How about a maybe vote..?

;)

I don't know if snobbishness should enter into consideration when it comes to one's individual tastes in music.

If you were to impose that taste on others by deriding music that they enjoy, i think that would be snobbish - but that's true of any kind of subjective enjoyment of art/media.

Taken to its extreme however, ideally no one should be imposing loud music on people in public spaces, because there will be at least some people who dislike it. This is especially egregious in the use of (bad) modern music in grocery stores. I'm hypersentive to sound, and music in particular, so in general i dislike stores playing music - even if it's music I don't actively dislike, because i would rather focus on my shopping undistracted.

I think a lot of folks would think I am a music snob. 

I'm not sure what they are referring to ... one look at my collection and the amount of different musics and my standing up for so many lesser known bands, makes me think that snobbery is not something that goes with me ... at least not like the academic days I was familiar with ... when the "intellectuals" would be discussing the latest Fellini, or Antonioni, and they thought that .... the children don't belong here in the living room next to the professors and these discussions.

I still kinda joke that they were just, in some hidden way, just jealous that there were no fold outs of Sophia Loren and Anita Ekberg for them to enjoy!

I like some pop music but not most(especially not most recent pop music). Better is a subjective term anyway so I would have to say no about that. One could even argue that if prog was better than pop music why do millions of people listen to pop when only thousands listen to prog? Let's face it, pop music sells a lot more so does that mean most people who listen to pop are stupid or have bad taste in music? Maybe the later but not necessarily the former. Again, it's all subjective.

I think it can go either way. Snobbery is more about basing your musical preferences on superficial qualities. I don't agree that it's snobbery not to seek out obscure music, but if you refuse to listen to something because it hasn't sold a certain amount of copies or been presented to you from a trusted source (e.g., radio), that's kind of snobby.

Instinctively yes because I value music that has some sort of creative process and displays intelligence. I look down at pop music. However that is an intellectual stance.

I have always like some pop music. Abba- Dancing Queen is my guilty pleasure. I would never admit this in 'public' lol!

Your secret is safe with me Richard.

So comments like "that stuff is soooooo pretentious" and "I don't listen to stuff I can't dance to" are not representative of snobbery?

mlkpad14 wrote: Not a music snob. Enjoy all sorts of pop.

Me too.  Went to see Take That this year and it's up there with the best concerts I've been to.  So I don't think I can call myself a music snob

Have you seen the Australian Film ... "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert"?

A must see, btw! Fun, fun!

My name is Jeff and I'm a recovering music snob. It's been 15 days since my last snobby thought. 

Seriously though, I was much more of a snob as a teenager. It wasn't that I was not interested in exploring new types of music but there were definitely some bands that I held in almost snobbish esteem. For instance, Iron Maiden was described as "thinking man's heavy metal." I latched on to that like gangbusters and looked down my nose at other metal bands for not being as "thinking man" in their approach to music  Pretty silly really. 

These days I'm much less snobbish. I look at music like I do food. There is so much out there to enjoy, taste and savor, why limit yourself? Oh sure, there are genres that I don't like much, such as Hip Hop, Country, and top 40 type Pop but even in those genres there will be a song every so often that I find okay. (Well, maybe not Country.)   

Maybe it's like those teachers who grade on a curve....The largest amount get a C rating, on the far ends are the F's and the A's....Thinking that those with "good taste," in music get an "A," of course.  :)  And completely agree with the subjectiveness of the subject, so to speak.  

Love the AA and related-type meetings references here, too!  

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: I have a problem with most modern rap and most(at least 95 percent)of modern pop so I guess I'm a snob too. It's not that I hate all of it but I certainly won't go out of my way to listen to it. So I guess I am a music snob to some degree. However, the part I struggle with is that I don't think the music is inherently worse or inferior it's just a matter of taste. So with that in mind I won't vote since I guess my attitude is ultimately somewhere in between.

d'accord. the biggest problem I have with rappers are however the lyrics. they consider themselves to be great rhymers but their rhymes are actually pathetic

 

 

Cute Mike, I think it's going to be the next rap hit!  

I have actually written a rap or two. I'm not going to post them on here though. 

Prog rap. Now, there's a genre that hasn't happened yet. I guess it's only a matter of time. 

Agreed to a point, specially as some of the "hits" in rap are, for me, not that exciting, and the lyrics are not even entertaining ... and I'm not sure they were actually "written", and a lot of it may just be ad-lib which is fine with me, however you can tell by how many times these rhymes are "forced" ... and your and my appreciation for them kinda dies down quickly.

One of my favorite albums has some rap, and some different kind of rap ... grab a hold of Ryuichi Sakamoto's couple of albums ... Neo Geo has Iggy Pop almost doing rap, and sometimes simply speaking on the songs and it sounds really good. ... Heartbeat is a fantastic album and the title song is over the top and a fantastic thing that has singing and then rap on it ... and it works. Beauty is the 3rd album in the series and the rap in there is different and done with other folks, almost to the point that calling it "rap" is kinda crazy ... 

Europe, however, has a lot of folks that do rap, and it is very different than the American version which to my ears is very RAW and not cleaned up!

Not sure these thoughts fit in the "snob" area ... but what the heck!

"Skiffle" is C&W? 

I gotta re-read Cousins' book again ... it was a difficult one to review and describe and I was not sure I would be in the right path if I reviewed it ... it gave me a better perspective on the radio situation in England with the BBC than it did with his band!

Yes although a long time ago. I remember enjoying it for sure. Great cast! 

15 days? Maybe 15 seconds for me!

I would really like a country band to enjoy. I've just ordered an album by The Band Perry. I've heard a few songs by them and I actually like them! 

 

Great band The Punch Brothers. I wouldn't say they've ever been "regular" bluegrass - they've even covered Radiohead songs. "Kid A" on the mandolin!

Exorcising Ghosts?  I did read that and kind of thought the same thing, although I do love his music.  Thought it was a little light reading considering how deep many of his lyrics are.  But, then again, he was really great at crafting those (imo), so perhaps didn't miss his calling of becoming a great novelist.

Manuel wrote: Frankly, I never thought about it, and honestly, I don't really care. I like music, and the music I like and listen to is chosen by my personal taste. If that makes me a snob or not, Who cares?

 

Dude, just trying to keep the banter light and humorous. Who really cares about any of the topics here? It's all in fun. 

 

Archive's first album "Londonarium" before they were considered Prog is mostly rap but in a trip hop style.  It's actually not too bad, though it's not their best.

 

 

Oh hell yeah.

Here then is an actual example and you make of it what you will.  

This colleague who has safe and comfortable tastes in Indian music noticed me listening to rock music a lot.  He got curious and asked me to show a sample.  I played Bohemian Rhapsody on my mp3 player and he listened through earphones.  Before he could get much further beyond the harmonised "This is the real life" vocal prelude, he was through.  He looked disgusted and asked me how could I listen to this and it wasn't music.  

So...here you go.  A gentleman who doesn't understand harmony concludes that something beyond his understanding = not good music.  How many times will you hear ME saying something like that?  Almost never.  Irrespective of my general preferences, I will and have given anything a chance.  Do I see people like this chap do that?  No.  In my opinion, and as Tapfret said, it is them, it is the journalists who blindly bashed prog as 'pretentious' without attempting to engage with it, who are the snobs because it's they who go "how can anybody listen to this?" (to be clear, some prog may indeed be pretentious but the notion that it is wholly a bad thing and three chord music is ALWAYS preferable doesn't fly).  

I know why somebody would listen to Justin Bieber even if I don't like his work because I can figure out where the appeal lies.  The people who dismiss music out of hand without attempting to find out how it works are the real snobs, imo.  If you were a music lover living in my city, you would have seen me at the shows of a reigning Bollywood singer, western classical recitals, jazz, metal, even Shakti (McLaughlin's collaboration with Zakir Hussain and others).  If I like the music, genre is no bar for me. I don't insist that everybody should be equally or more adventurous in exploring music just as long as they don't give their opinions about MY preferences in music. 

ABBA were a good band who just made America's famously nativist rock critics, notably Christgau, terribly insecure about their success.  Yeah, so they have funny accents and clumsy lyrics but how far would an American outfit get trying to write lyrics in Swedish?  They should listen to samples of Agnetha singing in Swedish; she was a wonderful singer.  Relatively underrated given the kind of popularity she and the band had back in the day.

I'm not sure, but I think yes. 

The irony of this is some of the most influential prog rock bands did in fact scale way up the album charts and when they bothered to produce radio edits, did well on the singles charts too.  Even today, great music does break through the charts.  Everything Everything have had two top five albums in the UK charts and they are by no means typical.  Radiohead's Moon Shaped Pool made the Billboard top five and have similarly charted well in the past too.  It's just difficult to cut through the clutter of overexposed cookie cutter pop.  And I do not think calling something by its name is snobbery.  I am sure that at least in private, the songwriters regularly called on to deliver hits for popstars would admit to adhering to a formula if for no reason than that they can't afford to miss as the stakes are too high.  

Yes that's true and as my avatar shows I am a fan of Muse and they are regularly are in the charts.

BTW Someone at worked yesterday asked me what I think about Beyoncé so I deflected a bit by saying 'in what way?' . They of course responded ' not in the way you are thinking!' . I did add that I just don't like or bother with most chart music so not able to express an opinion about her music as I don't listen to it. That shows a mixture of snobbery and ignorance on my part I guess!?

That's the safest answer, to just say you don't know and don't have an opinion. 

I respect all kinds of music (including much that ends up in the charts) and fans of every musical genre. However I do believe there are many around who don't listen properly and whose music preferences are driven by criteria that I'd consider non-musical, consciously or subconsciously. And there's music around that was made to cater for these in the first place, or to just satisfy certain expectations, rather than for conveying a "musical message". I don't enjoy discussing music with these people and I'm not interested in that kind of material. If that makes me a snob, so be it.

(Also, which may not exactly be the same thing, I'm on a "private" forum discussing all kinds of things where there's a musicbox thread in which people post all kinds of stuff that they love - and occasionally I'm really stunned how samey and unoriginal the vast majority of that stuff is.)

Yeah, we are in the minority there.  We listen to music for the sake of music.  The majority of people associate music with some social activity and see it as reflective of their personality.

And this is one of my favorite issues ... I don't trust the top 40 chart ... why? EASY ... check these numbers out!

A band in NY sells 75K albums in 3 days ... and it makes the VARIETY LIST because only 2 other artists got that far and further. That same artist only sold 1400 albums in LA, and around 600 in SF ... but it is still listed in VARIETY because it is "considered" the standard in all of America ... and this is one of the "charts" that get copied to USA Today and many other newspapers, and ... we believe it more than we give a damn ... and the likelihood is that band in NY only sold 7500 albums, not 75K, or somewhere else in the country some folks would have noticed!

My take is that a "number 1" on that list is worth a bit of money ... but the folks that run a few of those artists don't like the idea that the name of their artist is not listed with the best ... btw ... did you audit the supposed sale of 75K albums in 3 days in NY? How many stores?

NOPE .... we just accepted the "information".

And this is my only problem with a Top this or that ... the situations are never clear, and they are not listed so we know how the numbers got there ... so, if a store in Manhattan sold 5K albums of BandHooplah2, no one will know it, and it won't even be mentioned. Again, in that store, that band whooped the supposed number 1 ... that more than likely did not sell that much ... but the numbers make it look like they did!

And worse ... we believed it.

Our only hope is that one day we find out how fake these numbers were ... and that the artist will produce his/her bank account, and show that for all the numbers, he/she only brought home ... this much ... now, just sit back and watch the IRS and 157 lawyers go to work ... and 55 people end up in jail and some hard time!

There's nothing wrong with that, though.  Again, just like PA ratings, a chart rating can only measure sales, not how they are distributed.  That is, popular vote rather than electoral college if you will.  We have an example pretty much exemplifying what you mention right here on PA - Renaissance.  They were mainly a NY, Pennsylvania and couple of North Eastern states band.  But they did better there than many other bands did all across America.  And that's fine.  There's nothing wrong with that.  If anything, you are setting up a false standard because if we had a system that mandated minimum sales in every state, you'd only ever have bands appealing to Joe Blow and Billy Blow at the top of the charts and regional diversity would never get captured in any charting music. 

Now if you suggest some bands can game the system by trumping up high numbers in a single location, well, that wouldn't even be an issue if music was selling any healthy number of units to begin with.  Would it have been possible to fake Michael Jackson's sales in this way?  No.  In the same way, when a band goes gold or platinum, you can't argue with that.  You can't buy a certification for 500,000 or 1 million albums.  That can only be earned.  And it's not for us to judge whether the 'right' or 'wrong' artists earned it.  

It's well know that Charts were often rigged even in the seventies. That's not really the point I was trying to make, more that chart music reflects an approach that is money driven and commercial based. So you have to have the best producer and the best video director etc. I have zero interest in that. I find it frustrating that people generally see the eighties as some golden age when that type of commercial approach was rife. There were good bands though don't get my wrong but they arrived despite of not because of.

At times, I've been more snobbish than necessary. There are songs and bands I've reflexively tried to dislike, because "the weren't my type of music", but ended up liking them despite myself. 

But usually, most of pop, in any age, is crap. 

I'm a wizened snob, but still, inherently I prefer "better music", and I'm a snob. 

Thanks, me too!  Hell, I even like some disco!  

Give everything a chance; much music has many values to most people.

I think this is about the rebelling against the corporate machine telling you to consume product as it is marketed to a lowest common denominator standard.

So there........deal with it.