veenstra(2015)- class position & musical tastes

Class Position and Musical Tastes: A Sing-Off between theCultural Omnivorism and Bourdieusian HomologyFrameworks

GERRY VEENSTRA

University of British Columbia

The longstanding debate between the homology and omnivorismapproaches to the class bases of cultural tastes and practices rages on incultural sociology. The homology thesis claims that class positionsthroughout the class hierarchy are accompanied by specified culturaltastes and specialized modes of appreciating them while the culturalomnivorism thesis contends that elites are (increasingly) characterizedby a breadth of cultural tastes of any and all kinds. This study tests theapplicability of these theses to musical tastes in Canada through theapplication of multiple correspondence analysis, latent class analysis,and logistic regression modeling to original telephone survey data (n =1,595) from Toronto and Vancouver. I find that musical omnivorism, anappreciation for diverse musical styles, is not dispersed along class lines.Instead I find a homology between class position and musical tastes thatdesignates blues, choral, classical, jazz, musical theater, opera, pop,reggae, rock, and world/international as relatively highbrow andcountry, disco, easy listening, golden oldies, heavy metal, and rap asrelatively lowbrow. Of the highbrow tastes, all but jazz are disliked bylower class people, and of the lowbrow tastes, country, easy listening,and golden oldies are concurrently disliked by higher class people.Consistent with the homology thesis, it appears that class position isaligned with specific musical likes and dislikes.

Le vieux debat entre les approches de l’homologie et de l’omnivorismeaux bases des classes des gouts et des pratiques culturels fait rage dansla sociologie culturelle. La these de l’homologie pretend que les positionsdes classes a travers la hierarchie des classes sont accompagnees par desgouts culturels specifies et des modes specialises permettant leurappreciation. La these de l’omnivorisme culturel, en revanche, soutientque les elites sont (de plus en plus) caracterisees par un eventail de gouts

Gerry Veenstra, Department of Sociology, University of British Columbia, 6303 N. W. Marine Drive,Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z1. E-mail: [email protected]

C© 2015 Canadian Sociological Association/La Societe canadienne de sociologie

Class Position and Musical Tastes 135

culturels de toutes sortes. Cette etude experimente l’applicabilite de cestheses aux gouts musicaux au Canada a travers l’application de l’analysedes correspondances multiples, de l’analyse des classes latentes et dumodele de regression logistique aux donnees d’origine de l’etudecollectees par telephone (n = 1,595) de Toronto et de Vancouver. Je merends compte que l’omnivorisme musical, une appreciation de stylesmusicaux divers, n’est pas disperse le long des classes sociales. Bien aucontraire, je trouve qu’il existe une homologie entre la position desclasses et les gouts musicaux qui designe les blues, la chorale, la musiqueclassique, le jazz, le theatre musical, l’opera, la pop, le reggae, le rock etla musique du monde/internationale comme des styles des classes auniveau intellectuel relativement eleve. Cette homologie designe lacountry, la disco, la musique d’ambiance, les anciens succes, le heavymetal et le rap comme des styles des classes au niveau intellectuelrelativement bas. Des gouts des classes au niveau intellectuel eleve, tousles styles a l’exception du jazz ne sont pas apprecies de la basse classe.De meme, des gouts des classes au niveau intellectuel bas, le country, lamusique d’ambiance et les anciens succes ne sont pas apprecies de lahaute classe. Selon la these de l’homologie, il apparaıt que la position desclasses est fonction des preferences et des aversions musicalesspecifiques.

THE HOMOLOGY AND CULTURAL omnivorism frameworks have beenat loggerheads for more than 20 years (e.g., Atkinson 2011; Bennettet al. 2009; Coulangeon and Lemel 2007; Gebesmair 1998; Goldberg 2011;Lizardo and Skiles 2012; Peterson and Kern 1996; Peterson and Simkus1992; Rimmer 2012; Warde, Wright, and Gayo-Cal 2007). The homologythesis claims that class positions throughout the class hierarchy are ac-companied by specified cultural tastes and specialized modes of appreci-ating them while the cultural omnivorism thesis contends that elites are(increasingly) characterized by a breadth of cultural tastes of any andall kinds. This study provides new evidence on the relationship betweenclass position and cultural tastes by analyzing data from a novel telephonesurvey on music and class conducted in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada.Specifically, it seeks to establish whether elites and lower class people inurban English-speaking Canada are characterized by distinct sets of mu-sical tastes or distinguished from another primarily by the degree to whichthey manifest omnivorous musical tastes.

THE BOURDIEUSIAN HOMOLOGY FRAMEWORK

The homology framework, belonging to a long line of cultural inquiry thatincludes Thorstein Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class ([1899] 1994)and Herbert Gans’ Popular Culture and High Culture (1974), finds itsfullest expression in Pierre Bourdieu’s magnum opus, Distinction: A SocialCritique of the Judgement of Taste (Bourdieu [1979] 1984). There theFrench sociologist maintained that a multitude of diverse cultural tastes

136 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

and practices in 1960s France were fundamentally manifestations of classhabitus. For Bourdieu, class positions are distinguished by their differingamounts of economic capital, essentially monetary wealth, and culturalcapital, valued cultural resources that include educational credentials,which locate them in different parts of a multidimensional social space (asociety-wide “field”). Specifically, the sum total of the two forms of capitalpositions agents on the primary axis of social space, that which distin-guishes the upper, middle, and lower classes, while relative composition ofthe capitals situates agents along the secondary axis of social space whichdistinguishes dominating and dominated sections of the classes.

The cultural tastes of the wealthy and highly educated members ofthe upper class, comprising highbrow culture, represent the “legitimate,”“sophisticated,” and “cultured” tastes and practices of society. Membersof this class have the power to delimit highbrow tastes and appropriatemodes of appreciating them and can use their familiarity and facility withthese cultural forms to maintain and reinforce boundaries between them-selves and others. Many highbrow tastes are especially enshrined in thebetter educated but less-wealthy segment of the upper class, the home ofthe intelligentsia, the dominated portion of upper-class space. Lowbrowor “popular” tastes and practices, embraced by the less-wealthy and less-educated members of society, are the antithesis of highbrow culture; theyserve as a negative reference for the tastes of the dominant class (Swartz1997). Finally, middlebrow culture reflects the (imperfect) attempts of themembers of the middle class, the petit bourgeoisie, to embrace highbrowculture and to distinguish themselves from the lower class. For Bourdieu,then, there is a homology, a kind of isomorphic relation or one-to-one cor-respondence, between the multidimensional space of positions and themultidimensional space of cultural tastes.

A key principle underlying the homology of class positions and culturaltastes, according to Bourdieu, is the opposition between the “tastes of lux-ury (or freedom) and the tastes of necessity” (Bourdieu [1979] 1984:198).The tastes of luxury are the tastes of people born into a habitus whichis defined by distance from necessity; these people possess freedoms ofthought and action that are facilitated by possession of capital. In par-ticular, freedom from necessity facilitates development of the “aestheticgaze,” a mode of consumption which stresses appreciation for the form of acultural object rather than its function and tends to pass aesthetic ratherthan ethical judgments on it. Accordingly, order, etiquette, and restraintare virtues in upper-class space.

The denial of lower, coarse, vulgar, venal, servile—in a word, natural—enjoyment, which constitutes the sacred sphere of culture, implies an af-firmation of the superiority of those who can be satisfied with the sublimated,refined, disinterested, gratuitous, distinguished pleasures forever closed tothe profane. (Bourdieu [1979] 1984:7)


The middle class, striving for distinction but lacking the capital andhabitus needed to fully appropriate upper-class lifestyles, in turn valorizes“asceticism, rigor, legalism” (Bourdieu [1979] 1984:331). In contrast withthe bourgeois habitus which conveys an “ethos of ease, a confident relationto the world and the self,” the petit bourgeois habitus presents an “ethosof restriction through pretension” (Bourdieu [1979] 1984:339). The tastesof necessity, finally, most common in the lower class, derive from the needto produce labor at the lowest cost; people with low levels of (especiallyeconomic) capital tend to valorize tastes of necessity out of material ne-cessity. Enjoyment and fun, impropriety, and fulfilling material needs arevirtues in lower class space because the functions rather than the forms ofcultural objects are of central importance here.

Bourdieu asserted that “nothing more clearly affirms one’s ‘class’,nothing more infallibly classifies, than tastes in music” (Bourdieu [1979]1984:18). Upper-class people, free from the strictures of necessity, tend tohave a taste for difficult, abstract music, especially difficult classical mu-sic. For example, appreciation for Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier wasprevalent among the most highly educated members of Bourdieu’s sur-vey sample from the 1960s. “As legitimate culture, classical music gathersaround it the highest values of aesthetic formalism associated with Kan-tian ‘distinterestedness’” (Prior 2013:183). The French upper class alsorejected with disgust “the most popular and most ‘vulgar’ singers, suchas Les Compagnons de la Chanson, Mireille Mathieu, Adamo or Sheila”(Bourdieu [1979] 1984:60). Middle-class space in turn tends to foster ap-preciation for popularized forms of legitimate music (Gershwin’s Rhap-sody in Blue was especially popular among engineers and technicians inBourdieu’s data) whereas the members of the lower class tend to consumemusic with simple, repetitive structures (such as the popular waltzes ofStrauss) which are typically imposed on them by experts and artists in thefield of musical production (Atkinson 2011). From the standpoint of Bour-dieu’s homology framework, then, musical tastes and distastes, seeminglypersonally idiosyncratic in nature, are in fact reflections of class-basedhabitus.

This represents what I think of as the strong form of the homologythesis. It describes a multidimensional space of positions prescribed by aspecified complex configuration of capitals, namely, the sum total of eco-nomic capital and cultural capital on the primary axis and the relativecomposition of these forms of capital on the secondary axis. It is a rela-tional visioning of entwined spaces of positions and cultural tastes thatrequires relational statistical techniques, such as multiple correspondenceanalysis (MCA) or latent class analysis (LCA), to illuminate the charac-ter of the spaces in quantitative data. In the weak form of the homologythesis, the space of positions and the spaces to which it is homologousare not configured in as complicated a manner. For instance, while evi-dence suggests that the sum total of economic capital and cultural capital

138 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

structures the primary dimension of the social spaces of contemporaryFrance (Coulangeon and Lemel 2007), Canada (Veenstra 2010), Finland(Kahma and Toikka 2012), and the United Kingdom (Gayo-Cal et al. 2006;Le Roux et al. 2008) as well as France of the 1960s (Bourdieu [1979] 1984),the relative composition of these capitals does not appear to contributeto structuring the social spaces of contemporary France (Coulangeon andLemel 2007), Finland (Kahma and Toikka 2012), and the United Kingdom(Gayo-Cal et al. 2006; Le Roux et al. 2008). If one capital or the sum ofseveral capitals effectively delineates class positions then the weak formof the homology thesis is evident and nonrelational techniques such as re-gression analysis are presumably up to the task of uncovering a homologybetween positions and tastes. Precisely which capitals delineate class posi-tions and the manner in which they do so in a given context is an empiricalquestion.

CULTURAL OMNIVORISM

Most incarnations of the cultural omnivorism perspective in the sociologyof culture similarly identify social class as a fundamental basis of culturaltastes and practices. They depart from the homology framework, however,by claiming that breadth of cultural tastes has supplanted possession ofspecified highbrow/lowbrow tastes as the notable cultural delimiter of classboundaries. It is argued that, while the Bourdieusian homology storylinemay have held in past eras, elites in contemporary societies are now bettercharacterized as cultural omnivores than as highbrow aficionados. Theseomnivores consume and practice culture speaks of many different kinds,from hip hop to heavy metal to classical music, from grungy, muddy teamsports such as rugby to ascetic, individual pursuits of body and mind suchas yoga and tai chi, and so forth (Veenstra 2010). They seek variety andeclecticism and are intrinsically inclusive and tolerant in their tastes, incontrast with univores, who, displaying taste for a narrow range of activi-ties or objects, are intrinsically exclusivist and intolerant. Members of theupper class are therefore distinguished from members of other classes bythe breadth of their cultural repertoires rather than their possession ofany specified highbrow cultural tastes or practices. Members of the lowerclass are in turn distinguished from others by the relatively narrow focusof their cultural repertoires, by their propensities to be univores, not bytheir allegiances to any specified lowbrow cultural tastes or practices. It isthe desire and ability to consume a multitude of diverse cultural forms, in-cluding diverse musical styles, that now distinguishes higher class peoplefrom lower class people in contemporary societies.

If the “highbrow snob” has been replaced by the cultural omnivore andthe “lowbrow slob” has been replaced by the univore then the principles,processes, and mechanisms underlying the stratification of cultural tasteshave likely changed as well. In particular, the distinction between tastes


of freedom and necessity may no longer be preeminent. Erickson (1996)proposes that “cultural inequality is not so much a hierarchy of tastes(from soap opera to classical opera) as it is a hierarchy of knowledge (fromthose who know little about soap opera or opera to those who can takepart in conversation about both)” (p. 219). Emmison (2003) argues that“cultural mobility entails the display of cultural competence in a pluralityof domains with concomitant social rewards accruing to those demonstrat-ing these capacities” (p. 213). Omnivores can move easily among culturalrealms (Emmison 2003) and in business might use whatever form of cul-tural knowledge is necessary to make a good impression in job interviews(Garnett, Guppy, and Veenstra 2008) or build social networks to get a bet-ter job (Erickson 1996). In short, that which is now the most useful for get-ting ahead, namely, a breadth of cultural knowledge and familiarity withmultiple cultural forms, is what is now classed. This is presumably becausebreadth of knowledge/familiarity is more readily achieved by upper-classpeople but also because people who have it are relatively likely to achieveupper-class standing.

Various explanations for the historical change in the fundamental na-ture of the class bases of culture from homology to omnivorism have beenproposed. For example, the increasingly specialized nature of occupationsand greater mobility between occupations may have affected people’s cul-tural repertoires, since occupations tend to foster their own cultures andpeople who are required to communicate across occupations or move into anew occupation need to be conversant with a wide range of cultural forms(Erickson 2008). Growing income inequality may have contributed to agrowing inequality in the ability of people to participate in culture whileeducational inflation may have produced relatively more highly educatedpeople in upper-end occupations who are conversant with a wider range ofcultural forms garnered through their experiences with educational sys-tems (Erickson 2008). Increasing amounts of social mobility, especiallyfrom lower to higher strata, may contribute to increasing socioculturalheterogeneity (van Eijck 2001). Peterson (2005) suggests that snobbish ex-clusion “was an effective marker of status in a relatively homogenous andcircumscribed WASP class [but that] omnivorous inclusion seems betteradapted to an increasingly global world culture managed by those whomake their way, in part, by showing respect for the cultural expressionsof others” (p. 273). Increasingly globalized media industries, social andgeographic mobility, and varied networks may also be at the root of theopen and varied “cosmopolitan habitus” seemingly prevalent among elites(Atkinson 2011).

There are several useful ways of distinguishing strong and weak formsof the omnivorism thesis. As with the homology thesis, relational (strong)and nonrelational (weak) renderings of the omnivorism thesis can be en-visioned. For instance, one can imagine a social space delimited by sumtotal and relative composition of capitals where the upper-class section is

140 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

bursting with diverse musical tastes and the lower class section is bereftof them, a multidimensional space of positions homologous to a top-heavyspace of (omnivorous) tastes. Alternatively, breadth of tastes might simplybe associated with one or both of economic capital and cultural capital inlinear-causal regression models.

The distinction between “omnivorism by volume” and “omnivorism bycomposition” (Warde et al. 2007) can also designate strong and weak formsof the omnivorism thesis. In regard to the former, omnivorism is definedby indiscriminate liking of any and all cultural forms, a strong statementof the omnivorism thesis. In regard to the latter, however, “some distinc-tive status orientation is entailed in the patterns of cultural preferencesinvolved” (Warde et al. 2007:145). For example, the definition of musi-cal omnivore employed by Peterson and Simkus (1992) required that theylike traditionally highbrow classical musical and opera. Achterberg andHoutman (2005) operationalized musical omnivorousness as the statusdistance between the most highbrow music and the most lowbrow musicchosen by a person. Explicitly incorporating dislikes into her operational-ization, Bryson (1996) depicted musical omnivores as people who consumedmany different musical genres while simultaneously rejecting the musicgenres with the least educated fans, these being country, heavy metal, andrap music. In these formulations, musical omnivorism is prescribed in thebreadth of its manifestation.

Finally, strong and weak forms of the omnivorism thesis can be dis-tinguished by the degree to which breadth of taste has supplanted spec-ified highbrow tastes among elites. Some scholars suggest that highbrowtastes are a thing of the past and the omnivore now reigns supreme in a“post-Bourdieu era” of cultural sociology (Vander Stichele and Laermans2006). Others contend that the omnivorism framework represents an evo-lution rather than a repudiation of the homology framework where theformer has not (yet) overthrown the latter (e.g., Emmison 2003; Garcıa-Alvarez, Katz-Gerro, and Lopez-Sintas 2007; Lopez-Sintas and Zerva 2005;Peterson 2005; Peterson and Kern 1996). They suggest that elites canin fact be split into two groups: exclusive highbrows with a univorousand exclusive highbrow taste; and inclusive highbrows with an omniv-orous taste inclusive of middlebrow and lowbrow tastes (Emmison 2003;Garcıa-Alvarez et al. 2007; Peterson 2005).1 Lowbrow taste, a popular tastethat nearly everyone likes, is no longer associated with any specific class(Garcıa-Alvarez et al. 2007). In short, the strong form of the omnivorismthesis does away with highbrow snobs entirely while the weak form ac-commodates the existence of highbrow snobs and omnivorous elites, with

1. Research in this vein suggests that exclusive highbrows tend to be older and inclusive highbrows tendto be younger (Ollivier 2008). This age- or cohort-related factor speaks to the notion that aggregatechanges in elite tastes from highbrow to omnivore are generationally prescribed, with younger omnivoreelites replacing aging highbrow exclusivist elites.


their relative weights in numbers and influence a matter of contextual andhistorical specificity.

Multiple formulations of cultural omnivorism and various underlyingprinciples and reasons for historical changes in the class bases of culturaltastes notwithstanding, the body of empirical research purportedly verify-ing the existence of class-delimited cultural omnivores in various interna-tional contexts is now voluminous (Peterson 2005). Cultural omnivorismhas become de rigueur in some circles. Other scholars uphold the con-temporary viability of the homology perspective, questioning the evidencefor and utility in the notion of a class-delimited musical omnivore (e.g.,Atkinson 2011; Rimmer 2012; Savage 2006; Warde et al. 2007). This studycontributes to the ongoing tussle between the Bourdieusian homology andcultural omnivorism perspectives by investigating relationships betweenmusical likes and dislikes and indicators of class position in original surveydata from two large Canadian cities (Toronto and Vancouver).

ANALYTICAL PLAN

The analysis proceeds in four stages. First, I investigate whether diversemusical tastes are widely dispersed, as the homology approach might pre-dict, or tightly clustered, as might be consistent with musical omnivorism.To accomplish this, I apply MCA and LCA to a set of 21 musical likesand dislikes, illuminating contours of a musical field that distinguishesbetween people who like most musical genres, people who dislike mostmusical genres, and people who are ambivalent about most musical gen-res. Second, I investigate the degree to which and how this patterningof musical tastes is structured by various markers of inequality, namely,city of residence, age, gender, racial identity, immigrant status, economiccapital, and cultural capital. In particular, I seek to determine whetherthis Canadian musical field is structured by the sum total of economiccapital and cultural capital and the relative composition of economic andcultural capitals as the field of cultural tastes was structured in Franceof the 1960s. I find that the patterning of musical tastes previously iden-tified is partly reflective of age, racial identity, and immigrant status butmostly unreflective of possession of economic capital and cultural capi-tal. Third, I determine whether a measure of breadth of musical likesis predicted by one or more of the markers of inequality in an OrdinaryLeast Squares (OLS) regression model. I find that women, middle-agedpeople, and native-born Canadians are relatively likely to be musical om-nivores but wealthy and/or highly educated elites are not. Finally, I inves-tigate whether individual musical likes and dislikes are associated withthe markers of inequality in binary logistic regression models. Consis-tent with the weak form of Bourdieu’s homology thesis, I find that elites

142 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

and lower class people are linked with distinct sets of musical likes anddislikes.

METHODS

Survey Sample

Between January and June of 2009, the Survey Research Centre (SRC) atthe University of Victoria in British Columbia conducted telephone inter-views with 732 adults living in the city of Toronto and 863 adults living inthe Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area. The SRC used random-digit di-aling techniques to obtain residential telephone numbers, a next-birthdaystrategy to select one resident per household aged 19 or older to interview,and a computer-aided telephone interviewing system to conduct the inter-views. The introductory script from the callers informed prospective inter-viewees that all adults aged 19 and older were eligible for this study, thatthere were potential risks of an emotional kind from questions pertainingto racial and ethnic identity, experiences of discrimination in everyday lifeand sexual orientation, and that the ultimate goal of the study was to helpto improve the health of Canadians. No incentives, monetary or otherwise,were provided for participation. In total, callers spoke with 17,060 peopleand successfully recruited 1,595 interviewees, representing a cooperationrate of 9.3 percent.

Demographic characteristics of the survey samples and the cities fromwhich they were obtained are described in Table 1. Comparison of the citysamples to the 2006 Census by gender, age, racial identity, immigrantstatus, and educational attainment indicates that both city samples arebiased toward women, older people, Whites, native-born Canadians, andpeople with a university degree. Comparison of cases with complete data (n= 1,503) with those with missing data (n = 92) indicates that the missingcases are relatively likely to be non-White immigrants.

Musical Tastes

Unlike most research of its kind (but see Bennett et al. 2009; Bryson 1996,1997; Carrabine and Longhurst 1999; Savage 2006; Sonnett 2004; Tam-pubolon 2008b), this study focuses on musical likes and dislikes. The cul-tural omnivore is identified by her liking of diverse cultural forms. Fromthe homology perspective, however, the tastes of elites and lower classpeople are as or more likely to be manifested as distastes than as tastes(Bourdieu [1979] 1984). My respondents were asked about their likes anddislikes in regard to 21 musical genres. “For each of the following typesof music, please tell me whether you like or dislike or perhaps feel neu-trally about each type: classical music, hip hop, choral music, folk music,rap, opera, country music, pop, jazz, easy listening, reggae, rock, heavy


Table 1

Characteristics of the City Survey Samples and Their Populations

Toronto Vancouver

Survey Surveysample Census sample CensusN = 732 2006 N = 863 2006

Variable Categories % % % %

Gender Male 35.4 47.3 32.8 48.2Female 64.6 52.7 67.2 51.8

Age Aged 19–34 20.4 29.7 12.5 28.6Aged 35–44 18.5 21.0 16.4 21.2Aged 45–54 23.6 18.3 23.7 20.3Aged 55–64 19.6 13.0 26.9 14.1Aged 65 and older 17.8 17.9 20.5 15.8

Racial identity Asian 3.0 13.3 6.1 23.5Black 6.4 8.4 0.2 1.0South Asian 4.1 12.1 5.1 10.9White 79.3 53.0 82.7 54.7Other 7.1 13.2 5.9 9.9

Immigrantstatus

Born in Canada 65.3 47.8 72.3 56.5Immigrated to

Canada34.7 52.2 27.7 43.5

Educationalattainment

Less than highschool

5.2 20.4 5.2 17.5

High school 24.7 24.3 35.4 26.9Community college

or technicalschool diploma

15.3 25.8 18.6 30.5

Bachelor’s degreeor higher

54.8 29.5 40.7 25.0

Householdincome

Less than $40,000 15.4 15.4$40,000–59,999 12.3 11.5$60,000–79,999 14.3 11.6$80,000–99,999 10.1 10.4$100,000–149,999 14.3 18.0$150,000 or more 16.9 14.3Missing 16.5 18.9

metal, musical theater, gospel, blues, new age, big band, golden oldies,world/international, disco.” Respondents were also asked “You’ve men-tioned that you like <list of likes>. Which one of these is your absolutefavourite?” and “You’ve mentioned that you dislike <list of dislikes>.Which one of these do you dislike the most?” Distributions of these mu-sical tastes variables for the 1,543 respondents who provided informationfor them are described in Table 2.

144 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015T

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RESULTS

Musical Field

In a relational musical field, musical tastes attain their meaning primar-ily in relation to one another. Table 3 describes bivariate relationshipsbetween the 21 musical likes/dislikes variables. Although most of the as-sociations are positive, some of the stronger positive associations, such asthose between rap and hip hop, choral and gospel, choral and folk, operaand classical, reggae and rock, and jazz and blues, may reflect blurredor overlapping boundaries between genres. Negative associations betweenmusical tastes are few and far between, the strongest of which are betweenhip hop and choral, hip hop and folk, heavy metal and choral, heavy metaland easy listening, and heavy metal and golden oldies.

Bourdieu ([1979] 1984) used correspondence analysis to craft his de-pictions of the fields of capitals, lifestyles, and habitus in France. To createa visual rendering of a relational musical field in this study, I appliedthe Burt method approach to MCA to the 21 musical likes/dislikes vari-ables and plotted the primary dimensions derived from it in a multidimen-sional space. The first two dimensions extracted by the MCA explained78.3 percent of the total variability, with 53.2 percent of the variability at-tributable to Dimension 1 and 25.2 percent of the variability attributableto Dimension 2. The variable categories are plotted visually in Figure 1,with Dimension 1 forming the vertical axis and Dimension 2 forming thehorizontal axis. The predominant pattern of musical tastes in Figure 1 isthe presence of distinct clusters of categories that illuminate three collec-tives of people: the members of Quadrant 1 who like most, if not all, musicalgenres (“inclusive” musical omnivores); people located in the lower half ofthe field who dislike most genres; and the members of Quadrant 4 who areambivalent about or unfamiliar with many of the genres.

Next, I applied LCA to the set of 21 musical tastes. The loadings of thevariable categories for the three classes produced by the LCA are presentedin Table 4. Class 1 closely resembles Quadrant 1 of Figure 1, with high load-ings for liking all genres excepting hip hop, rap, and heavy metal (“nearlyinclusive” musical omnivores). Class 2 strongly overlaps with Quadrant3 of Figure 1, with high loadings for disliking all genres excepting classi-cal and easy listening but also for liking classical, easy listening, goldenoldies, pop, and rock. Class 3 strongly overlaps with Quadrant 4, with highloadings for ambivalent attitudes toward all but classical and rock andfor liking classical, pop, jazz, rock, and blues. The LCA therefore illumi-nates characteristics of the clustering of musical tastes that are perhapsnot readily apparent in the MCA, namely, that liking classical, liking pop,liking rock, disliking rap, and disliking heavy metal effectively traverseall three classes and that liking hip hop, liking rap, liking heavy metal,disliking classical, and disliking easy listening do not meaningfully fit in

146 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

Tab

le3

Biv

aria

teA

ssoc

iati

ons

bet

wee

nM

usi

cal

Lik

es/D

isli

kes

hip

hop

0.08

6ch

oral

0.25

30.

164

folk

0.20

30.

149

0.30

3ra

p0.

076

0.48

50.

110

0.10

6op

era

0.31

90.

295

0.16

60.

101

coun

try0.

058

0.16

30.

225

0.06

80.

143

pop

0.06

80.

203

0.10

90.

139

0.10

40.

198

jazz

0.20

40.

131

0.17

20.

185

0.09

00.

169

0.10

90.

171

easy

list

enin

g0.

073

0.09

80.

109

0.07

40.

080

0.21

80.

220

0.11

6re

ggae

0.07

30.

266

0.15

00.

130

0.24

60.

116

0.12

30.

184

0.20

00.

094

rock

0.16

70.

112

0.07

80.

172

0.08

00.

199

0.33

30.

137

0.11

30.

313

heav

y m

etal

0.06

20.

163

0.15

50.

242

0.09

10.

094

0.09

60.

091

0.13

10.

219

0.26

8m

usic

al th

eate

r0.

208

0.10

00.

272

0.21

50.

080

0.22

40.

190

0.17

40.

192

0.23

60.

130

0.10

70.

102

gosp

el0.

109

0.10

70.

324

0.23

40.

093

0.18

20.

219

0.13

00.

188

0.12

90.

202

0.09

10.

110

0.29

0bl

ues

0.17

20.

144

0.18

40.

236

0.10

50.

165

0.12

10.

192

0.42

70.

089

0.25

50.

218

0.12

30.

182

0.23

5ne

w a

ge0.

136

0.15

80.

168

0.13

90.

136

0.12

20.

087

0.18

80.

153

0.17

60.

237

0.18

70.

167

0.18

40.

163

0.22

0bi

g ba

nd0.

192

0.24

40.

237

0.13

20.

185

0.17

60.

145

0.26

60.

171

0.18

80.

154

0.12

00.

299

0.24

60.

271

0.20

8go

lden

old

ies

0.14

20.

106

0.19

10.

254

0.11

30.

141

0.24

30.

172

0.14

90.

277

0.15

20.

143

0.12

50.

281

0.22

20.

184

0.15

00.

402

wor

ld/in

tern

atio

nal

0.23

80.

108

0.20

80.

226

0.09

90.

218

0.09

10.

110

0.17

90.

112

0.22

10.

118

0.11

20.

201

0.21

70.

211

0.24

70.

231

0.20

1di

sco

0.16

90.

233

0.12

80.

123

0.16

80.

135

0.14

60.

260

0.12

20.

196

0.23

40.

224

0.11

60.

224

0.16

10.

184

0.23

10.

217

0.21

30.

210

clas

sica

lhi

p ho

pch

oral

folk

rap

oper

aco

untry

pop

jazz

easy

regg

aero

ckhe

avy

mus

ical

gosp

elbl

ues

new

big

gold

enw

orld

/.tni

se idlod nab

eg aertaeh t

l atem

gn inetsilN

otes

: Eac

h ce

ll co

ntai

ns a

Cra

mer

’s V

val

ue. C

ram

er’s

V ra

nges

from

a lo

w o

f zer

o, re

pres

entin

g no

rela

tions

hip,

to a

hig

h of

one

, rep

rese

ntin

g a

perf

ect r

elat

ions

hip.

V

alue

s in

bol

d ar

e po

sitiv

e re

latio

nshi

ps w

here

in p

eopl

e w

ho li

ked

the

one

genr

e te

nded

to li

ke th

e ot

her a

nd/o

r peo

ple

who

dis

liked

the

one

genr

e te

nded

to d

islik

e th

e ot

her.

Val

ues

in it

alic

s ar

e ne

gativ

e re

latio

nshi

ps w

here

in p

eopl

e w

ho li

ked

the

one

genr

e w

ere

rela

tivel

y un

likel

y to

like

the

othe

r and

/or p

eopl

e w

ho d

islik

ed th

e on

e ge

nre

wer

e re

lativ

ely

unlik

ely

to d

islik

e th

e ot

her.

Val

ues

in n

eith

er b

old

or it

alic

s ar

e no

t so

stra

ight

forw

ardl

y de

scrib

ed a

nd e

mpt

y ce

lls in

the

tabl

e in

dica

te re

latio

nshi

ps th

at w

ere

not s

tatis

tical

ly s

igni

fican

t (p

> 0.

05).


Figure 1

Two-dimensional mapping derived from a multiplecorrespondence analysis of musical likes and dislikes

like classical

like hip hoplike chorallike folk

like rap

like opera

like country

like poplike jazz

like easy listening

like reggae

like rocklike heavy metal

like musical theaterlike gospellike blues

like new agelike big band

like golden oldies

like world/internationallike disco

dislike classical

dislike hip hop

dislike choraldislike folk

dislike rap

dislike opera

dislike country

dislike pop

dislike jazz

dislike easy listening

dislike reggae

dislike rock

dislike heavy metal

dislike musical theater

dislike gospel

dislike blues

dislike new age

dislike big banddislike golden oldies

dislike world/international

dislike disco

neutral classical

neutral hip hop

neutral choral

neutral folk

neutral rap

neutral operaneutral country

neutral popneutral jazz

neutral easy listening

neutral reggae

neutral rock

neutral heavy metal

neutral musical theater

neutral gospel

neutral blues

neutral new ageneutral big bandneutral golden oldies

neutral world/international

neutral disco

like classical most

like hip hop most

like choral most

like folk most

like rap most

like opera most

like country most

like pop most

like jazz most

like easy listening most

like reggae most

like rock most

like heavy metal most

like musical theater most

like gospel most

like blues most

like new age most

like big band most

like golden oldies most

like world/international most

like disco most

dislike classical most

dislike hip hop most

dislike choral mostdislike folk most

dislike rap most

dislike opera most

dislike country most

dislike pop most

dislike jazz most

dislike easy listening most

dislike reggae most

dislike rock most

dislike heavy metal mostdislike musical theater most

dislike gospel most

dislike blues most

dislike new age most

dislike big band most

dislike golden oldies most

dislike world/international most

dislike disco most

Quadrant 1

Quadrant 2Quadrant 3

Quadrant 4

Dimension 1

Dimension 2

Legend

musical like/dislike (active)

most liked genre (supplementary)

most disliked genre (supplementary)

any of them. That is, the predominant pattern evident in the MCA of mu-sical tastes, that distinguishing between liking musical genres in general,disliking musical genres in general or feeling ambivalent about musicalgenres in general, is not monolithic in its manifestation.

To further investigate this point, the most liked and most dislikedmusical genres were overlaid on the MCA plot as supplementary variables(Figure 1). When pushed to declare their strongest musical allegiances, theinclusive musical omnivores of Quadrant 1 are relatively likely to favor bigband, blues, folk, jazz, musical theater, and new age over all others and todislike easy listening, heavy metal, new age, and world/international mostof all. The denizens of Quadrant 3 are relatively likely to favor heavy metal,hip hop, reggae, and rap over all others and to dislike classical, opera, androck most of all whereas the inhabitants of Quadrant 4 are relatively likelyto favor pop, rock, and world/international and to dislike blues and musicaltheater most of all. Again, tastes in music are not perfectly captured bythe predominant pattern evident in Figure 1.

148 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

Tab

le4

Loa

din

gson

Th

ree

Cla

sses

from

the

Lat

ent

Cla

ssA

nal

ysis

ofM

usi

cal

Lik

es/D

isli

kes

3 ssalC

2 ssalC

1 ssalC

3 ssalC

2 ssalC

1 ssalC

3 ssalC

2 ssalC

1 ssa lC

clas

sica

l - li

ke0.

899

0.61

50.

688

372.0lartuen - lacissal c

0 12 .0ekilsid - laci ssa lc

hip

hop

- lik

e0.

279

0.23

20.

288

hip

hop

- dili

ke0.

402

0.68

0993.0

913.0lar tuen - poh pih

313. 0ch

oral

- lik

e0.

667

0.32

00.

257

chor

al -

disl

ike

0.52

80.

208

chor

al -

neut

ral

0.22

80.

534

folk

- lik

e0.

827

654.0lartuen - klo f

014 .0eki lsi d - k lo f

37 3.0444. 0

eki lsid - pa reki l - p ar

0.57

30.

786

0.51

5643.0

03 2.0lartuen - pa r

oper

a - l

ike

0.58

00.

309

0.28

2op

era

- dis

like

0.55

0044.0

66 2.0lart uen - arep o

872. 0co

untry

- lik

e0.

633

444.0732.0

lartuen - y rtnu oc892 .0

42 4.0ekilsid - yrtnuo c

85 2.0024. 0

pop

- lik

e0.

812

0.53

10.

592

8 53.0lartuen - p op

533.0ekils id - pop

jazz

- lik

e0.

864

0.42

00.

536

563 .0lartuen - zzaj

114. 0ekilsi d - zzaj

easy

list

enin

g - l

ike

0.77

00.

592

224.0l artuen - gninetsil ysae

0 82.0ekilsid - g ninetsil y sae

8 14.0re

ggae

- lik

e0.

605

0.30

10.

456

regg

ae -

disl

ike

0.62

1904.0

912.0lartuen - eagger

rock

- lik

e0.

766

0.52

30.

704

712.0lartuen - kc or

473. 0ekilsi d - kcor

ekils id - latem yvaeh

eki l - l atem yvaeh

0.70

00.

814

0.51

7333.0

lartuen - latem yvaeh

mus

ical

thea

ter -

like

0.85

5454.0

la rtuen - ertaeht lacisu

m784.0

ekilsid - retae ht la cisum

034.08 73.0

gosp

el -

like

0.74

20.

295

0.26

2go

spel

- di

slik

e0.

574

0.23

2go

spel

- ne

utra

l0.

505

blue

s - l

ike

0.89

00.

402

0.56

9863.0

lartuen - seulb354.0

eki lsid - seu lbne

w a

ge -

like

0.46

40.

203

0.24

3ne

w a

ge -

disl

ike

0.26

20.

652

0.20

4ne

w a

ge -

neut

ral

0.27

40.

553

big

band

- lik

e0.

857

0.32

20.

361

big

band

- di

slik

e0.

551

big

band

- ne

utra

l0.

513

gold

en o

ldie

s - l

ike

0.90

00.

514

964.0la rtuen - seidlo nedlog

283 .0ekilsid - seidlo nedl og

624.0w

orld

/inte

rnat

iona

l - li

ke0.

731

032.0132. 0

lartuen - lanoitanretni/dlrow

67 3. 0ek ils id - lanoi tanretni/dlro

w214. 0

493.00.

536

disc

o - l

ike

0.62

20.

284

0.29

6di

sco

- dis

like

0.61

5354.0

lartuen - ocs id152.0

Not

es: T

o fa

cilit

ate

inte

rpre

tatio

n of

the

clas

ses,

val

ues

grea

ter t

han

0.50

0 ar

e in

bol

d an

d va

lues

less

than

0.2

00 h

ave

been

del

eted

.


Figure 2

Sociodemographic variable categories overlaid on Figure 1

less than high school

high school

community college or technical school

universitypostgraduate

< $40,000$40 - 59,999

$60 - 79,999

$80 - 99,999$100 - 149,999

$150 or more

male

female

19 - 34

35 - 44

45 - 5455 - 64

65 and older

WhiteAsian

South Asian

Black

other racial identity

born in Canada

immigrated > 20 years

immigrated <= 20 years

Quadrant 1

Quadrant 2Quadrant 3

Quadrant 4

Dimension 1

Dimension 2

Is there a space of positions to which this musical field is homologous?To address this question, education and household income, along with cityof residence, gender, age, racial identity, and immigrant status were over-laid on the MCA plot as supplementary variables (depicted separately inFigure 2). Figure 2 indicates that the inclusive omnivores of Quadrant 1are relatively likely to be middle aged and the inhabitants of Quadrant 3are relatively likely to be young, South Asian immigrants. However, onlythe least educated and wealthiest categories are not located at the centerof the plot, indicating that economic capital and cultural capital play littlerole in delineating the musical tastes dispersed throughout Figure 1. Theintroduction of the same set of covariates to the LCA produces complemen-tary insights, namely, that age, gender, racial identity, immigrant status,and education are statistically significant predictors of class membershipbut city of residence and income are not. Specifically, women load positivelyon Class 1, South Asians load positively on Class 2, recent immigrants loadpositively on Class 2, and highly educated people load negatively on Class2 and positively on Class 3. In other words, women tend to report “nearly

150 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

inclusive” omnivorous musical likes, recent immigrants and South Asianstypically register many musical dislikes and highly educated people tendto report few musical dislikes and many neutral or ambivalent musicaltastes. Again, economic capital and cultural capital play surprisingly lit-tle role in delineating tastes in this musical field. The strong form of thehomology thesis is not supported by these data.

Regression Modeling of Musical Omnivorism by Volume

Consistent with the notion of omnivorism by volume, many scholars sim-ply define omnivorism as breadth of tastes of any and every kind (Ollivier2008; Peterson 2005). The inhabitants of Quadrant 1 in the MCA appearto be this kind of musical omnivore, the results reported earlier suggestingthat this manifestation of musical omnivorism is not meaningfully shapedby economic capital and cultural capital. To further test this last insight,I created a summary measure of musical omnivorism from the 21 musicallikes/dislikes variables and applied OLS regression to it. A simple countof the number of musical likes professed by each respondent produces anormally distributed summative measure that ranges from 0 to 21 andhas a mean of 10.2 and standard deviation of 4.1. Regressing omnivorismon the markers of inequality indicates that women, middle-aged people,and native-born Canadians display significantly more musical omnivorismthan men, older and younger people, and immigrants to Canada, respec-tively (Table 5). However, neither education nor income makes a mean-ingful contribution to explaining this measure of musical omnivorousness,indicating that this data set does not contain elites characterized by a widerange of diverse musical tastes.

Regression Modeling of Individual Musical Likes and Dislikes

Toward further examining the viability of the weak form of the homologyframework in these data, Table 6 summarizes the results of a series of21 binary logistic regression models executed on recoded versions of themusical likes/dislikes variables that combine the dislike and neutral cat-egories. City of residence, age, gender, racial identity, immigrant status,education, and income are all associated with musical likes and dislikes.For example, Table 6 indicates that heavy metal is most likely to be liked byolder, White lower class men who live in Toronto, musical theater is mostlikely to be liked by older, Asian or White, wealthy native-born women, andso forth. In regard to the capitals in particular, highly educated respon-dents are relatively likely to like choral, classical, folk, jazz, opera, andworld/international and less-educated respondents are relatively likely tolike big band, country, disco, easy listening, golden oldies, heavy metal,and rap. In addition, wealthier respondents are relatively likely to like bigband, blues, classical, jazz, musical theater, opera, pop, reggae, and rockand poorer respondents are relatively likely to like country, folk, and heavy


Table 5

OLS Regression on Musical Omnivorism

b Beta p

City of residenceVancouver −0.234 −0.027Toronto (reference) . . . . . . . .

GenderFemale 0.559 0.056 *

Male (reference) . . . . . . . .Age

Age in years 0.249 ***

Age × age −0.002 ***

Racial identityAsian −0.629 −0.032Black −0.374 −0.016South Asian −1.009 −0.052Other 0.215 0.013White (reference) . . . . . . . .

Immigrant statusImmigrated >20 years ago −1.006 −0.099 ***

Immigrated � 20 years ago −0.591 −0.042Born in Canada (reference) . . . . . . . .

EducationLess than high school 0.316 0.017High school 0.514 0.058Community college or technical school 0.242 0.022University 0.183 0.020Postgraduate degree (reference) . . . . . . . .

Household income<$40,000 −0.354 −0.031$40,000–59,999 −0.769 −0.061$60,000–79,999 −0.472 −0.039$80,000–99,999 −0.629 −0.047$100,000–149,999 −0.571 −0.052$150,000 or more (reference) . . . . . . . .

N 1,503F(p) 4.95 (<0.001)R2 .063

Notes: Musical omnivorism is coded as the number of musical likes (maximum 21) professed by eachrespondent.*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

metal. That is, the vast majority of the 21 musical likes are classed, oftenstrongly so, with positive and negative relationships both well represented.

Table 6 also summarizes results from binary logistic regression mod-els applied to recoded versions of the musical tastes variables that com-bine the like and neutral categories. They indicate that highly educated

152 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

Tab

le6

Mu

ltiv

aria

teL

ogis

tic

Reg

ress

ion

Pre

dic

tors

ofM

usi

cal

Lik

es/D

isli

kes

Mu

sica

lst

yle

Pre

dic

tors

ofli

kin

gm

usi

cal

styl

eP

red

icto

rsof

dis

lik

ing

mu

sica

lst

yle

Cla

ssic

alW

hit

e,po

stgr

adu

ate

Tor

onto

nia

n,S

outh

Asi

an,n

onlo

ng-

tim

eim

mig

ran

t,le

ssth

anh

igh

sch

ool

Hip

hop

Bor

nin

Can

ada

Mal

e,ol

der,

Wh

ite,

rece

nt

imm

igra

nt,

less

than

hig

hsc

hoo

l,m

iddl

ein

com

eC

hor

alF

emal

eol

der,

Bla

ck,r

ecen

tim

mig

ran

t,po

stgr

adu

ate

Mal

e,S

outh

Asi

an,b

orn

inC

anad

a,le

ssth

anh

igh

sch

ool

Fol

kW

hit

e,bo

rnin

Can

ada,

post

grad

uat

e,po

ores

tS

outh

Asi

an,l

ess

than

hig

hsc

hoo

lR

apT

oron

tian

,mal

e,A

sian

orS

outh

Asi

an,b

orn

inC

anad

aV

anco

uve

rite

,old

er,W

hit

e,re

cen

tim

mig

ran

t,le

ssth

anh

igh

sch

ool,

mid

dle

inco

me

Ope

raT

oron

ton

ian

,fem

ale,

non

-Sou

thA

sian

,po

stgr

adu

ate

Mal

e,ol

der,

Sou

thA

sian

,les

sth

anu

niv

ersi

ty,

poor

est

Cou

ntr

yN

onlo

ng-

tim

eim

mig

ran

t,le

ssth

anh

igh

sch

ool,

poor

est

Mal

e,yo

un

ger,

lon

g-ti

me

imm

igra

nt,

un

iver

sity

edu

cate

d,w

ealt

hie

stP

opF

emal

eol

der,

born

inC

anad

a,co

mm

un

ity

coll

ege,

rich

est

Tor

onto

nia

n,m

ale,

you

nge

r,S

outh

Asi

an,

lon

g-ti

me

imm

igra

nt,

less

than

hig

hsc

hoo

l,po

ores

tJa

zzM

ale,

olde

r,W

hit

eF

emal

e,yo

un

ger,

Sou

thA

sian

Eas

yli

sten

ing

Fem

ale

olde

r,S

outh

Asi

an,n

onlo

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154 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

respondents are relatively likely to dislike country, easy listening, andgolden oldies. In addition, less-educated respondents are relatively likelyto dislike choral, classical, folk, jazz, rap, opera, pop, reggae, rock, andworld/international and poorer respondents are relatively likely to dis-like big band, classical, hip hop, musical theater, opera, pop, rap, reggae,rock, and world/international. In short, the majority of musical dislikesare also classed, with lower class respondents registering multiple dis-likes and higher class respondents registering dislikes for genres that arethemselves liked by less-educated people.

In summary, these logistic regression models reveal a homology be-tween class position and musical tastes of the weaker form that designatesblues, choral, classical, jazz, musical theater, opera, pop, reggae, rock, andworld/international as relatively highbrow and country, disco, easy lis-tening, golden oldies, heavy metal, and rap as relatively lowbrow. Of thehigher brow tastes, blues, choral, classical, jazz, musical theater, opera,pop, reggae, rock, and world/international are concurrently disliked bylower class people, and of the lower brow tastes, country, easy listening,and golden oldies are concurrently disliked by higher class people. In otherwords, there is a remarkable symmetry between the likes of one group andthe dislikes of the other.

DISCUSSION

This study is situated in mostly virgin territory in regard to investigat-ing class position and musical tastes, namely, urban English-speakingCanada. Previous research indicates that attending classical music perfor-mances, choral concerts, and operas and playing musical instruments arehighbrow activities in English-speaking Canadian society (Veenstra 2010)and that classical music, opera, jazz, soul, rhythm and blues, country mu-sic, and pop are popular tastes among upper-class high school students inToronto (Tanner, Asbridge, and Wortley 2008). Among adults in English-speaking Canada, however, the class bases of musical tastes have not yetbeen investigated. An MCA applied to 21 musical tastes in my sampleof adults from Toronto and Vancouver revealed a cluster of musical likesand dislikes wherein people who liked one form of music tended to likemany others as well. Upon further examination, however, the coherenceand salience of this musical omnivore fell away. For one, when pushedto choose a favorite musical genre, the musical omnivores were relativelylikely to favor some musical styles—big band, blues, folk, jazz, musical the-ater, and new age—over all others, indicating that not all musical tasteswere equal in their eyes. More to point, the number of musical genres likedby the survey respondents was not associated with class position.

These results call to mind insights emerging from Will Atkin-son’s (2011) interviews in Bristol, England regarding “speciousomnivorousness.” Atkinson found that, when the topic of musical tastes


was first broached in his interviews, the opening response of many in-terviewees, from all kinds of different class positions, was to “explicitlypresent their predilections as ‘varied’ [..], ‘diverse’ [..] and almost comically‘eclectic’ [..]. They listened to ‘all sorts’ [..], they said, ‘a fair range’ [..], a‘mish-mash’ [..]—in short they listened to ‘pretty much anything’ [..] and‘a scoop of everything’” (p. 174). That is to say, they claimed to be musicalomnivores. Delving further into interviewees’ musical preferences, whenpushed to elaborate on their musical tastes the upper-class omnivorestended to speak more often and in more depth about classical and operathan did the other omnivores. These people, many steeped in classical mu-sic as children (perhaps by learning to play a “noble” instrument such asthe piano or violin), demonstrated quite sophisticated understandings ofthese highbrow musical forms. In short, Atkinson found that the musicalomnivorism apparent in his interview sample was in fact specious; beneathpeople’s claims for cosmopolitanism sensibilities reposed tastes that wereperfectly in line with the highbrow/lowbrow distinction foundational tothe Bourdieusian homology framework. In my study, having almost equalnumbers of relatively highbrow and lowbrow musical tastes in my surveyquestionnaire was a happenstance that allowed the epiphenomenal qual-ities of the musical omnivorism to emerge in the statistical analyses. Itmay be that musical omnivorism is as specious in Toronto and Vancouveras it is in Bristol.

Peterson (2005) questions whether music remains an adequate indexof status in any conceptualization, arguing that the

status-giving value of all kinds of musical tastes has been deflated by music’sincreasingly widespread use in commercial advertisements, movie sound-tracks, and as ambient sound to control mood in public spaces. The appre-ciation of classical music, rock, techno, and country can hardly be expectedto retain their status-making value if they are increasingly commodified andeasy to acquire. (P. 266)

Notwithstanding the sense of this statement, musical tastes are stillclassed, in interesting and complex ways, in urban English-speakingCanada. In regard to highbrow tastes, appreciation for classical, choral,jazz, opera, and world/international music was especially common amongpeople possessing higher educational credentials. For example, the oddsof postgraduates claiming to like classical music in my sample was morethan three times as high as the odds of people with less than a high schooldiploma claiming the same. All of these genres excepting jazz were si-multaneously distastes of lower class people. Indeed, the odds of dislikingclassical music was more than eight times as high for the least educatedrespondents as for the best educated ones. These findings indicate that at-titudes toward blues, classical, choral, opera, pop, and world/internationalmusic in particular may be implicated in social processes that function to

156 CRS/RCS, 52.2 2015

delimit class boundaries in this Canadian context. Interestingly, the lowerclass respondents in this study demonstrated a predilection to dislike allsorts of musical genres, consistent with Tampubolon (2008a) who foundthat the aesthetic of the dominated class in Britain was similarly predom-inantly negative. Nevertheless, appreciation for country, disco, easy lis-tening, golden oldies, heavy metal, and rap was relatively common amongthe lower class people in my sample. In addition, several of the relativelylowbrow genres, namely, country, easy listening, and golden oldies, weresimultaneously distastes of higher class people, indicating that these mu-sical genres may also be implicated in class boundary-making processes inurban English-speaking Canada.

These results represent a strong endorsement of the weak form ofthe Bourdieusian homology framework. Peterson (2005) notes that Bour-dieu’s representation of highbrow and lowbrow cultures in 1960s Franceis consistent with the longstanding distinction in the United States be-tween highbrow snobs who patronize the fine arts, such as classical musicand opera, and lowbrow slobs who consume “debased” or “brutish” popularentertainment, such as pop, folk, country/western, and bluegrass music.Although pop and folk may have gained in status, their spots potentiallytaken by easy listening and golden oldies, perhaps less has changed inregard to relationships between class position and musical tastes in thisNorth American context than the cultural omnivorism perspective wouldhave us believe.

Some of the key limitations of this study also serve as directions forfurther research. Perhaps most importantly, a low cooperation rate sug-gests that the survey sample may be biased, and the results, to the degreethat they can be trusted, pertain only to the residents of Toronto andVancouver. Nationally representative survey data on musical likes anddislikes—perhaps in a Statistics Canada General Social Survey—wouldbe welcome in this area of inquiry. Atkinson (2011) describes several othersalient methodological critiques which have been leveled against the sur-vey research-based homology and musical omnivorism literatures moregenerally. One is that categories such as “pop,” “rock,” or “classical” are toobroad to capture relevant distinctions within categories, such as those be-tween “difficult” and “light” classical music or “underground” versus “pop”rap music. Future survey research that accommodates more differentiationwithin the broadly based genres utilized in this study could make a usefulcontribution to understanding the class bases of musical tastes in Canada.Even so, quantitative survey research cannot referee all rounds of the de-bate between the homology and omnivorism perspectives. For instance, inresearch of this kind it is difficult to examine the modes by which the musi-cal forms are consumed by survey respondents, who among them has deepversus passing familiarity with which genres, where and how the musicalforms are consumed, where and how familiarity with them is displayed,how tastes for them are displayed in everyday life, and how boundaries are


delineated or maintained by them in social interactions. Follow-up qualita-tive inquiry into modes of musical appreciation and consumption and theirclass underpinnings is required in order to fully understand the nature ofthe stratification of musical tastes in urban English-speaking Canada.

Finally, the degree to which musical tastes in Canada are pre-scribed by “necessity” remains opaque. Tony Bennett (2011) claims that“Bourdieu’s account of the working-class choice of the necessary deprivesworking-class culture of any possible positive content except for purely de-fensive practices” (p. 532). It is true that, for Bourdieu, neither highbrownor lowbrow culture is equated with “the best that has been thought andknown in the world” as it was for Matthew Arnold in 1889. Highbrow cul-ture in particular does not necessarily reside in the realms of philosophy,literature, or the arts nor does it possess universal or timeless qualitiessimply by definition. Highbrow tastes are not necessarily intrinsically so-phisticated or common but rather adopt these qualities by virtue of theirlocations in relationally defined social spaces of capitals within which so-cial classes are potentially made manifest. And there is movement in andout of the brow categories over time as well: members of the middle classseek to adopt aspects of upper-class culture, members of the upper classtry to “outflank” the middle class by appropriating lowbrow culture, andso forth. A depiction of a homology between class position and taste thatrelies upon “freedom from necessity” to explain what constitutes highbrowor lowbrow tastes does something of an injustice to lower class people. Fu-ture research that uncovers the joyous complexity inherent to the ways inwhich country, disco, easy listening, golden oldies, heavy metal, and rapmusic (and others) are revealed in the lives of lower class Canadians wouldalso be welcome.

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veenstra(2015)- class position & musical tastes

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