It's fucking worse when you're cooking for paying customers.

"Does anything in this dish have yeast in it? I'm allergic to yeast"
"It's made of bread, so it probably has yeast in it"
"Oh that's fine I can have a little bit of yeast"

YOU'RE NOT VERY FUCKING ALLERGIC THEN ARE YOU? WHAT IS THE PRECISE VOLUME OF YEAST THAT WILL KILL YOU?

Happens all the fucking time. Don't get me started on gluten.

Also, my ex girlfriend maintained she was allergic to plain omelettes, but not any other kind of egg preparation. She'd always say things like "oh that omelette looks delicious, I wish I could have some" YOU FUCKING COULD YOU STUPID CUNT.

The only explanation for that cuntery is that they're trying to hide the fact they're a picky eater, but it just makes them look even stupider. I had a customer inform me once she was allergic to sodium. I checked, she wasn't a giant slug in a wig.

I honestly believe picky eaters, the ones that survive to adulthood, they do it deliberately to make them seem interesting. They have no personality so they have to settle for telling everyone they "can eat raisins just not in cakes" or something equally hideous. It's always "I can eat x" as if it's an accomplishment. Well done for managing to choke down the same food everyone else fucking loves you self limiting cunt.

>>13529

Oh, OH! Also I work with someone who "can't eat yellow cheese. just don't like it". How the fuck can a grown adult not realise he's talking like a particularly dull toddler? These people take every opportunity to mention it too. You'll be talking dish, and you'll get to an ingredient and someone will interrupt and say "oh I don't like olives", even when you're not actually fucking cooking it for them. Then inevitably even people who can eat solid food without assistance will chime in with shit like "oh how can't you like olives, they're great!" as if that fucking helps anybody. You simply can't encourage them, the only valid response is "I don't care", or better yet, complete silence.

>>13530

And while I'm still here, literally nobody but yourself can even begin to care how fucking hot you like your food. There is only one response you'll get if you announce how spicy you like your curry, which is absolutley every other cretin in the room listing their heat preferences too. There's no worthwhile discussion, it's just exchanges of suicidally pointless information. I struggle even to call it information. There's more intellectual value to asking everyone what colour their underpants are. At least there's more than two fucking options.

>>13529

I once made my mate a chicken korma, which he fucking loves from take aways, he asked me what it was made out of, I told him what I was using but he took an exception to the cream, I said that I wouldn't add it because he didn't like it but I did, he fucking love it and said it was better than the take away.

For fucks sake it is like people are just scared by certain words.

>>13532

The bit that amazes me is that people seem happier to eat food cooked by a complete stranger on an industrial estate than their own friends and family. If they're that upset about a little cream how can they possibly deal with the very real risk of their takeaway curry arriving laced with Hindi spunk?

Ignorance is bliss. If the foods I think I don't like aren't mentioned to me by name, then they aren't there. This is exactly how you feed a child. Tell him his broccoli is gnome trees and he's perfectly fine. This is why it was wrong of us to ever try to sidestep natural selection. How many cavemen died because their mammoth meat was too hairy?

>>13534

Too few apparently.

>>13533

Maybe he's lactose intolerant and spent the whole next day galloping.

I won't eat capsicum peppers or onion, unless they're very, very finely slices. If they're on my plate I will pick at them and leave them. I think it's the texture, because I love spring onions, leeks and pepper sauce in a lasagna.

>>13537
I was going to post complaining about someone who I know who claims to dislike the texture of onions, which is clearly a pain as everything contains onion, but if there's more than one of you, perhaps it's a real thing.
Incidentally, one of the very few things I object to is green things in a tomato sauce. I'll eat them, and it's a fairly crass blanket rule, but it avoids such travesties as courgette in lasagne, which I've eaten but have no intention of replicating. I don't find such use of leeks to be an enticing suggestion either. I'm sure that there are many counterexamples, but I'll acknowledge the use of green pepper for now, as it's the one which jumps to mind.

This thread is excellent. I think it's a strange combination of a poor understanding of allergies, general inexperience with food, and attempting to contribute small talk to a topic you don't know much about. When you consider it, if you don't cook much, the only addition to the conversation you can make is about your own tastes. The specificity is to make it sound more interesting.

I'd hazard a guess to say that this sort of behaviour is much less common around people who cook well, or take any interest in food beyond purchasing and eating it.

The worst is when I cook for people without any class, I was preparing 6 Mushroom soufflés with a side of garlic bread which I had prepared earlier from scratch (It turned out like a deep pan pizza with garlic and herbs and sun dried tomatos).

For the main I began cutting out my ravioli shapes and filling them with a nice cream I had mixed with some local organic herbs and some smoked salmon.

Upon seeing I was only preparing about 25 pieces of ravioli, 2 of the chavs ordered a pizza stating this would not be enough for everyone (one of them turned up uninvited which distorted the numbers).

That one and his mate ate pizza, but me and the other two who ate my dinner only

3 out of 5 people ate roughly half my meal as it filled them up, the combination of fresh cooked raviolio, the bread, the cream and the souffle had them shut up from talking about fucking hollyoaks for atleast 10 minutes.

To this I was left with 11 pieces of ravioli, 3 souffles and about a third of the garlic bread.

WHY DON'T PEOPLE WAIT TILL AFTER THE MEAL BEFORE ORDEIRNG FUCKING PIZZA, CUNTS

>>13539
I don't really like people who feel they have] to make a contribution to every conversation to feel validated as a human being, but I realise I'm a minority in this regard and it's a whole other thread really.

>>13539

I completely agree, people who give me funny looks or patronize me once I have declared I will not be accepting any drinks from the host on the account of my allergy (sensitivity to poison?) of refined sugars and alcohol.

This is made much worse when my friends don't realise the cheap shite they buy all contains refined sugars and carbs you could build a space shuttle out of.

>>13540
Why is someone of your obvious middle claaaaaaaaahsness associating with the riff raff?

>>13543
Why does making an effort with what you eat signify your 'claaahhs'?

Twat.

>>13544

Not him, but:

Now now, let's not be so reactive. You've made your point, and we all say foolish things sometimes, which doesn't necessarily make us the scum of the earth.
I think though, that people do identify with their food. One of my best friends seems to want to break away from his working-class background and identity, and sees adopting a more 'middle-class' assortment of dishes as part of this; the occasional decision to replicate the food of his childhood is definitely seen as a way of indulging nostalgia, rather than of cooking 'real' food, which he's proud to serve to people.

The other side of the coin is that probably the wealthiest of my friends can't cook for toffee because mummy's always been there to do it for him.

>>13544
Pretty much this. Work a shit job, barely have money, but my cupboards are full of all the herbs and spices you could ever wish for and the fridge is often full of fresh veg and cheapo cuts of meat. I'm not exactly middle class because I know what anise and tarragon are.

My parents had this general problem of buying cloves of garlic and just leaving them in the fridge to dessicate, whenever I used to cook for them I often used them, to which they would walk into the kitchen and start yelling "WHAT'S THAT FUCKING STINK?!" Why would they buy them if they don't use them and actively hate the smell? Good thing I've moved out now, student days are pretty much back re: cooking good food for myself and not just overloading on chips.

>>13546
That's what I love about being a student, I can cook whatever the fuck I want. So proud of all my spices, proudest of actually using them to make good food though.

>>13547
Would you say your taste in food is vastly different to that of your parents then?
I also don't miss having to basically suck my dad off every day about how mmmmm, YUMMY SO SCRUMMY his pretty tasteless and bland his food was. This daily rigmarole was torture.

https://www.youtube.com/v/xdo79znnHl8

>>13548
No, not at all actually. They're just set in what they eat and don't mix it up very much. My dad cooks a curry every day, he has a selection of 10-12, some he cooks more often than others. It just gets a bit dull, lovely as it is. Now I've got the opportunity to mix things up a bit.

Made myself a calamari curry the other day.

>>13549
Very nice. I suppose he eats and cooks more than just that atrocious tupperware curry and chips. I think my dad must win the pickiest eater award. Moans about not having anything to eat when he'd just bang some chips on and make up half a pint of tupperware curry. Worse than a toddler.

>>13550
>I suppose he eats and cooks more than just that atrocious tupperware curry and chips.

Of course, daal, green thai fish curry, your usual madras, vindaloo, etc. He does tacos and chili con carne as well.

>I think my dad must win the pickiest eater award. Moans about not having anything to eat when he'd just bang some chips on and make up half a pint of tupperware curry. Worse than a toddler.
Never eaten chips at home that weren't homemade.

Best chips imaginable, slice your tatties relatively thick, stick them in a deep fat fryer at a low/med temperature for 10-12 minutes, then whack the heat up real high for 2 minutes. Nice and crispy, easy as pie, cheap as chips.

>>13541
Good god, it really is.

I'm going to Brighton at the weekend and I don't like bicycles and I have anxiety issues and last week I ate soooo much food megalolz SHUT THE FUCK UP

It's almost like if the air surrounding them wasn't filled with their own empty, narcissistic words they'd somehow start losing all corporeality and they're deathly afraid that if they don't express an opinion on some completely irrelevant piece of utter bollocks they'll cease to exist.

I don't actually think this gripe is that offtopic, it seems to all run in the same vein of "people who like talking about themselves but actually don't have anything worth saying", but sage anyway.

>>13552

I've been speculating over the past few months that a deeply ingrained fear of irrelevance pervades our culture, owing in some part to how people are collectively treated more like economic resources than human beings. When you're continually being made aware in your public life that you are very much expendable and/or replaceable, we turn to other things for validation. In the case of this particular bit of human history, that has translated to frantic online social 'networking' where we see our relevance translated into raw, easy-to-read numbers, e.g. retweeted x amount of times, connections with this many friends and so on. I see the fact that business has openly embraced the use of social media as decent confirmation of this. The writing on the wall currently reads "fit in or go destitute".

I could be outright projecting now, but I think that's what makes places like this so unique (and often quite barren); people here maybe aren't too bothered about participating in that game. At least, people on an anonymous imageboard probably aren't posting for kudos. Even the other place introduced an openly social board.

Sage for polluting this thread with my stuttering, incomplete brainfarts.

>>13540

What bloody twats, I've had something similar happen once where my mates decided that they didn't like the sauce I was cooking up with pasta and went down to the local take away and got a curry. A fucking curry to go with penne.

That said I got to freeze half of the sauce and enjoy it another day so it wasn't a complete loss.

I wanted to join in and bitch about my mate who "can't" eat things when what he means to say is that he's afraid to try anything that doesn't come from the frozen aisle of Tesco, but I've read every post and now I don't want to risk coming off like as big a cunt as you lot. I might make a /101/ thread about this thread. Christ, lads.

>>13556

Mate, being afraid to try new food is a disability, unless you're eating fugu then what's the worst that could happen? You get a taste that you don't like for a few seconds?

>>13557
>what's the worst that could happen?
You could die a horrible death. Poisonous mushrooms, coliform bacteria, anaphylaxis, etc.

>>13559

Well that's the last button mushroom I eat.

FOOD MENTALISTS

AVOID THEM

>>13562
Better image.

>>13563

Bettered

>>13564
The TV show is miles better than the films, though. Hopkins gave an extremely hammy performance: the only thing his Hannibal was chewing on was the scenery.

>>13564
The forgotten Hannibal.

Sorry.

>>13565
I agree. I think The Silence of the Lambs is a good film and for that matter so are the other Hannibal films (besides Rising) but the TV show is the work of the gods.


Be sure to visit http://janicepoonart.blogspot.co.uk/ if you've not already (contains some plot spoilers)

When I die and wander the distant mists, my soul ever searching, I'd like to float around a bit and say hello to Hannibal, then wander off to find Guderian for a 'rustic' brown bread 'off' cheese and farmer pickle sandwich. I do think this would be an interesting encounter.

>>13567
I don't think SOTL is a bad film per se, I just don't think it's as good as it's often held up to be, or that Hopkins does the role much justice. It's just not a part a thesp should be playing, there's too much opportunity to make it seem silly. Mikkelsen, on the other hand, brings kind a subtlety and unknowable depth to the role. He's probably the best actor on TV right now, in my own opinion.

Also, Will is just a far more interesting character than Clarice.

sage for talking about Hannibal in a /nom/ thread.

>>13569

>in a /nom/ thread

m8, he's about as nom as it gets

Oh shit, this is /101/. That'll teach me for making assumptions on /*/.

>>13570

n1

Was walking about York market with some mates once and we stood watching some bloke prepare and cook up a big batch of paella, so I asked my mate "would you fancy some of that?" you know, as you do when something tasty is about or an attractive woman passes, his reply was "no, cos I don't know what's in it!"
Some people are beyond words.

>>13573
He's got a point. Last and only time I had paella from a bloke in the market I had the runs for hours, and the bog fucking stunk of fish well into the next morning.

>>13573
I'd be more concerned about the preparation / storage of the food than anything. I'll eat anything - but market fare. It's one of those grey (brown hehe) areas that makes you play russian roulette with your digestive system.

I don't like eggs or mushrooms, I try to but every time I put one in my mouth I actually vomit a little in my mouth, and even if I don't I'm dry heaving the entire way through until I swallow it.

Luckily it only seems to be the taste that causes this. If I can cover it up in something, then I can eat it. I hate the taste of roast chicken but luckily nowadays there are many chicken dishes that just plain taste like other things, and I can eat them. I can eat omelettes but only if I put lots of stuff in them, I hate plain ones. I have never found a mushroom dish I was able to eat without wanting to cry.

The ones that boil my piss are those grown men who proudly claim "I don't eat vegetables. Never touch 'em."
What do you want, a fucking medal? Are we somehow supposed to be impressed by this?

Idiot adult babies. Pathetic.

>>13578
I don't eat a lot of veg. But I'm certainly not proud of it. Who's proud of it?

>>13578

Yeah fuck those guys. And people who feel the need to point out I just ordered a vegetarian dish like I just revealed I was working for the KGB all along.

>>13581
Trust me, the people who think you're a right puff for not ordering a giant rib eye steak at every meal or for challenging the assumed orthodoxy about how tasty it is are just as bad - but they are often the same person.
As a meat eater I'd often like to eat fish or something, and don't give a shit what anybody else eats, unless they apply the childish methods seen in this thread. I can at least respect someone who chooses to exclude a food group on ethical grounds provided they don't crusade with it, which is what the EET MEET U PUFTAH brigade pretty much do.

I don't particularly care what other people do or do not eat, but I have one hard rule for myself: if someone's kind enough to provide me with a meal, I'll eat whatever's put in front of me. (Obviously I'd break that rule if I thought the food was off/otherwise dangerous, but that's never been an issue.)

I think this probably stems from having a friend growing up who'd come over to my house, he'd just pick at (and end up leaving most of) the dinner my mum would make him. This continued well into his late teenage years, probably into his early 20s now that I think of it. It was excruciating, and incredibly rude. I still don't understand, really.

>>13602

Maybe your mum just can't cook?

YEAH I FUCKING SAID IT!!? What now, motherfucker!

>>13606
Well, you're right, she definitely can't cook; she has motor neuron disease. She could cook and was a decent chef back in the day, though, honest.

>>13528

I dont mind people with genuine food allergies or people who are dieting being a bit inquisitive about food, but when people are stupidly picky about food in restaurants, it makes we want to scream at them. Even some of my friends, who are otherwise genuinely lovely people, are just never happy with what they order. There's always something wrong with a meal when we eat out and then they quibble over the bill afterwards, sometimes being rude to the staff as well. I just don't understand it. I'll eat pretty much anything that can be put onto a plate and doesn't fight back.

On the subject of boring people talking bollocks to fill the silence, I will someday crack and tell someone "shut the fuck up, please. You're giving me a headache." Particularly middle-aged women who start shrieking loudly at each other after two glasses of white wine. Yes, I probably am a cunt and a killjoy. But I am also an alcoholic, and I would like to have a drink without having to shout at a couple of bottle-blonde wrinkled harpies and get thrown out. I want to have a drink in peace.

>>13651
Maybe stop drinking in wetherspoons then?

>>13652

This. And overpriced cocktail pubs. These places were created with those harpies in mind, and their longsuffering bar staff are paid to keep them away from us for a few blissful hours every weekend. Find yourself a working man's club where talking in anything above a disgruntled murmur is grounds for getting you thrown out, and relax.

Oh, and that thing about your friends being rude to serving staff - you can tell a lot about a person's character by how they treat their waiter. I've said it before and I'll say it again, it really does seem to be an excellent barometer for revealing a person's inner cuntishness. I'd really argue against them being "otherwise genuinely lovely people" if they ever consider behaving that way to another human being to be acceptable.

>>13653

Do these 'working men's clubs' do real ale?

>>13656
It's a bit hit and miss. The last I was in had a few cask ales (neither of them of any note) but seemed to mostly serve fizzy piss. If it's real ale you're after then you might be better off hunting some old man pubs, or anything in the CAMRA guide. If you were in my neck of the woods (Birminghell) I could recommend some decent places and might even stand you a pint.

I like how this thread has turned from whining about fussy eaters to the myriad virtues of good beer, though this is probably marking me out as a "fussy drinker" instead. Bah.

>>13659
You drink beer for pleasure so it's acceptable to be choosy about what you like. Food on the other hand is necessary to live so being a fussy eater makes less sense.

Having said that, if someone were to give me a can of some watery piss like Foster's or Carlsberg I'd still thank them for offering me a drink and not be a cunt demanding they serve me a decent ale.

>>13666

That... makes no sense.

No, the difference is that you never make it or (knowingly) interact with someone who did. With food, it's rude to disparage something someone's spent time preparing - taking a minute to pour it out of a tap doesn't count.

>>13667
What part doesn't make sense? You don't need beer any more than you need cigars or cocaine. It has no utility, you drink beer to enjoy the taste and the mild alcohol buzz. Why would I ever choose to drink a beer I dislike? Food however is useful, even if you don't enjoy eating vegetables or rice or whatever you still do it because it's good for you.

Your second point isn't quite true, I know quite a few professional or amateur brewers. Also where do you draw the line, would you apply the same logic to a particularly complicated cocktail?

>>13668
>You don't need beer any more than you need cigars or cocaine
Personally, I only eat food in order to go on indulging in these things, among others.

>With food, it's rude to disparage something someone's spent time preparing - taking a minute to pour it out of a tap doesn't count.
>Why would I ever choose to drink a beer I dislike?
If anyone's prepared to buy me booze I'm not going to be too picky about what kind.

>>13679
Not all pubs serve black sheep or bottled Polish lagers, yet I would still get a pint of cask or whatever shit lager is on offer just because, I am also grateful for others getting a round in of whatever they're getting.
Same with food. Real ale twats are as bad as picky eaters.

>>13686
Lager doesn't come in casks in this country - a cask is for 'real' beer and cider. The vast majority of brew in bars in this country is served from a presurrised keg, which keeps its contents 'fizzy' because it has stopped fermenting. 'Real' brew ferments in a cask when opened and after c3 days after opening becomes undrinkable and 'dead'.

Real ale twat reporting, as you can probably guess.

>>13686
Oh well as I said I completely agree if someone is offering you beer. My point is that if you are buying it yourself it's fine to be picky.

>>13707
I really had to bite my tongue and not get too angry at this. Real ale twats will be real ale twats.

To be honest, I am a classical music twat. You think Heifetz was better than Oistrakh!? Fuck off!

>>13723

M8, Heifetz played so fast so he must be more gud.

Really though, his playing was so clean. His phrasing was the smoothest I've heard yet, showing immense bow control. His only downfall was that his recordings often seem to pick up on a shit ton of bow noise, but I have no idea if that was his personal preference, or the engineers of the time. It does detract from otherwise impeccable performances. To my ear, Oistrakh was less expressive and revealed fewer details about the piece. Both a million times greater than most could ever hope to be, though.

>>13723
Well I think most people might be interested to know the difference between cask and keg. Not exactly brain surgery, is it?

>>13723
huh? Not who you are replying to but how is he being twattish? Sure he ignored the

>pint of cask or whatever shit lager

Differentiating cask from shit lager but what else? Or are you so insulted by the entire notion of real ale that any mention has you frothing into your lambrini?

>>13726

I'm more beer geek than ale twat. Can't beat a bit of Mikeller. That Bengali Tiger in Spoons is nice. Elland Brewery is down the road so 1872 Porter tends to be a common brew round these parts. I do believe the pubs and breweries near me are some of the best in the country for price and variety.

>>13727
Yeah the Bengali Tiger is good. There are a lot of good beers out there that don't fit the strict and somewhat arbitrary definition of Real Ale, but that isn't to say it is a meaningless distinction.

Also am I correct in thinking that bottled ales that aren't bottle conditioned (i.e don't have the yeast sediment) don't technically count as real ale, even if they're from the same batch as firkins of real ale?

>>13728
> the strict and somewhat arbitrary definition of Real Ale

It's not that arbitrary.

Real Ale is real because it doesn't use artificial carbonation as a preservative (eg as with a lager cask or a carbonated bottle). Instead it uses bottle or cask fermentation.

A bottle of London Pride, a 'real ale' when served from a cask, is not 'real ale' when served from a bottle or can, however.

>>13728

Beergeeklad here. Real ale is when the yeast is still alive. Bottled beer is nothing like real ale but some dead bottled beers stil excel eg I prefer bottled Old Peculier to handpull. Don't drink ale from clear bottles as sunlight harms beer.

There are a few decent keg brews around but I always feel that real ale tastes fresher and sharper. I also prefer bottle conditioned to dead beer.

Currently drinking Titanic Iron Curtain on handpull as Stellalads sup idly by.

Good thing about real ale is because it isn't full of chemical shit (eg propelyne glycol in Corona etc) and colour crap, hangovers only tend to be caused by dehydration and body glucose level fuckup.

I'm off for a waz and another pint of Titanic.

>>13730
One thing I never get is how you can get decent ales for the same price if not less than a pint of shit tier lager from the pub but in most supermarkets it's the opposite way - i.e you can get a crate of shit lager for half the price of an equal volume of decent ales.

I'm a massive fan of real ales but I will admit a certain soft spot for cheap ass bottled or canned stella, being that was the first beer I ever drank significant amounts of. It still tastes of victory, the victory of getting 8 cans from the paki shop at 16. Plus it goes perfectly with cigarettes. Is it weird that I think Greene King are bigger cunts than Stella for at least pretending to be ale?

>>13731

Stella Artois is a perfectly competent beer. It's not brilliant, it's not awful, it's just a reliable, refreshing lager. There's a very sniffy attitude towards lagers in this country, especially mass-produced lagers, but the Belgians and Germans have no such hang-ups.

There's a contrarian tendency to dismiss anything popular as rubbish by default, but that just isn't rational. A pasteurised lager isn't going to be particularly interesting, but that doesn't make it bad. There's nothing wrong with liking a beer just because it hits the spot and goes well with a curry. People who only drink keg beer are missing out, but so are CAMRA men who won't touch the stuff.

I'm deeply suspicious of anyone who constructs an identity around consumption of a product, and anyone whose identity would be threatened by the notion that a popular lager is perfectly drinkable. The same goes for all sorts of other things, like pop music - the people who rail most vehemently about the "rubbish in the charts" tend to have the narrowest, most conservative and least informed tastes.

>>13732
>I like Stella therefore everyone else telling me it and similar beers are shit must be wrong

>>13732
Thats fine m8, keep drinking the Stella - it's alright.

But please don't push this "oh stop saying it's shit because it's popular" hogwash - which goes for everything, food, music, film, clothes, etc.

Just because it's popular doesn't suggest it should be good - the marketing and advertising behind it is good. The product necessarily isn't.

>The same goes for all sorts of other things, like pop music - the people who rail most vehemently about the "rubbish in the charts" tend to have the narrowest, most conservative and least informed taste

>least informed taste


Are you joking? It's quite the opposite - the average music pleb consumes what he is given - instead of opening up to new and challenging things.

>>13732
I've always thought that there's more joy to be had in life by sampling all the pies on offer and being glad of the abundance, rather than wasting energy on decrying all but one sole crust.

>>13734
I kinda agree with what you're saying. Fundamentally it seems a fallacy to proportionate popularity with quality either positively or negatively. There are roughly as many popular cult classics as unappreciated gems; as many well-marketed manufactured shites as there are experimental flops.

>>13730
>Good thing about real ale is because it isn't full of chemical shit (eg propelyne glycol in Corona etc) and colour crap, hangovers only tend to be caused by dehydration and body glucose level fuckup.
Beer in general is a fairly safe choice if you want to mitigate the chance or effects of a hangover. Quite a few people react badly to yeast though, so real ale can give them terrible hangovers. As far as I'm aware, there's no reason to believe that the lack of "chemical shit" in real ale has any more health benefits than the lack of additives in "natural tobacco" brands.

>>>13733
You're arguing about whether or not something tastes good. It'd take some pretty incredible evidence to demonstrate objectively that your preferred brand of fermented sugar water is better than somebody else's preferred brand of fermented sugar water. I like ales, some people don't. This does not bother me. People who don't like or care about ales don't tend to proselytize to me about the inherent superiority of lager. A lot of people who are really into ale, unfortunately, are incredibly obnoxious cunts about beer, and should honestly shut the fuck up.

>>13734
>Are you joking? It's quite the opposite - the average music pleb consumes what he is given - instead of opening up to new and challenging things.
He's right. Every teenlad who's just discovered the Beatles loves nothing more than a good old rant about how awful everything in the charts is. I care a great deal about music, and frankly I'm too busy enjoying how easy it is today to appreciate the niche, obscure, forgotten, and underappreciated as well as the mainstream to havemuch of an opinion on the irrelevant relic that is the charts.

So what is it in Newcastle Brown that gives me such a vicious hangover? Just one bottle whilst on the piss will give me absolute horrors the next day. I've never had the same effect with real ale. The only other alcoholic drink that does the same for me is white cider, and I'm content not knowing what it is in that shit that's so toxic.

>>13653

I hadn't considered a working man's club. I shall investigate.

>>13738

White cider. The horror!

>>13737
> Every teenlad who's just discovered the Beatles loves nothing more than a good old rant about how awful everything in the charts is.

The Beetles are hardly obscure - they're basically been permanently on the charts since the dawn of time. I get what you mean, but to me, it's all the same shit really, just different decades. I'm sort of a bad person to have popular musical discussions with, since I've become sort of a caveman when it comes to music in general. I've disconnected myself from the mainstream a long time ago.

>>13734

>Are you joking? It's quite the opposite - the average music pleb consumes what he is given - instead of opening up to new and challenging things.

You're missing my point. People who have a deep understanding of music theory and practical musicianship invariably have a great deal of respect for chart pop, because writing that kind of song and producing that kind of record is really hard. A pop record is rarely particularly complex, but they are perfectly refined. They're little haiku-like pearls, a shot of musical espresso, all the elements of musical expression boiled down into their most intense and immediate form.

Only listening to chart pop means you have a very limited taste in music, but never listening to chart pop means you're just a petty snob who wouldn't know a decent song if it bit you on the arse. The charts have always been propped up by bona-fide geniuses - Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Rodgers & Hart, Cole Porter, Bacharach & David, Barry & Greenwich, Phil Specter, Mickie Most, Holland-Dozier-Holland, Stock Aitken Waterman, Trevor Horn, Xenomania, Ester Dean...

My contention is that if you can't explain why the following record is a work of sublime brilliance, you fundamentally don't understand any part of music, you're just following some or other fashion.

https://www.youtube.com/v/4JipHEz53sU

>>13741

I have to say, I've never really understood people that claim to hate chart pop with a passion. It's always come across as catchy, sometimes interesting and easy to listen to.

This is from someone who's been immersed in music all my life, perform it semi-professionally on an almost daily basis and may well go into a full-time career in it after uni.

>>13741

I don't know what you nerds are talking about but I would go wacky like a wack-a-do on Nicky Minaj.

>>13741
>People who have a deep understanding of music theory and practical musicianship invariably have a great deal of respect for chart pop
That's true, but also a very different thing to actually liking it and listening to it at home out of choice.

>never listening to chart pop means you're just a petty snob who wouldn't know a decent song if it bit you on the arse.
Respectfully disagree. "Pop" covers a lot of ground, but in general I don't have any cause to spend time exploring the genre; whenever I do hear Radio 1 it seems to be dominated by autotuned vocals, obnoxious lyrics, and shallow, repetitive melodies. I've spent enough time in front of DAWs to understand that it's all highly technically competent (though I'd like to get in a jab about the dynamic range being crunched to fuck on most of it) and I don't have any illusions that my own tastes are somehow "superior", but modern pop really does nothing for me. I'm not worried that I'm missing out on anything by spending my time exploring the rest of music instead.

>>13741
I don't have anything to contribute, but good post. Changed my view a little bit.

>>13747

I can sort of see where you're coming from, but I also really struggle to understand how someone wouldn't like any of it, or how a music lover would find no excitement or inspiration in pop music. I listen to maybe two or three hundred new songs a week, but the records that make me cry are invariably the throwaway pop.

I'm from a jazz and folk background and learned much of my craft singing border ballads with a finger in my ear, but the highlight of my week is Target's Homegrown show on 1Xtra. There's a purity and emotional clarity to so much pop music, best represented by John Peel's adoration of "Teenage Kicks". It always strikes me as terribly sad that he died too soon to witness the DAW revolution. It's barely spring, but I'm already hyped about the upcoming summer season and the inevitable Balearic anthems. A fortnight in Magaluf or Ibiza is my idea of hell, but I'll be eagerly awaiting the europop treasures that people bring back from those holidays.

Even ignoring the post-mortem chart entry of Frankie Knuckles' "Your Love", there are at least half a dozen records in this week's Top 40 that I really like. I feel strongly that we're privileged to be living in a golden age of pop music. (Also, kudos to Route 94 for their utterly beautiful new video).

https://www.youtube.com/v/BS46C2z5lVE
https://www.youtube.com/v/m-M1AtrxztU
https://www.youtube.com/v/HGy9i8vvCxk
https://www.youtube.com/v/FHCYHldJi_g
https://www.youtube.com/v/450p7goxZqg
https://www.youtube.com/v/8B93tgRxMuE

>>13752
It's strange to see a VR headset used as a conceit for a video. Don't think I've seen that since the 90s!

>I can sort of see where you're coming from, but I also really struggle to understand how someone wouldn't like any of it, or how a music lover would find no excitement or inspiration in pop music.
Different strokes. I gave all of those links a shot and they mostly left me cold, there's just very little substance there to my ears. The John Legend track gets closest, that's basically what I'd sniffily class as "good" pop. Still, while the piano is lovely, I wish he'd shut up.

If you honestly listen to 200-300 new tracks a week then you spend far more of your time exploring new music than most, and certainly far more than me. I don't have the patience to sift through the inevitable dross, I'd much rather put on a record I either already know I like or know I've got a good shot at liking - and frankly that excludes the singles charts, as the odds there are just horribly low. Pop music is also pretty uniformly safe - if I want to be challenged or "hear something new" I'll go scour some random music blogs for Mediafire links, or spend some time youtube hopping (back in the day I used to love exploring FTPs and Apache indexes, you'd find all manner of weird shit).

>>13741
Pop music is designed to be popular amongst people who have no understanding or deep interest in music. It is aimed at the lowest common denominator, the double-digit IQ masses who are most likely to throw their money at this shit. Absolute rubbish the lot of it.

>>13778
Careful you don't cut youtself there, lad.

>>13740
They're not obscure, but they're hardly a massive chart presence in 2014. You could substitute the Beatles for some shite like the Pixies and the point would still stand.

>>13741
>if you can't explain why the following record is a work of sublime brilliance
I can't, but I'd very much appreciate it if you would.

>>13790

The Pixies are brilliant.

>>13792
I do still hold a bit of a soft spot for the Pixies, but they are very much entry level alternative music. A lot of their most vocal fans are the above mentioned teenlads venturing outside the mainstream for the first time. Their featuring in Fight Club probably doesn't help this.

I still have a thing for Kim Deal, even though she's in her fifties.

>>13802

Get your facts right, lad. I'm a Pixies fan that doesn't fit into your misguided demographic. There was no other influential band 1988 - 1991 apart from Pixies. Period.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd34UjP6Q3Y

>>13808

I'd put my thing in Kim Deal but I probably would have to stand aside to a couple of roller derby girls.

I'm saying nothing.

>>13809
>Get your facts right, lad. I'm a Pixies fan that doesn't fit into your misguided demographic
As I said, I quite like them myself. I didn't say all of their fans fit into a certain demographic.

>There was no other influential band 1988 - 1991 apart from Pixies. Period.
That's blatantly incorrect though.