Music Snobs

This is a phenomenon that just irritates the shit out of me. People who have simply flipped the musical paradigm and have decided popular equals bad and obscure equals good.

Just like pseudo intellectual absolutists of any stripe you must agree with this odd assessment of music and stay away from the mainstream or you are considered a sheep of some kind, one of the masses, someone who lacks taste. Saying you like Madonna is like saying you go to church on a website full of Satanists to this type of person.

What I find funny about it is a lack of understanding that music is an art. Its use and aesthetic quality is dependent on personal subjective taste. Craftsmenship of music is less important than how it affects you emotionally.

My father is a huge music snob. So is my mother. They had long duscussions with me about the importance of craftsmanship, lyrical quality, how autotuning was the death of music.

I never cared. I wanted to listen to that forbidden fruit. That Popular Music that all my friends were listening to. That leech on true craftsman of music. That thing that was viewed as the epitome of bad, awful, plastic, prepackaged, etc. I was tired of Blue Oyster Cult. The Beatles were boring. Pink Floyd was annoying. And Jimi Hendrix was meh. Led Zeppelin's songs were to long.

So I embarked on an odd journey that has brought me to this weird place I sit musically. I appreciate the classics. If I am in a deep mood, I listen to BOC. Nostalgic? CCR. Drunk? Led Zeppelin. Any time at all because they are MY band? AC/DC.

But ... I also love Pop Music, Dance Music, Electronic, Hip Hop, Country, R and B, Hair Metal, 80's and 90's Pop. I drank from the Forbidden Pools of Poison, Madonna, Alanis Morrisette, Tiffany, Debbie Gibson, Motley Crue, Eric Clapton (my dad hates him), Tina Turner, Flock of Seagulls and the like.

Guess what? I like it. Even Pop Music of today. It makes me smile, it's not deep, it's fun and most importantly, it makes me want to dance. What started as a Rebellion against Music Snobbery has become an appreciation of ALL kinda of music. An understanding that no kind of musical taste makes one better than another. That it all has its place and time.

I can appreciate an autotuned, overly synthesized musical track, just as much as a display of stunning craftsmanship.