Apr. 04, 2006 :: "Handstand"

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Apr. 04, 2006 :: Handstand
I'm not positively sure why I get labeled a 'snob', but it's happened more than once. I'm not even sure why I'm being picked out for this, because most people who care about anything seem to have their own critical little ticks.

Truth of the matter is, being critical is an ass-holish habit, but it's not like I invented it. Sports fanatics, art critics, and pop-culture whores are just seen as passionate about what they care about. It's not out of malice or insecurities that I think most mainstream, radio-whore pop lacks the soul that many underground rock and folk groups do; it's just what I know and what I care about and I sometimes express that.

In all honesty, I could care less about what you listen to, or even what you know about what you listen to. By all means, if you listen to something as shameful and tacky as Def Leopard, at least be true to yourself, and listen to what you like, and not adopt whatever other trend your friends have picked up just for the hell of it.

And I won't take up this 'indie-rocker' attitude that underground is always better. Just because something is obscure doesn't mean it's to be worshipped as the next music legacy. There's tons of records out there that are just cheap reflections of what's currently being demanded on the playlists of pop radio stations. And what's sad is that some of these bands and singers actually make it for their ability to copy. Crap copying crap. I'm not even really sure why this current trend of trying to find the most obscure bands to listen to bothers me. Possibly it has to do with the fact that it's taking away from what it should be about: wanting to find that next sound, the one that you'll be hooked to for the next six months every single day, at every minute possible, in the car, on your headphones, before you go to bed. It's an awesome feeling to find something new to love, and maybe the fakeness of being 'cool' bothers me to some extent.

And again, just because something decent somehow squeezed it's way into the Billboard Music charts and scored a biography article in Rolling Stone magazine doesn't mean it's automatically to be despised. Granted, I'll admit I avoid radio like the plague, and perhaps I shouldn't. Back in my radio-listening days, I'd practically piss myself in the car when the occassional Strokes single would come on. But excuse me if it's 'snobbery' to not want to sit through dozens of crap songs in the hope that by lottery something decent I haven't heard before will play. And even then, I oftentimes don't like a sound until it grows on me, something nearly impossible to do listening to radio. The first time I listened to Violent Femme's self-titled album, I couldn't help but think "accoustic and amateurish snare beats, is this it??". Four years later, I now regard that album as a 1980's college radio landmark.

There's also this misconception that because I listen to a lot of music that I love, I must know everything there is to know about music. This is insane and stupid to think. For one, music is such a broad art form, it would be impossible to be an expert in all fields and genres of it. That's not to say that I'll hate you if you ask me a question pertaining to music. But for crying out loud, don't talk to me like I'm a dumbass because I can't have an intelligent conversation about Pink Floyd's The Dark Side Of The Moon and the ways it "changed my life" (a true quote used a little too often), or look confused when I don't recognize a Green Day guitar riff, because when I explain to you about how my music makes me feel and what I know about it, I don't treat you like an idiot when you give me a blank stare.

I'm not trying to be a self-righteous ass. I just happen to be passionate about what I listen. I think its awesome when I hear a guitar riff that makes me want to break chairs and kick the shit out of some Brit banker stiff. Or when I have an empty house (or a dorm) to myself, and I can pump up the sound and strut around in my underwear while air-guitaring to whatever suits me. And even when music makes me feel bad (screaming and crying into a pillow bad) I still feel better in that I've had an emotional attachment to something outside of myself.

And so...please excuse my snobbery.


~alex

what I rocked out to today: