"We’d be driving along and yukking it up and I’d pop in Congolese rhumba icon Papa Wembe’s “Awa Y’okeyi” and everyone would be patient for a couple of beats. Then somebody would break in with “Alright, what the hell is this?” and derision would ensue. The CD would come out and some indie thing slid into its place."
Hum, so his friends are extremely limited in their ability to understand anything not desperately mainstream. That's more or less the definition of limited cultural openness and poor taste for me.
> Hum, so his friends are extremely limited in their ability to understand anything not desperately mainstream. That's more or less the definition of limited cultural openness and poor taste for me.
Or the setting was just not right for putting on something new and unfamiliar. Music can serve many purposes, and easy listening or the communal knowledge of music can be very important.
'Driving along and yukking it up' might not be the right time to put on something that is unfamiliar, and result in a group rejection (and some gentle ribbing), in the same way that meeting with a bunch of friends on a friday night and putting on some weird art-house flick is likely to result in derision.
It doesn't necessarily mean that these friends are not open to new stuff though. Could just be group dynamics.
In dismissing his friends' taste he is guilty of the same. It's never fun to be the only person in a group who likes some music, but it happens and it doesn't make the minority any better or more open than the majority. It's just different preferences.
He doesn't really dismiss their tastes as much as provide an idea of why they were rejecting the disc he put in.
It's not like he put in something musically strange; it's a piano and a guy singing. A reaction of "what the hell is this, make it stop" is not very reasonable.
Hum, so his friends are extremely limited in their ability to understand anything not desperately mainstream. That's more or less the definition of limited cultural openness and poor taste for me.