Hey all, the latest issue of the Portland Mercury is the "music issue" and several articles deal with music snobbery. Anyhow, since we're all pretty much music snobs here, I thought you might enjoy some of the articles!

http://www.portlandmercury.com/2005-03- ... t_toc.html

Here's a teaser just to get you started....

Condescension. Arrogance. Self-importance. It's what separates humanity from the lawless wilds of the tundra. Can you imagine life without shallow, egotistical prejudices? Art made unselfconsciously? A life of shameless self-discovery? The entire population of the world at ease with their self-worth? I shudder to think.

What I'm getting at here, is that whether you like it or not, snobs make the world a better place. They're the gatekeepers to a world that transcends our society's deafening mediocrity. If you're walking around in the bleak landscape of contemporary culture, it's the snob's job to shame you into the light--selflessly sacrificing tact, personal respect, and legitimate human discourse for the sake of keeping the bar raised for all of us. Face it--without snobs, you'd probably still be hanging out in your living room eating Cheetos in your sweatpants. You owe a lot to the snobs, don't you?

As torchbearers for perhaps the most populist of all the arts, music snobs are faced with the threat of both intense saturation and a good deal of competition. That said, most of the pretentious elite can stay the course when faced with the ever-evolving pressures of the trade, as long as they observe the golden rule of snobbery: There is accounting for taste, and it is my god-given duty to keep the books.

I'm a music crank. Cranky and ornery about what I like, but not snobby.

Eating cheetos in your sweatpants rawks. Unless the cheetos are actually in your sweatpants.

Actually, those aren't that bad s'long as they're still fresh...I just hate the complexities of licking cheeto dust off of my thighs...Last time I found this about a week later:



Don't ask where. Don't ask why.

If you can lick cheetos off your thighs what else can you reach, you remarkable man, you?

If you haven't seen this, you have to read it:
How to Fake Being a Music Snob from somethingawful.com

It's old, but it's a classic.

I think the crew here are losing their edge. Three straight days of Fleetwood Mac as my np: and not one snarky comment. What kind of crap is that?

Tomorrow they will get another chance as I will be spinning Skynard.

Steve

I'll get all snarky-ass on ya if you keep spelling it wrong.

This person should never write about music again- I have an e-mail going his way right now- what a dickless pretentious motherfucker.

Rolling Stones Exile on Main St. (1972)

The greatest rock band of the late '60s/early '70s. More world-crushing hits than you have MySpace and Friendster friends. Sure. True. Still, as much as the snobs parade Exile as the band's "best record EVER," it's actually their weakest pre-1982 work. Exile's songs are some of the Stones' least catchy, most passionless, not to mention murky and full of cool-dude-drunk-rockstar posturing. Follow your heart, ear, and brain on this one, and the truth will be revealed. Exile is sub-par.

Television Marquee Moon (1977)

If all the bands who list Marquee Moon as an influence actually LISTENED to this record, they'd hemorrhage, squirt blood out their ears, and DIE outta sheer embarrassment. Television was never any good because Tom Verlaine is a boring motherfucker. For everything his buddy Richard Hell was--angry, bright, conflicted, dangerous--Verlaine was his dull, stuffed-shirt opposite. And it shows in his music: Bad poetry; nerdy guitar jams; rock removed of rhythm.

I deleted the part of my above post where I said that I don't usually find this type of humor funny or entertaining, but maybe I should restate it here.

In general the whole practice of "taking down" overrated artists/albums ("sacred cows") has never done much for me. Even when someone attacks something I genuinely don't like at all, I still don't really get anything from that. I know it's all in fun, but it's totally been done to death. There wasn't that much humor there to begin with. Certain writers seem to think that the mere ideas of snobbery and elitism are funny enough in themselves that they don't have to actually write anything witty or insightful. Yeah, it takes real balls to say you don't like some critical darling that most people have never even heard. A majority of the "sacred cows" out there are actually largely underappreciated. For example, someone on this board recently pointed out that Remain in Light never went platinum and was outsold considerably by subsequent Talking Heads albums.

Adam Gnade and Everett True should have their writing privileges revoked. I've rarely seen such aggressive stupidity, and believe it or not, I'm not taking issue with the tastes they express. I'm talking about their painfully ignorant rationales.

However, the Something Awful article is great, and if you haven't read it, you should.

This article actually made me change my quote for the very first time!

hey all.... was just meant in fun... I certainly wasn't trying to imply that I think these guys are right about everything, as clearly they are not. And yes, the somethingawful article *is* gold.

Yeah, I know. I liked some of the other stuff in there, just not those two particular writers I mentioned.

I think that criticism is very important - we need people to study and understand the music, where it comes from, and how it works. I wish that I could take more music history / criticism classes, I really get a lot out of stuff like that.

i don't agree with this.

for you and i, and many others interested in knowing everything about artists, yes, this is important. but others might just "like" what they hear, and couldn't care less about the history or development of a song or artist.

I don't know, I think it's pretty accurate in general. The specifics of what bands and albums they mention don't really matter - it's the attitude that's the focus here. I don't know about you, but I found myself bristling at a few spots only to realize that, well, yeah, dammit, they're right. If yer bristlin', it's probably because you identify with what they're saying.

That said, I don't really see anything wrong with being a music snob. I've spent years honing my tastes in music, just like movie snobs have spent years do the same, or wine snobs, book snobs, etc. I don't think I should have to feel guilty about seeing through crap. And, of course, your level of snobbery is totally subjective - I'm THE snob to everyone I know except for one woman at work, who is an equal but nearly opposite music snob in terms of styles she likes. It's probably a toss up as to who is more annoying when it comes to music, but I probably win because I'm simply less tolerant. She's simply more hippie-like and tolerates everything, even if she doesn't like it. And compared to some on Obner I look pretty pedestrian, having spent a good deal of my life in the "musical instrument snob" category mentioned in combination with King Crimson in one of the Stranger articles. So be it. I bow to your greatness and all that.

That's absolutely true. I know virtually no one outside of me and, to a lesser extent, my wife that gives a dump what an artist's career-arc was like. They like a song, or, if you're lucky, an album, and care little about anything else unless that artist is an "entertainer" type, like Britney - then they want to know everything about their lives, good or bad, at which point it's usually just as true that they're more interested in their lives than their actual career.