What Type of Fan Are You? - The Beatles
- Casual fans' favorite - The Beatles One or A Hard Day's Night
- Serious fans' favorite - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Revolver, or Abbey Road
- Avid fans' favorite - The Beatles [White Album] or Rubber Soul
- Diehard fans' favorite - 1962 - 1966 [The Red Album]
Sometimes, you can tell how avid a fan is by what their favorite album by an artist is. This series hopes to fine tune this practice.
In general, diehard fans fall in love with the qualities that most separate a given band from other artists. As a result, they tend to gravitate to albums others may consider rather self-indulgent. They also tend to steer away from the more popular "favorites".
I'm dividing fans into four categories - casual, serious, avid, and diehard. Casual fans gravitate toward the more well-known or recent work. Serious fans usually latch on to an only slightly lesser-known work which is still perfectly enjoyable by non-converts. Avid fans go in for less popular work that showcase the band's less mainstream or more distinctive sides. Diehard fans tend to praise work that only diehard fans ever admit to enjoying, work where a given artist's personality completely absorbs the album, for better or worse.
Just a working theory for now, but I'll post a few bands to get the idea rolling. I'm open to ideas or help fine-tuning each list.
This one is a bit odd, I admit. The Red Album? But isn't the Red Album a collection of some of their most popular tunes?
Yes, but even more important is the select class of people that this collection especially appeals to. This class of fans consists of people who buy the early Beatles CDs only to find the line-up doesn't quite match up with their old albums, but find on this collection the soundtrack to their youth.
Yes, I'm taking about the women who were 16 in 1964 - 1967, the same women who are those young girls who stood there and CRIED THEIR BLOODSHOT EYES OUT as the Beatles slammed out A Hard Day's Night and Love Me Do. Sorry, I don't care how many bootleg copies of the complete White Album sessions you own - we're all casual Beatles fans compared to those girls (now women) who made Beatlemania the earth-shattering movement it was.
And I know my mother agrees...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Now I am insulted because I must be a woman in my early fifties. I loved the Red Album and have always been partial to early Beatles. Yikes...
No, the love of the red album is not exclusive to women in their early fifties, but the enormous group of diehard fans who fall in this category does account for the red album grabbing the diehard fan slot.
Say 90% of America was Republican during the last election. I would assume Bush would win because of the large number of Republicans. This doesn't mean I'm right, of course, and this doesn't necessarily mean you are a Republican if voted for Bush...
And you need not be a 50+ woman to favor the red album.
As for whether you need to be a 50+ woman to be a diehard Beatles fan, I don't know. I have never seen a person my age cry over the Beatles, so I'm largely basing my statement on that fact. Faulty, perhaps, but there it is.
These lists good-naturedly deal with generalizations. If people get offended, I'll consider taking them down.
Are you really insulted?
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Neat idea's you come up with bangsoramatron. See, it's shit like this that makes you.....THE MAN!!!!!!
Thanks, jblack. To spread the credit about a bit, I arrived at this idea with chatting with Johnny Waco the other night. I've thought about this before, but I hadn't really vocalized my hypothesis quite so clearly as I did that night. It'll be interesting to see how this little theory tests out...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
I suspect you're not really insulted, but I've ticked some people on the net off big time before by assuming their tongue was slightly in their cheek when that was not the case. I tend to err on the side of caution since then...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Lord no, I gave up being insulted many years ago. It has made my life a lot happier.
Whew!
Me too, actually. Takes up entirely too much energy...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
There's one problem with this list - I came up as an Avid fan, and I barely ever listen to the Beatles. Abbey Road, however, is my favorite album, and the one I'd listen to over and over.
Yes, I was a bit shaky putting Abbey Road under avid. Perhaps I should skip it up a category or delete it altogether?
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
I think I see what you're trying to do though. You associate a level of someones "fanness" by an album that is supposed to represent that level. Right? It's a good idea, no doubt. I can see where it wouldn't match up for everybody though.
That's pretty much it. The idea started pondering over Pink Floyd. I have a few friends who adore Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother, but I have noticed that, for the most part, only diehard fans would ever mention these two albums as a favorite. Among those fans, however, an amazing amount will mention one of those two as a favorite. I decided to start paying attention and to see if this "album-to-fan level" idea applies to other bands and levels of fandom as well, particularly in relation to the theory I proposed in the user comments above..
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Not sure what my favorite Beatles album is, possibly Rubber Soul. Where does that put me??
I was actually considering switching that out with Abbey Road for Avid Fan. Would that match you?
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Actually that would match what I consider myself of being, an avid Beatles fan. There are moments(albeit few) where I just get sick of the Beatles(I have been listening to them since I was 3 like most other people). Yet after having heard their music oh so many times I can't ever quite get over how great and perfect it generally sounds.
Man les, I think this idea of classification would be cool if it worked; we could further hone the art of listening to music into a science! Ah, just kidding...but seriously, I wonder if someone can only create these classifications through hearing others talk about what they love, or is it possible to determine on one's own what the most distinctive (or indulgent) albums of an artist is?
Another point, could diehard fans also want to differentiate themselves by not liking what they consider the "casual fans" to like?
And I suppose only artists with varied careers, long careers, and a high level of critical respectibilty would work?
Johnny Waco
Three paragraphs...
In response to the first, I'm not really sure. I'm hoping these list may help answer that question.
Second, I absolutely think that this is often true, particularly when dealing somebody's all-time favorite artist.
Third, I'm not really sure. I certainly would think that it would work best for more established artists, but then I was halfway through with a Bob Dylan list before I had to give up on it because it simply was not working.
Hmmm...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
You are discovering, bangsie, some of the pitfalls of attempting to catgorize people. People are the most complex things on this planet: each is unique. Not even the very crudest categories (e.g. man/woman black/white) can neatly account for all of us. :-)