[meme] things i do not blog about, 3/3
[initial post]

this post's title notwithstanding, feel free to suggest more topics. i'm not likely to post any proper unprompted content in the near future, after all.

from feliciter: what would make me stop listening to Kent

It's an intriguing question, and one I don't think I've ever asked myself, since Kent is the Band Of My Life right now and I can't see that changing. I mean, I flew to Sweden to see them. Twice. And caught three concerts within four days, the second time around. So the indefinite endurance of my fannish love for Kent is something I've taken for granted; it's not the same as being in a fandom in the usual sense, or even following a certain series.

So it'd take quite a lot to make me stop listening to Kent. For a start, I'm comfortable enough with separating the creators and the creation. While I admit that some of my fondness for Kent comes from the nature of the band itself (childhood friends!) and from the qualities of the individual members, I fell in love with the music first, and that's where my attachment to them is rooted. So it is unlikely that any one incident -- Jocke making some sort of thoughtless remark or the revelation of some past scandal, say -- would turn me off the music.

I suppose it is conceivable that if the band suddenly adopted and sustained an unpleasant philosophy, then I might begin to feel uncomfortable listening to them. Particularly if such things started seeping into the music: if they started writing songs that glorified war, say. o_o;;

And then there is the music itself. If their music style changed enough, then it's possible that I'd give up on them. If they started releasing 17-minute-long epics full of distortion and screaming and chainsaws, say, or if they produced nothing but insipid pop. But as before, it'd have to be a significant and sustained change. Just as it's unlikely that any one single event would suffice to make me stop listening to them, it would take more than a few songs or even an entire album. I'd probably give it time and several albums, see if things changed. And even if they didn't, and I decided to stop following them fannishly, it's likely that I'd still keep an eye out for reviews of further releases, in the vain hope that they might return to their old sound or sanity.

Which brings me to this important point: no matter where Kent goes in the future, whether musically or as public figures, their back catalogue will remain unstained, and if nothing else I will still listen to that. I honestly can't think of anything that might make me acquire a dislike for the Kent songs I currently love.

So in summary: while it's possible that the adoption of reprehensible enough a philosophy or unpalatable enough a music style could turn me off from the band, there probably isn't anything that could make me stop listening to what Kent has released so far. Besides, you know, a gun to the head or something.

and on that note, here's my favourite song from their latest album:

Kent - Våga vara rädd
upbeat, catchy, and just generally fun. <3 it even has happy trumpets!