Wednesday 2 November 2011

Music Snobs

When people say they dont like any other genre of music but their favorite one or few, I can't help but wonder, why do they need to place those kind of boundaries on their preferences? And why does it seem to me that the people who most frequently need to classify their tastes, seem to think that their opinion is the quintessential opinion. These folks deem themselves to be gurus of what is good and what isn't in the music kingdom.

I guess I missed a memo, because I thought that part of the beauty of creative art was that it is subjective. Wouldn't that mean that these gurus are doing exactly the opposite of what a music kingdom's ruler would do?

I love music. I can't name a song from every genre of music out there, but I would be hard pressed to think of a kind of music that I just flat out do not like. There are styles that appeal to me more so than others, and tracks from all that I do not enjoy.

I believe that beyond my own personal taste, I cannot evaluate music. I'll go one further and add that as far as I am concerned, no one else can either.

Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate the need to put value on music. It's one of the most marketable commodities in the world. And so to track the sales of concert tickets, albums, mp3s , merchandise etc...as a measure of popularity, makes sense. It's a capitolist world after all. But if I had a buck-seventy-five for the number of times I have heard a hit, and been irritable, nauseated, even compelled to cover my ears and sing an obnoxious version of Henery the 8th to drown the source of my pending insanity out, I would be having a jolly good Christmas this year, at least!

Yes, I have been tempted to behave like an ass over how much I don't enjoy the music that is playing, but I dont! Sure, my husband will hear about it later, if I am stuck working with someone who won't stop blaring death metal all day, and I might even politely ask if we can change the music at some point to 'something we all like', but I'm not about to go ahead and tell someone that I think their taste sucks. That's rude! And worse still, it's music snobbery!

The point I am trying to make, is that I am tired of hearing people say things like, 'that last album, was soo poorly produced, and their talent disappeared when 'so-and-so' left anyway. Anybody who thinks that 'that band' are worth anything really has no clue about music".

To you; Music Snob,
Who the shit are you to say that someone is talentless? And if it was produced so that it could be heard by you, me, and countless others, then the production did the trick. It is a 'product', ya know? In my assessment, if you had a clue what sounds good, and what does not, then you would not trash the music, or the people who enjoy it for doing so, simply to hear yourself sound important, as your negative spin on what I, or anyone else is enjoying, is pretty much never more pleasing to listen to than the music you are interupting.

Yeah, few things irritate me like music snobbery.

Peace to all non music snobs.

PS. The super cool pic of a 'Sound Wave' by Korean artist Jean Shin I punked from this website.

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