heavy metal,
disliking classical, and disliking easy listening do not meaningfully fit in
 146

Table 3

Bivariate Associations between Musical Likes/Dislikes

hip hop 0.086
choral 0.253 0.164
folk 0.203 0.149 0.303
rap 0.076 0.485 0.110 0.106
opera 0.319 0.295 0.166 0.101
country 0.058 0.163 0.225 0.068 0.143
pop 0.068 0.203 0.109 0.139 0.104 0.198
jazz 0.204 0.131 0.172 0.185 0.090 0.169 0.109 0.171
easy listening 0.073 0.098 0.109 0.074 0.080 0.218 0.220 0.116
reggae 0.073 0.266 0.150 0.130 0.246 0.116 0.123 0.184 0.200 0.094
rock 0.167 0.112 0.078 0.172 0.080 0.199 0.333 0.137 0.113 0.313
heavy metal 0.062 0.163 0.155 0.242 0.091 0.094 0.096 0.091 0.131 0.219 0.268
musical theater 0.208 0.100 0.272 0.215 0.080 0.224 0.190 0.174 0.192 0.236 0.130 0.107 0.102
gospel 0.109 0.107 0.324 0.234 0.093 0.182 0.219 0.130 0.188 0.129 0.202 0.091 0.110 0.290
blues 0.172 0.144 0.184 0.236 0.105 0.165 0.121 0.192 0.427 0.089 0.255 0.218 0.123 0.182 0.235
new age 0.136 0.158 0.168 0.139 0.136 0.122 0.087 0.188 0.153 0.176 0.237 0.187 0.167 0.184 0.163 0.220
big band 0.192 0.244 0.237 0.132 0.185 0.176 0.145 0.266 0.171 0.188 0.154 0.120 0.299 0.246 0.271 0.208
golden oldies 0.142 0.106 0.191 0.254 0.113 0.141 0.243 0.172 0.149 0.277 0.152 0.143 0.125 0.281 0.222 0.184 0.150 0.402
world/international 0.238 0.108 0.208 0.226 0.099 0.218 0.091 0.110 0.179 0.112 0.221 0.118 0.112 0.201 0.217 0.211 0.247 0.231 0.201
disco 0.169 0.233 0.128 0.123 0.168 0.135 0.146 0.260 0.122 0.196 0.234 0.224 0.116 0.224 0.161 0.184 0.231 0.217 0.213 0.210
classical hip hop choral folk rap opera country pop jazz easy reggae rock heavy musical gospel blues new big golden world/
listening metal theater age band oldies int.
Notes: Each cell contains a Cramer’s V value. Cramer’s V ranges from a low of zero, representing no relationship, to a high of one, representing a perfect relationship.
Values in bold are positive relationships wherein people who liked the one genre tended to like the other and/or people who disliked the one genre tended to dislike the other.
Values in italics are negative relationships wherein people who liked the one genre were relatively unlikely to like the other and/or people who disliked the one genre were relatively unlikely to dislike the other.
Values in neither bold or italics are not so straightforwardly described and empty cells in the table indicate relationships that were not statistically significant (p > 0.05).
CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015
Class Position and Musical Tastes 147

Figure 1

Two-dimensional mapping derived from a multiple

correspondence analysis of musical likes and dislikes

Quadrant 4 Quadrant 1

neutral rap
neutral heavy metal neutral hip hop
neutral reggae like new age most
neutral disco
neutral golden oldies neutral gospel neutral choralneutral opera
neutral big band neutral new age dislike new age most
neutral folk neutral country
neutral musical theater neutral rock like musical theater most like new age
neutral easy listening like world/international most like jazz most
neutral blues like folk most like blues most like big band
dislike blues most neutral pop
neutral world/international dislike world/international most like reggae like musical theater like big band most
neutral jazz like blues like jazz like disco
like pop most
dislike easy listening most like world/international likelike gospel
neutral classical like rock like pop like classical like folk like opera
choral
dislike musical theater most like rock most dislike heavy
like easy listening most metal like most
heavy metal like golden oldies
dislike jazz most like hip hoplike easy listening like country
dislike choral most like golden oldies most Dimension 2
dislike folk most dislike golden oldies most like rap
dislike gospel most
like opera most
dislike rap most
like disco most
dislike big band most dislike heavy metal like classical most
dislike country most dislike hip hop most like gospel most
dislike disco most dislike rap
dislike reggae most
like country most
like reggae most dislike hip hop like choral most
dislike opera most
dislike country

dislike easy listening

dislike opera dislike disco
dislike new age
dislike pop most
like hip hop most dislike gospel
dislike reggae
like heavy metal most dislike choral
dislike folk
dislike rock
dislike jazz
dislike musical theater
like rap most dislike big band dislike pop
dislike golden oldies
dislike world/international
dislike rock most Legend
dislike blues
dislike classical musical like/dislike (active)

most liked genre (supplementary)

dislike classical most most disliked genre (supplementary)

Quadrant 3 Dimension 1 Quadrant 2

any of them. That is, the predominant pattern evident in the MCA of mu-
sical tastes, that distinguishing between liking musical genres in general,
disliking musical genres in general or feeling ambivalent about musical
genres in general, is not monolithic in its manifestation.
To further investigate this point, the most liked and most disliked
musical genres were overlaid on the MCA plot as supplementary variables
(Figure 1). When pushed to declare their strongest musical allegiances, the
inclusive musical omnivores of Quadrant 1 are relatively likely to favor big
band, blues, folk, jazz, musical theater, and new age over all others and to
dislike easy listening, heavy metal, new age, and world/international most
of all. The denizens of Quadrant 3 are relatively likely to favor heavy metal,
hip hop, reggae, and rap over all others and to dislike classical, opera, and
rock most of all whereas the inhabitants of Quadrant 4 are relatively likely
to favor pop, rock, and world/international and to dislike blues and musical
theater most of all. Again, tastes in music are not perfectly captured by
the predominant pattern evident in Figure 1.
 148

Table 4

Loadings on Three Classes from the Latent Class Analysis of Musical Likes/Dislikes
Class 1 Class 2 Class 3 Class 1 Class 2 Class 3 Class 1 Class 2 Class 3
classical - like 0.899 0.615 0.688 classical - dislike 0.210 classical - neutral 0.273
hip hop - like 0.279 0.232 0.288 hip hop - dilike 0.402 0.680 0.313 hip hop - neutral 0.319 0.399
choral - like 0.667 0.320 0.257 choral - dislike 0.528 0.208 choral - neutral 0.228 0.534
folk - like 0.827 0.444 0.373 folk - dislike 0.410 folk - neutral 0.456
rap - like rap - dislike 0.573 0.786 0.515 rap - neutral 0.230 0.346
opera - like 0.580 0.309 0.282 opera - dislike 0.550 0.278 opera - neutral 0.266 0.440
country - like 0.633 0.420 0.258 country - dislike 0.424 0.298 country - neutral 0.237 0.444
pop - like 0.812 0.531 0.592 pop - dislike 0.335 pop - neutral 0.358
jazz - like 0.864 0.420 0.536 jazz - dislike 0.411 jazz - neutral 0.365
easy listening - like 0.770 0.592 0.418 easy listening - dislike 0.280 easy listening - neutral 0.422
reggae - like 0.605 0.301 0.456 reggae - dislike 0.621 reggae - neutral 0.219 0.409
rock - like 0.766 0.523 0.704 rock - dislike 0.374 rock - neutral 0.217
heavy metal - like heavy metal - dislike 0.700 0.814 0.517 heavy metal - neutral 0.333
musical theater - like 0.855 0.378 0.430 musical theater - dislike 0.487 musical theater - neutral 0.454
gospel - like 0.742 0.295 0.262 gospel - dislike 0.574 0.232 gospel - neutral 0.505
blues - like 0.890 0.402 0.569 blues - dislike 0.453 blues - neutral 0.368
new age - like 0.464 0.203 0.243 new age - dislike 0.262 0.652 0.204 new age - neutral 0.274 0.553
big band - like 0.857 0.322 0.361 big band - dislike 0.551 big band - neutral 0.513
golden oldies - like 0.900 0.514 0.426 golden oldies - dislike 0.382 golden oldies - neutral 0.469
world/international - like 0.731 0.394 0.412 world/international - dislike 0.376 world/international - neutral 0.231 0.230 0.536
disco - like 0.622 0.284 0.296 disco - dislike 0.615 0.251 disco - neutral 0.453
Notes: To facilitate interpretation of the classes, values greater than 0.500 are in bold and values less than 0.200 have been deleted
.
CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015
Class Position and Musical Tastes 149

Figure 2

Sociodemographic variable categories overlaid on Figure 1

Quadrant 4 Quadrant 1

$150 or more

45 - 54
$60 - 79,999 55 - 64
postgraduate born in Canada
35 - 44 university female
high school White
Dimension 2
Asian Black $100 - 149,999
immigrated > 20 years $80 - 99,999 < $40,000
male
$40 - 59,999 community college or technical school
65 and older
19 - 34 other racial identity

less than high school

immigrated <= 20 years

South Asian

Quadrant 3 Dimension 1 Quadrant 2

Is there a space of positions to which this musical field is homologous?

To address this question, education and household income, along with city
of residence, gender, age, racial identity, and immigrant status were over-
laid on the MCA plot as supplementary variables (depicted separately in
Figure 2). Figure 2 indicates that the inclusive omnivores of Quadrant 1
are relatively likely to be middle aged and the inhabitants of Quadrant 3
are relatively likely to be young, South Asian immigrants. However, only
the least educated and wealthiest categories are not located at the center
of the plot, indicating that economic capital and cultural capital play little
role in delineating the musical tastes dispersed throughout Figure 1. The
introduction of the same set of covariates to the LCA produces complemen-
tary insights, namely, that age, gender, racial identity, immigrant status,
and education are statistically significant predictors of class membership
but city of residence and income are not. Specifically, women load positively
on Class 1, South Asians load positively on Class 2, recent immigrants load
positively on Class 2, and highly educated people load negatively on Class
2 and positively on Class 3. In other words, women tend to report “nearly
150 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

inclusive” omnivorous musical likes, recent immigrants and South Asians

typically register many musical dislikes and highly educated people tend
to report few musical dislikes and many neutral or ambivalent musical
tastes. Again, economic capital and cultural capital play surprisingly lit-
tle role in delineating tastes in this musical field. The strong form of the
homology thesis is not supported by these data.

Regression Modeling of Musical Omnivorism by Volume

Consistent with the notion of omnivorism by volume, many scholars sim-

ply define omnivorism as breadth of tastes of any and every kind (Ollivier
2008; Peterson 2005). The inhabitants of Quadrant 1 in the MCA appear
to be this kind of musical omnivore, the results reported earlier suggesting
that this manifestation of musical omnivorism is not meaningfully shaped
by economic capital and cultural capital. To further test this last insight,
I created a summary measure of musical omnivorism from the 21 musical
likes/dislikes variables and applied OLS regression to it. A simple count
of the number of musical likes professed by each respondent produces a
normally distributed summative measure that ranges from 0 to 21 and
has a mean of 10.2 and standard deviation of 4.1. Regressing omnivorism
on the markers of inequality indicates that women, middle-aged people,
and native-born Canadians display significantly more musical omnivorism
than men, older and younger people, and immigrants to Canada, respec-
tively (Table 5). However, neither education nor income makes a mean-
ingful contribution to explaining this measure of musical omnivorousness,
indicating that this data set does not contain elites characterized by a wide
range of diverse musical tastes.

Regression Modeling of Individual Musical Likes and Dislikes

Toward further examining the viability of the weak form of the homology
framework in these data, Table 6 summarizes the results of a series of
21 binary logistic regression models executed on recoded versions of the
musical likes/dislikes variables that combine the dislike and neutral cat-
egories. City of residence, age, gender, racial identity, immigrant status,
education, and income are all associated with musical likes and dislikes.
For example, Table 6 indicates that heavy metal is most likely to be liked by
older, White lower class men who live in Toronto, musical theater is most
likely to be liked by older, Asian or White, wealthy native-born women, and
so forth. In regard to the capitals in particular, highly educated respon-
dents are relatively likely to like choral, classical, folk, jazz, opera, and
world/international and less-educated respondents are relatively likely to
like big band, country, disco, easy listening, golden oldies, heavy metal,
and rap. In addition, wealthier respondents are relatively likely to like big
band, blues, classical, jazz, musical theater, opera, pop, reggae, and rock
and poorer respondents are relatively likely to like country, folk, and heavy
Class Position and Musical Tastes 151

Table 5

OLS Regression on Musical Omnivorism

b Beta p

City of residence
Vancouver −0.234 −0.027
Toronto (reference) .... ....
Gender
Female 0.559 0.056 *
Male (reference) .... ....
Age
Age in years 0.249 ***

Age × age −0.002 ***

Racial identity
Asian −0.629 −0.032
Black −0.374 −0.016
South Asian −1.009 −0.052
Other 0.215 0.013
White (reference) .... ....
Immigrant status
Immigrated >20 years ago −1.006 −0.099 ***
Immigrated ࣘ 20 years ago −0.591 −0.042
Born in Canada (reference) .... ....
Education
Less than high school 0.316 0.017
High school 0.514 0.058
Community college or technical school 0.242 0.022
University 0.183 0.020
Postgraduate degree (reference) .... ....
Household income
<$40,000 −0.354 −0.031
$40,000–59,999 −0.769 −0.061
$60,000–79,999 −0.472 −0.039
$80,000–99,999 −0.629 −0.047
$100,000–149,999 −0.571 −0.052
$150,000 or more (reference) .... ....
N 1,503
F(p) 4.95 (<0.001)
R2 .063
Notes: Musical omnivorism is coded as the number of musical likes (maximum 21) professed by each
respondent.
*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

metal. That is, the vast majority of the 21 musical likes are classed, often
strongly so, with positive and negative relationships both well represented.
Table 6 also summarizes results from binary logistic regression mod-
els applied to recoded versions of the musical tastes variables that com-
bine the like and neutral categories. They indicate that highly educated
 Table 6

Multivariate Logistic Regression Predictors of Musical Likes/Dislikes 152

Musical style Predictors of liking musical style Predictors of disliking musical style

Classical White, postgraduate Torontonian, South Asian, nonlong-time

immigrant, less than high school
Hip hop Born in Canada Male, older, White, recent immigrant, less than
high school, middle income
Choral Female older, Black, recent immigrant, Male, South Asian, born in Canada, less than
postgraduate high school
Folk White, born in Canada, postgraduate, poorest South Asian, less than high school
Rap Torontian, male, Asian or South Asian, born in Vancouverite, older, White, recent immigrant,
Canada less than high school, middle income
Opera Torontonian, female, non-South Asian, Male, older, South Asian, less than university,
postgraduate poorest
Country Nonlong-time immigrant, less than high school, Male, younger, long-time immigrant, university
poorest educated, wealthiest
Pop Female older, born in Canada, community Torontonian, male, younger, South Asian,
college, richest long-time immigrant, less than high school,
poorest
Jazz Male, older, White Female, younger, South Asian
Easy listening Female older, South Asian, nonlong-time Torontonian, male, younger, White, long-time
immigrant, less than high school immigrant, postgraduate
Reggae Male, older, Black, born in Canada Non-Black, less than high school, middle income
Rock Male, older, White, born in Canada Torontonian, younger, non-White, immigrant,
less than high school
Heavy metal Torontonian, male, older, White, less than high Female younger, South Asian or Black, recent
school, poorest immigrant
Musical theater Female older, not South Asian or Black, born in Male, younger, South Asian
Canada, wealthy
Gospel Female, older, Black, born in Canada, poorest Male, younger, South Asian
CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

(Continued)
 Table 6

Continued
Musical style Predictors of liking musical style Predictors of disliking musical style
Class Position and Musical Tastes

Blues Older, White, born in Canada, noncommunity Younger, Asian or South Asian, recent
college immigrant, community college
New age Female, older, high school diploma Male, younger, Black or South Asian
Big band White, born in Canada, nonpostgraduate, Younger, South Asian, recent immigrant
wealthiest
Golden oldies Female, older, born in Canada, less than high Vancouverite, male, younger, recent immigrant,
school postgraduate
World/international Female, older, non-Black, immigrant, Male, Black, born in Canada, less than high
postgraduate school
Disco Female, older, South Asian, nonuniversity Male, younger
153
154 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

respondents are relatively likely to dislike country, easy listening, and

golden oldies. In addition, less-educated respondents are relatively likely
to dislike choral, classical, folk, jazz, rap, opera, pop, reggae, rock, and
world/international and poorer respondents are relatively likely to dis-
like big band, classical, hip hop, musical theater, opera, pop, rap, reggae,
rock, and world/international. In short, the majority of musical dislikes
are also classed, with lower class respondents registering multiple dis-
likes and higher class respondents registering dislikes for genres that are
themselves liked by less-educated people.
In summary, these logistic regression models reveal a homology be-
tween class position and musical tastes of the weaker form that designates
blues, choral, classical, jazz, musical theater, opera, pop, reggae, rock, and
world/international as relatively highbrow and country, disco, easy lis-
tening, golden oldies, heavy metal, and rap as relatively lowbrow. Of the
higher brow tastes, blues, choral, classical, jazz, musical theater, opera,
pop, reggae, rock, and world/international are concurrently disliked by
lower class people, and of the lower brow tastes, country, easy listening,
and golden oldies are concurrently disliked by higher class people. In other
words, there is a remarkable symmetry between the likes of one group and
the dislikes of the other.

DISCUSSION

This study is situated in mostly virgin territory in regard to investigat-

ing class position and musical tastes, namely, urban English-speaking
Canada. Previous research indicates that attending classical music perfor-
mances, choral concerts, and operas and playing musical instruments are
highbrow activities in English-speaking Canadian society (Veenstra 2010)
and that classical music, opera, jazz, soul, rhythm and blues, country mu-
sic, and pop are popular tastes among upper-class high school students in
Toronto (Tanner, Asbridge, and Wortley 2008). Among adults in English-
speaking Canada, however, the class bases of musical tastes have not yet
been investigated. An MCA applied to 21 musical tastes in my sample
of adults from Toronto and Vancouver revealed a cluster of musical likes
and dislikes wherein people who liked one form of music tended to like
many others as well. Upon further examination, however, the coherence
and salience of this musical omnivore fell away. For one, when pushed
to choose a favorite musical genre, the musical omnivores were relatively
likely to favor some musical styles—big band, blues, folk, jazz, musical the-
ater, and new age—over all others, indicating that not all musical tastes
were equal in their eyes. More to point, the number of musical genres liked
by the survey respondents was not associated with class position.
These results call to mind insights emerging from Will Atkin-
son’s (2011) interviews in Bristol, England regarding “specious
omnivorousness.” Atkinson found that, when the topic of musical tastes
Class Position and Musical Tastes 155

was first broached in his interviews, the opening response of many in-
terviewees, from all kinds of different class positions, was to “explicitly
present their predilections as ‘varied’ [..], ‘diverse’ [..] and almost comically
‘eclectic’ [..]. They listened to ‘all sorts’ [..], they said, ‘a fair range’ [..], a
‘mish-mash’ [..]—in short they listened to ‘pretty much anything’ [..] and
‘a scoop of everything’” (p. 174). That is to say, they claimed to be musical
omnivores. Delving further into interviewees’ musical preferences, when
pushed to elaborate on their musical tastes the upper-class omnivores
tended to speak more often and in more depth about classical and opera
than did the other omnivores. These people, many steeped in classical mu-
sic as children (perhaps by learning to play a “noble” instrument such as
the piano or violin), demonstrated quite sophisticated understandings of
these highbrow musical forms. In short, Atkinson found that the musical
omnivorism apparent in his interview sample was in fact specious; beneath
people’s claims for cosmopolitanism sensibilities reposed tastes that were
perfectly in line with the highbrow/lowbrow distinction foundational to
the Bourdieusian homology framework. In my study, having almost equal
numbers of relatively highbrow and lowbrow musical tastes in my survey
questionnaire was a happenstance that allowed the epiphenomenal qual-
ities of the musical omnivorism to emerge in the statistical analyses. It
may be that musical omnivorism is as specious in Toronto and Vancouver
as it is in Bristol.
Peterson (2005) questions whether music remains an adequate index
of status in any conceptualization, arguing that the

status-giving value of all kinds of musical tastes has been deflated by music’s
increasingly widespread use in commercial advertisements, movie sound-
tracks, and as ambient sound to control mood in public spaces. The appre-
ciation of classical music, rock, techno, and country can hardly be expected
to retain their status-making value if they are increasingly commodified and
easy to acquire. (P. 266)

Notwithstanding the sense of this statement, musical tastes are still

classed, in interesting and complex ways, in urban English-speaking
Canada. In regard to highbrow tastes, appreciation for classical, choral,
jazz, opera, and world/international music was especially common among
people possessing higher educational credentials. For example, the odds
of postgraduates claiming to like classical music in my sample was more
than three times as high as the odds of people with less than a high school
diploma claiming the same. All of these genres excepting jazz were si-
multaneously distastes of lower class people. Indeed, the odds of disliking
classical music was more than eight times as high for the least educated
respondents as for the best educated ones. These findings indicate that at-
titudes toward blues, classical, choral, opera, pop, and world/international
music in particular may be implicated in social processes that function to
156 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

delimit class boundaries in this Canadian context. Interestingly, the lower

class respondents in this study demonstrated a predilection to dislike all
sorts of musical genres, consistent with Tampubolon (2008a) who found
that the aesthetic of the dominated class in Britain was similarly predom-
inantly negative. Nevertheless, appreciation for country, disco, easy lis-
tening, golden oldies, heavy metal, and rap was relatively common among
the lower class people in my sample. In addition, several of the relatively
lowbrow genres, namely, country, easy listening, and golden oldies, were
simultaneously distastes of higher class people, indicating that these mu-
sical genres may also be implicated in class boundary-making processes in
urban English-speaking Canada.
These results represent a strong endorsement of the weak form of
the Bourdieusian homology framework. Peterson (2005) notes that Bour-
dieu’s representation of highbrow and lowbrow cultures in 1960s France
is consistent with the longstanding distinction in the United States be-
tween highbrow snobs who patronize the fine arts, such as classical music
and opera, and lowbrow slobs who consume “debased” or “brutish” popular
entertainment, such as pop, folk, country/western, and bluegrass music.
Although pop and folk may have gained in status, their spots potentially
taken by easy listening and golden oldies, perhaps less has changed in
regard to relationships between class position and musical tastes in this
North American context than the cultural omnivorism perspective would
have us believe.
Some of the key limitations of this study also serve as directions for
further research. Perhaps most importantly, a low cooperation rate sug-
gests that the survey sample may be biased, and the results, to the degree
that they can be trusted, pertain only to the residents of Toronto and
Vancouver. Nationally representative survey data on musical likes and
dislikes—perhaps in a Statistics Canada General Social Survey—would
be welcome in this area of inquiry. Atkinson (2011) describes several other
salient methodological critiques which have been leveled against the sur-
vey research-based homology and musical omnivorism literatures more
generally. One is that categories such as “pop,” “rock,” or “classical” are too
broad to capture relevant distinctions within categories, such as those be-
tween “difficult” and “light” classical music or “underground” versus “pop”
rap music. Future survey research that accommodates more differentiation
within the broadly based genres utilized in this study could make a useful
contribution to understanding the class bases of musical tastes in Canada.
Even so, quantitative survey research cannot referee all rounds of the de-
bate between the homology and omnivorism perspectives. For instance, in
research of this kind it is difficult to examine the modes by which the musi-
cal forms are consumed by survey respondents, who among them has deep
versus passing familiarity with which genres, where and how the musical
forms are consumed, where and how familiarity with them is displayed,
how tastes for them are displayed in everyday life, and how boundaries are
Class Position and Musical Tastes 157

delineated or maintained by them in social interactions. Follow-up qualita-

tive inquiry into modes of musical appreciation and consumption and their
class underpinnings is required in order to fully understand the nature of
the stratification of musical tastes in urban English-speaking Canada.
Finally, the degree to which musical tastes in Canada are pre-
scribed by “necessity” remains opaque. Tony Bennett (2011) claims that
“Bourdieu’s account of the working-class choice of the necessary deprives
working-class culture of any possible positive content except for purely de-
fensive practices” (p. 532). It is true that, for Bourdieu, neither highbrow
nor lowbrow culture is equated with “the best that has been thought and
known in the world” as it was for Matthew Arnold in 1889. Highbrow cul-
ture in particular does not necessarily reside in the realms of philosophy,
literature, or the arts nor does it possess universal or timeless qualities
simply by definition. Highbrow tastes are not necessarily intrinsically so-
phisticated or common but rather adopt these qualities by virtue of their
locations in relationally defined social spaces of capitals within which so-
cial classes are potentially made manifest. And there is movement in and
out of the brow categories over time as well: members of the middle class
seek to adopt aspects of upper-class culture, members of the upper class
try to “outflank” the middle class by appropriating lowbrow culture, and
so forth. A depiction of a homology between class position and taste that
relies upon “freedom from necessity” to explain what constitutes highbrow
or lowbrow tastes does something of an injustice to lower class people. Fu-
ture research that uncovers the joyous complexity inherent to the ways in
which country, disco, easy listening, golden oldies, heavy metal, and rap
music (and others) are revealed in the lives of lower class Canadians would
also be welcome.

References
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