After years of denial, I’ve finally found the strength to admit it. I am a music snob.
Like plenty of music snobs before me, it wasn’t necessarily one moment that lead to such an epiphany. This realization is the product of years of phrases like “Yeah they’re cool, but have you ever seen them live?” and “I’m not a music snob, but…” and perhaps the most frequent of all, “I was into them a couple years ago, but their sound went to shit once everybody started listening to them.”
While this is a tough time for me, I’m slowly learning to accept my role in society, whatever that role might be. Girls dancing around to “Timber” don’t want to be told how terrible Pitbull and Ke$ha are, regardless of how terrible the music of Pitbull and Ke$ha is. In fact, that’s probably the biggest lesson for music snobs of all. Unless in the strict company of other music snobs, it’s probably best to keep your opinions to yourself.
Nobody cares if you’ve seen Phoenix four times, and if they like Phoenix enough to care it probably just sounds like you’re bragging. Nobody wants to hear your rants about the messed up nature of Nashville’s songwriting system when they’re just trying to listen to a good ol’ country song (For the record, the majority of pop music is produced in a messed up, anti-creative, repetitive, machine-like manner; it’s not just Nashville).
Maybe it’s because music is just something most people want to enjoy and not think too much about or maybe it’s because people have been brainwashed to believe the Top 40 bullshit on the radio is actually worth something. I can’t say for sure, but people as a whole aren’t interested in hearing to “how much better X band is better than Y band” or “Z artist is terrible, but artist X you’ve never heard of is like audible chocolate.”
The fact of the matter is that’s totally fine. People can listen to whatever they want and take as passive an attitude toward music as they’d like, listening to whatever mass-appealing cacophony is popular at the moment. What’s it to them that Neutral Milk Hotel is reunited? They’re fine with Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber being the voices of our generation, and while it’s against my better judgment (as a music snob, of course), it’s ok. Music is supposed to be fun, and if listening to the same song in varying forms by a variety of talentless artists is fun, so be it.
But what about us snobs? We can’t just assume our role as the obnoxious music-loving/hating people and then be quiet about it, where is our fun?
Well, my people, our fun lies in the fact that we probably love an infinite amount more of music than the average person, the fact that it actually makes us sick, even in a literal sense sometimes, to hear something that lacks originality, artistry and tickles just the surface of emotion rather than delve into the deepest parts of our souls and reduce us to tears. (True story, I often cry randomly driving around in the car by myself when I’m overcome by the power of music. Then again, sometimes I just tear up at how beautiful the world can be.)
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said “There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.” While that statement applies to most all facets of life, it very much so applies to music. If we didn’t love music so much, we wouldn’t be so disappointed with the terrible things people subject their ears to. And while we snobs may disagree on many a thing (Riff Raff: Genius or Idiot?), those voiced disagreements must mean that love of music is alive and well in the world.
