This discussion intrigued me, as I have no love for EDM or many other modern, popular music genres. However, saying that one does not enjoy a genre of music is understandable, while suggesting that a genre of music holds little or no value to society treads on unstable ground.
This caused me to reflect on my own biases and opinions in regard to other genres. I have frequently suggested that many modern musicians or singers, such as Taylor Swift or Katie Perry, are crass appeals to the masses and represent a stagnation, creatively, in our culture. The longer I let my thoughts dwell on this stance, which mirrored those opinions that I found abhorrent, the more my own biases were revealed.
Perspective is what I began to gain. I thought of the genres of media in which I am aloof or elitist; particularly film, books, and video games. I consider myself somewhat of a film buff, but I am confident that my opinions and experiences in the medium would be considered pedestrian and crude in comparison to those who have made that world their life's devotion. Similarly, I am a bibliophile, but I have been known to read books that others might consider silly, trite, or lacking in substance. And lastly, in film, I love the action films from 80s and 90s, though these are considered to be silly, crowd-pleasing films with only the faintest veneer of plot or acting.
For music, I'm sure if we sampled any modern music for a patron of the opera from the 18th century, he would find it all crude, crass, and without substance. He would suggest that music itself seems to have gone down the gutter.
Who am I to tell others what can or cannot bring their lives substance? Who am I to striate a genre or medium into arbitrary tiers of cultural relevance? I am in no way experienced in these genres. My perceptions are simply based off of small sample-sizes, samples that are likely not indicative of a subject as a whole. I am an outsider to the culture I am judging.
The thought that another group's appreciation of a subject I find disdainful somehow contaminates or diminishes my own sub-set of that subject is the same logical structure that results in people believing that allowing homosexuals to marry one another damages the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. I am not suggesting that these two thoughts are related or identical; simply that there is an underlying structure at work that reads similarly.
"Whatever floats your boat" seems to be an apt adage to apply here. Whatever media or experiential intake brings vibrancy, stimulus, and substance to an individual's life need not have a rubric applied to it by others to judge its validity. Its validity is inherent in the experiences and sensations it provides.
