I was saddened to see that on my post about the sexist bent of Insufferable Music Snobbery, a lot of people decided to write off the entire practice of music snobbery. It’s too bad, too, because I only complain about sexism in this hobby because I want to see more women in it. It’s just part of the larger cultural desire to hipster-bash, I suppose, which I can safely say puzzles me. The only thing that the overtly hip music snobberia does to hurt anyone is to make other people kind of jealous. I come not to bury music snobbery, but to praise it. For without it, we would not have this wonderful and eye-opening video.
It’s a history of the breakbeat called “The Amen”, and while the video is 18 minutes long, it’s well worth watching the whole thing. It’s not really a video but an audio recording anyway—you don’t need to watch it, just listen to it. The artist who made it, Nate Harrison, has a really important point to make and he has to use the entire 18 minutes to build his case. I will warn you, the story he tells is so enthralling that it could be a gateway drug into music snobbery. Because once you start to see the value in delving into the obscure and digging around in the history of the obscure and the well-known pop culture, it becomes rather intoxicating to keep going. I’m just a dabbler in music snobbery, I’d say, but I watched the video straight through without fidgeting because I’ve got the bug and just knew as soon as he started delving into the history of this breakbeat that the payoff would be so worth it.
Music snobbery has, like a lot of subcultures, a jingo-laden, elitist downside, but for some reason music snobbery tends to piss people off more than, say comic book collecting or film snobbery. And I don’t think it’s just that music snobs are bigger show-offs, because I don’t think you can really say they are more than any film snob. Pitchfork can be nauseatingly pretentious, but no more than any similiar publication writing about movies. I think people are doubly hostile to pop music snobbery because there’s something elemental to our lives about music that makes it easier to be defensive if someone knows more about it than you do, particularly if it’s something you like. I’ve definitely felt the anguish over looking like a rube next to someone more knowledgeable about something I like, and the initial reaction can be anger and rejection, but learning new information about pop music is generally worth sucking a little humble pie.
The very thing that makes it a touchy subject, this elemental nature of it, is why it’s so fascinating. The idea of an 18 minute monologue on the history of one single breakbeat sounds really boring to a lot of non-snobs, I’m sure, but if you watch it, you’ll see that this history speaks volumes on the struggles of the folk vs. the elite (and much more clearly defines who is who and why elitist attempts to declare musicians on their side in copyright battles is a lot of smoke and mirrors most of the time), the modern breakdown between the street and the avante garde, and above all, it speaks obliquely (and a couple of times directly) about the very nature of the creative process itself, and how the mythology of the creative-person-as-an-island is a lie, and that creation is the product of a collective process, like a galaxy of stars where some just shine brighter than others.
On that last point is why I want to defend the music snob obsession with obscurity. A lot of people assume that music snobs only care about obscurity as a trump card in an elitist game—and god knows music snobs don’t really do a lot to dispel that myth and in fact, a lot of us think it’s funny and mock ourselves for it, a la “High Fidelity”. But I’d argue that what really drives the obsession is just this realization that pop music innovation comes not from a series of Great Men as we’ve been taught (Bob Dylan and the Beatles did it all!), but that innovation comes most often in a tidal wave of collective creative fury. Who invented rock? Hip hop? Country-western? Jazz? No one and everyone, though of course some people had more influence than others. Once you grasp that the best and brightest of musicians came from a scene and a support system, suddenly all the people around them that might have been lost to history start seeming more interesting. Oh, and their music is good, too. And the appetite for hearing more and different stuff is born. And unsung geniuses are discovered.
The truth is that if music wasn’t such a great pleasure, music snobbery would perish, in other words. Defining music snobs by their ugliest habits might give one a rush of, dare I say, elitist self-righteousness (I have better things to do than obsess about a bunch of bands no one’s heard of!), but it obscures the fact that music snobs are born out of something very nice indeed, a love of music and, a lot of the time, a fascination with one of humanity’s most positive attributes, the creative impulse.
Yes, a lot of us are preening hipsters, but I’ve yet to understand why it’s such a crime to try to look good and get laid.
Well, my problem with the IMS, has always been one where I’m just completely different, but probably just as much of a snob. Instead of being into everything, I’m into a little, but very deep. Discovering musical/connections between songs of the same artists to come together into a bigger picture for example. I have my music that I like, and I’m happy with it. I’m always open to new things, of course, but I have no emotional need to go looking for it.
The other side of the coin, is the snobbery of the bootleg buff who collects a certain band through a whole tour/career. I actually grew up with U2 boot “snobs”, and have a pretty big ZooTV/PopMart collection that I still listen to some things sometimes even though I’m not really a fan of them anymore. But that’s where I come from musically, and that’s the other side of music snobbery.
Relevant to his discussion of sampling legality, I should plug downhillbattle.org
I think people get their hackles up over music snobbery because in high school social distinctions always had a musical element — this group listened to this, that group that, and so on. This persists into later life, and so questions of musical taste are inevitably questions about personal identity. Music raises the question of social identity much more so than, say, movies. It’s really true that if you know someone’s taste in music you know a lot about them and how they see themselves.
The analogies I can see are to wine snobbery, which always has a class element, or to sports snobbery, in which getting into the “obscure” gets a pass because of how it’s gendered. People might get bored by an 18-minute disquisition on shortstops of the 1950s, but it won’t get the anger generated by music snobbery.
Just speculatin’.
Hmm. I think the issue here is the word “snob.” “Snob” isn’t a synonym for “buff” or “obsessive,” which is how you seem to be using it. A snob is someone who thinks he or she is superior to other people. By definition, when you call yourself a music snob, you’re saying that you think you’re better than people with inferior musical taste. I don’t think you’d raise the same hackles if you called yourself a music buff.
Manilow vs. Anka, and now this about “music snobbery”. I do so dislike fluff pieces- have a nice weekend.
Along the lines of Sally… you might get further as well if you didn’t try to defend “insufferable.” Music appreciation per se is not the problem, nor is having a passion for a particular sound, artist, genre, etc. The problem is when you are an insufferable bore who won’t appreciate how annoying it can be to have you drone on ad infinitum on your topic, particulaerly - and this is especially true in pop music writing - if you do it in slang, jingo-laden prose that only other hardcore insufferable types can bear for even a moment’s time. I love film; I hate film snobs, people who tell you they only like the auteur genre, or some subset of pretentious foreign films and say its declasse to like Sixteen Candles. I can’t even being to tell you how Classical and Jazz snobs fill me with rage, to the point that I simply walk away. But pop music snobs? That’s just sad. I mean gee whiz, if it plays for 3 minutes and 5 seconds on the radio and it’s got a beat you can dance to, what’s to explain? I yield to no one in loving pop and listening obssessively and learning all can about the artists and genres I care about. Soemtimes I share a little of what I know. But most of it I simply treasure, a little gem of knowing that’s just for me. To throw all of that out and claim superiority… well, that would ake me a snob. And insufferable. And I think both are qualities one should find embarrassing, not defensible.
Yes, law under capitalism and the future of free culture: such fluff.
It’s Friday fucking night. Is there some sort of law against ever thinking about fluff? If I can’t dance, I don’t want your revolution, and all that.
A snob is someone who thinks he or she is superior to other people.
I thought that was the point.
Everyone needs to read Theodor Adorno on the mass production of art (but ignore him completely on jazz). That’s all I have to add.
Coltrane and Etta James were on the stereo earlier today, so I guess it’s Mahler this evening…or ABBA.
The first album I ever bought was Rubber Soul. I listened to it until I wore it out. I think I was 13 at the time.
I remember John Lennon saying that he was listening to a lot of Bob Dylan and the album was an attempt to get a little more textured musically and lyrically. So I started to listen to Dylan. People started looking at me funny.
“That guy has the worst voice I’ve ever heard”
I got very snobby about it. VERY snobby indeed. Remember, at this time I’m about 14 or 15. It may seem pretty lame now, but it wasn’t back then.
Then I started listening to a lot of more adventurous shit. Miles Davis, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart , Weather Report…etc. I loved getting funny looks. The music was excellent and it seemed to annoy the shit out of some people.
The snobbery was fun while it lasted, but I’m just way more relaxed now. I like what I like.
Sally pretty much hit the point I was gonna make. There’s a distinction between snobbery and honest geekery that you’re just not making here.
Well, you’d think. But when you read the stuff that Amanda writes in defense of her music “snobbery,” she equates it with comic book collecting and talks about elitism as the “downside,” not as the essence of the thing. It’s as if Amanda doesn’t realize that snobbery and elitism are synonyms.
I don’t know.
I like tuvan throat singing. People hate me for likeing and playing throat singing. I think Sainkho Namschylak rules, btw.
But then, I’m not a snob. Your musical taste is as good as mine, just don’t kill me for playing stuff I like, ok?
On music snobbery versus film and comics snobbery - both are just comparatively rarer and less visible than music snobs
Also, too few people give enough of a shit about comics in the first place to worry about anybody getting snobby about ‘em. You have to have a favorite band in the first place before you can get torqued about someone telling you it sucks, if you can’t even remember the last time you bought or read a comic it just doesn’t matter as much what some dork somewhere thinks about your taste in comics.
Though I should add, I *am* a policy snob. Comes from college forensic debating….
But I’d argue that what really drives the obsession is just this realization that pop music innovation comes not from a series of Great Men as we’ve been taught (Bob Dylan and the Beatles did it all!), but that innovation comes most often in a tidal wave of collective creative fury. Who invented rock? Hip hop? Country-western? Jazz? No one and everyone, though of course some people had more influence than others. Once you grasp that the best and brightest of musicians came from a scene and a support system, suddenly all the people around them that might have been lost to history start seeming more interesting.
See, I find this statement to be at odds with a lot of what music snobs I know and get annoyed at think. They seem to buy deeply into the cult of the genius/great man, and most of them think Bob Dylan shat gold. Now, i love some Dylan and like more of it, but he went to great lengths to cultivate the romantic image of him as a lone genius, and it bugs the shit out of me. So I feel like a lot of what you’re defining as IMSery is actually contrary to what the IMS’s in my life do, and what has made me so impatient with them.
Also, I agree with Sally about the use of the word snob here; I’m not trying to argue semantics, but it is confusing, a tad.
she equates it with comic book collecting and talks about elitism as the “downside,” not as the essence of the thing.
I didn’t get that from this post. I got “people don’t like snobs because they’re jealous” and “it’s hard to admit that some people know more than you, but you’re better off just acknowledging that.” Nothing that refutes the idea that snobs are in fact superior to or at least better informed than other people.
I grew up in California in the sixties, and a college friend remarked that, at his high school, liking the Beatles and other British music was considered snobbish. It was news to me.
Last night, at a benefit showing, my 82yo mother and I watched “Across the Universe”, sort of a Beatles rock opera movie about New York circa 1968. It was a profound emotional experience for my mother, who loves the Beatles but is haunted by the memory of the endless stream of planes flying overhead full of Marines bound for Vietnam.
Now, when I squire her to symphony and chamber music concerts, it’s not at all unusual to find people more intimately familiar and better able to analyze the pieces we’ve just heard than I am. Some of them may just be showing off, but, not being myself a musician, I can’t distinguish the snobs from the enthusiasts. Having been attending for many years, though, I can offer commentary to those less experienced members of the audience who join me in snatching a smoke outside at intermission.
It’s hard to avoid the realization, especially at a chamber concert, that however snobbish we may be, we’re there because we’re addicts.
I come not to bury music snobbery, but to praise it. For without it, we would not have this wonderful and eye-opening video.
Aww, I know it’s not ground-breaking but I thought we were gonna see the video for “Teneage Riot” and my favorite snob game of “who’s in the montage.”
err rather “Teenage Riot” by Sonic Youth
I think the reason that Insufferable Music Snobs raise the ire of some (well most) people is because:
1) it is not uncommon for the IMS contingent to ABANDON a band the SECOND they experience ANY commercial success; and this behavior is really unfair. How can the band in question continue to MAKE music unless the experience SOME success?
2) Add to this, the very moment the IMS abandons a band for “selling out” or “they just suck now, don’t know why”, is the same instant the average person has become aware of them, and this make s the average person feel deflated.
3) The IMS doesn’t love YOUR band. (hint)
bad Jim,
So glad you brought up the symphony. My most profound experience wasn’t even at a great performance. My favorite symphony is probably Mahler’s first. I’ve heard it live in concert twice: the Northwestern University summer orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. I don’t remember the Northwestern performance, other than that I was thrilled to hear the piece live. The Rotterdam, I remember a few flubbed entrances, but also sitting in my chair, clutching the armrests to keep my body from heaving with sobs, I was crying so hard. Dunno which was the better performance, honestly, but I know which was emotionally cathartic.
(And the Rotterdam was when i was still smoking. Damn, I miss it sometimes–haven’t been able to write since I quit, and I’ve got a dissertation I’m supposed to be doing.)
Analyzing technique, etc. can be fun and worthwhile, but what moves you is far more important.
That’s why I like the Adorno piece. He shreds the snobs because he argues that knowledge about something becomes a commodity that is valued more highly than experience with it, which serves to denigrate the art itself. Experience it and talk about the piece. All the other stuff is meaningless fluff designed to entrench hierarchy.
I must say, this particular IMS post is a bit ’soft’.
I thought the point of snobbery is obscurantism as a way to drive pointless feeling of superiority.
It’s the difference between a champion of jeopardy and an archeology knowing arcane definition of a digging technique. One is orgy of obscurantism for the sake of showing off, the second simply because not many people know the knowledge yet has large contributing aspect to body of knowledge, a necessity.
so, an IMS may know all beatles print and it’s price and color, but wouldn’t know the mode of particular song is in and why it works that way. And what’s the significant of a song within context of music as a whole.
Since DnB is a relatively well known electronic genre, it’s relationship to particular loop, history and constructions are certainly contributing knowledge rather than pointless obscurantism.
Why and how sound is created is the very point of music right?
So, this IMS post is too educational. (Minor point for effort defending snobbery)
Also, too few people give enough of a shit about comics in the first place to worry about anybody getting snobby about ‘em.
Heh. Word. And comics fans get so much shit for BEING comics fans, it’s no wonder they get sort of defensive, which can sound sort of like snobbery. Honestly, though, I know a bunch of comics fans and I wouldn’t call any of them snobs–most of them agree that a well-done superhero comic can be just as good as your obscure black & white underground indie anarchist cyberpunk romance, and if loving superhero comics–even if they’re Frank Miller superhero comics–isn’t pretty much the exact opposite of snobbery, I don’t know what is.
Film snobs bug me as much as music snobs, I’d say, and both of them bug me because I just don’t care. I love movies, and I love music, but I relate to them on a pretty much totally emotional level (ditto books and theater and, well, art in general) and so generally have no interest in intellectualizing my love (nothing wrong with intellectualizing your passion for art of course, if that’s how you best relate to art, if that’s the level where art reaches you). Plus, film snobs I’ve met seem to not care so much about acting which is to me pretty much the most important part of the movie (exception: if the screenplay really sucks, not even the best acting can save it) so our discussions are limited because I don’t really understand what it means to have “good cinematography” (and, dude, if anyone out there is tempted to fill me in, see above re: my not caring).
Agree with Sally & co. Nothing wrong with geekery, lots of things wrong with snobbery, and that is a difference I don’t see in this post, because this post leaves out the definitive action of a snob, which is the part where they see your CD collection and laugh derisively before making snide remarks about how they used to like Modest Mouse too before they sold out. What bugs people about snobs isn’t that they know more, it’s that snobs are, by definition, assholes.
I’m a total unapologetic music snob. I will wax poetic over obscure post-punk jems like the Homosexuals and the Associates till the sun comes up. There is so much great music out there that very few folks seem to know about. Why shouldn’t we get all dorked up over it?
NOTHING turns me on more then a hot man with extensive and well-selected music collection. Where is my hot scruffy man that will listen to Echo and the Bunnymen and My Bloody Valentine records with me?
Though I should add, I *am* a policy snob. Comes from college forensic debating….
As a former parliamentary debater I can attest that policy snobs are way more annoying than music snobs.
Great post, Amanda…and an interesting video.
I think it’s worth pointing out how wonderful the intertubes have been for IMSs and would-be IMSs. As the video and your post suggest, much of IMSery involves finding, and following, cultural threads. And the web is great for that. It’s also a good place to find the music itself. And it’s a good place to record one’s IMSery for posterity.
Speaking of which, earlier today, in a bit of Field Mice thread-following, I bumped into this ancient post on a blog that I’d never heard of before. Another fine example of the pleasures of music snobbery.
Add to this, the very moment the IMS abandons a band for “selling out” or “they just suck now, don’t know why”, is the same instant the average person has become aware of them, and this make s the average person feel deflated.
The thing about this is that “selling out” does often have corrosive effects on the quality of the music. Much of this is for reasons that are by no means entirely or even primarily the fault of the band itself, but signing to a major label comes with a comparative loss of creative control and with the influence of label sent record producers and a desire for marketability.
Probably the single most marked example of this, particularly for fans of metal, is Metallica. All one really has to do is compare their music pre-Black Album, and post-Black Album and the watering down of their sound into easily digestible mainstream hard-rock becomes apparent.
What bugs people about snobs isn’t that they know more, it’s that snobs are, by definition, assholes.
Exactly. You’re allowed to think I’m a hopeless dumbass because there’s a Rob Thomas song I don’t hate, but when you open your mouth to tell me so, it deserves to be smacked.
Could that be because more people listen to music than read comic books or, dare I say it, watch movies?
My experience of comics snobbery–and I rank amongst the snobs–is that it is a vicious viper pit. Maybe there’s a small pond effect that applies here. A greater number of snobs fighting for the hearts and minds of fewer neophytes.
Never heard of the guy before, so I went out googling for whatever you might be talking about. But it turns out he wrote tons and even tonnes of material. Help! What’s the name of the book or essay you’re referencing, MAJeff?
(I found this helpful, though.)
Agree with Sally & co. Nothing wrong with geekery, lots of things wrong with snobbery, and that is a difference I don’t see in this post, because this post leaves out the definitive action of a snob, which is the part where they see your CD collection and laugh derisively before making snide remarks about how they used to like Modest Mouse too before they sold out. What bugs people about snobs isn’t that they know more, it’s that snobs are, by definition, assholes.
Isabel,
Agree…especially with the last sentence. Musical geeks/enthusiasts I’ve met in college (Quite a few musical performance majors) not only are knowledgeable, but they tend from my experience to express such knowledge in such a way that leaves the relative musical novices feeling like they’ve gone through an enjoyable and educational experience without having their basic human dignity trampled in the process. They tend to make anyone with even a smidgen of interest in music more enthusiastic about wanting to learn more about it….which means they will seek out the musical geeks for further conversations on music and many other topics.
On the other hand, the musical snobs wield their self-proclaimed knowledge more as a tool to accentuate their own egos at everyone else’s expense. Unfortunately, there were not only plenty of those at my college as well, but also within my own family. In fact, it was because a branch of my family were such insufferable classical music snobs that I went through an “anti-classical music phase” just so I can disassociate myself from such pretentious twits. To worsen matters, much of the snobbery I’ve experienced and witnessed of this type was of the variety that demarcated and reinforced socio-economic class boundaries (i.e. Classical music and to some extent, Jazz listeners are associated with upper-class “high culture”…listeners of everything else such rock, rap, folk, etc are considered “riffraff”.)
Fortunately, the musical enthusiasts at my college facilitated my getting out of the phase when I realized not only that not all classical music listeners are arrogant upper/wannabe upper-class/spoiled trustafarian snobs….but that many of those snobs may not be as knowledgeable as they would have you believe. Some of my musical geek friends took great pleasure in taking those pretentious snobs down a peg or two as they felt they gave genuine musical enthusiasts like themselves a bad rep among the non-musical experts among campus and in the local town. This dignity affirming attitude my musical enthusiast friends in college had towards the resident musical non-experts is probably one reason why one of them is currently one of the most popular piano instructors at a respectable conservatory.
Music Snob says “Your music is shit. I have infinitely finer taste than you, so fuck you and your music.”
Music Fan says “Hey you like Avril Lavinge? Here, try Cat Power, Le Tigre, and Bleach.”
That’s the difference.
{How to explain why anyone could actually enjoy Kurt Weill, and how, calling home after the Saturday afternoon broadcast of “Mahagonny”, learning that my nearly brain-dead mother liked it too. No accounting for taste, it seems.}
It’s not like the Grateful Dead, which all my friends but one loved to distraction. That one took violent exception, and in her company I couldn’t entirely enjoy listening to anything she didn’t like. There came the day when she played the same track on a Mary Wells LP three times in a row and in so doing wrecked it, thermoplasticity having its limits.
I remember yelling at her for wrecking her record. I’m not entirely sure whether I was sleeping with her at the time. After a few decades one’s priorities emerge from the fog of emotion. I remember the music better than the fucking.
an 18-minute disquisition on shortstops of the 1950s
The thing about Luis Aparicio is people tend to overly focus on his base-stealing (which, frankly, he wasn’t very good at, but because nobody else was doing it he stood out) and don’t give his defense the credit it deserves….
18 minutes? Standing on my head
I would like to add to MAJeff’s suggestion to read Adorno. It is also time to go back and read Herbert Marcuse “One-Dimensional Man” and “Eros and Civilization”.
He gives a good analysis of how mass-produced culture products are used to stultify people and replace real pleasure, erotic pleasure, with ersatz imitations to promote the consumption society.
A big subject on which I could say much more, but go read the books.
Stop this now.
Not buying it. As others have pointed out, a snob is someone who believes herself and her tastes superior to those of others. If that is, as junk science said, “the point,” then I fail to see the confusion over why people think you’re an asshole. If that is not the point, then I don’t understand clinging to a term that is an explicit reference to believing yourself better than others merely because you’re interested in different things.
I’m a comic book fan. I’m a classical music fan. I’m a French movie fan. I have never called myself, or behaved like, a snob; I’ve only behaved like a fan: showed interest, occupied my time experiencing and learning about the subject, gave recommendations to friends if the topic came up — and I’ve never encountered anyone who thought I was an asshole for my behavior. I’ve encountered lots of people who showed legitimate interest in something I clearly enjoy so much, and so I’ve encountered lots of people who asked me for recommendations on various lesser-knowns of music, movies, and comics. But I have never called myself, nor been called, a snob, and I’ve never had to defend my interests or my behavior from attacks from “jealous” people.
It’s called “The Culture Industry” (forgot that Horkheimer was also co-author). Ignore anything he says about jazz though.
Here ya go
People need to stop getting bent out of shape about the semantics of “Insufferable Music Snob.” It’s a term of art. It doesn’t literally mean “insufferable music snob” — it’s just shorthand for a kind of harcore enthusiasm. Actual insufferable music snobs are mostly purists of some kind — classical purists, jazz purists, folk purists, etc. IMS’s are pretty much by definitaion small-c catholic in their tastes.
What I’m a bit curious about is why people have no patience for even lightweight technical discussion of music. It is absolutely possible to talk about basic stuff like key, modulations, meter, instrumentation, form, motivic development and all the rest of the toolkit in a way that any sensitive listener, even an untrained one, can understand what you’re talking about, but most people seem to think that knowing a bit about how music is made is like knowing how a magic trick is done — it spoils it for them.
I mean, there’s obviously a market for Criterion Collection DVDs with expert commentary that often delves into some pretty technical issues of filmmaking. Most film buffs eat that shit up (myself included). But talk about how the clever little 2/4 bar in the chorus of “Hey Ya” is what makes that song, and instantly everybody’s eyes glaze over.
PS Sweet jeebus I hates me some Adorno.
It is absolutely possible to talk about basic stuff like key, modulations, meter, instrumentation, form, motivic development and all the rest of the toolkit in a way that any sensitive listener, even an untrained one, can understand what you’re talking about
It is? Cause that stuff fascinates me even though I’m tone deaf and relate to music only on an emotional level. I always just assumed that if anyone ever tried to explain to me how music works, I’d be completely lacking in the mental equipment to understand them. I would probably listen to you explaining things for hours if you’re any good at talking at all, but since that’s not an option, can you recommend any books?
Amanda,
Thank you SO much for sharing that video. 6 seconds from 1969 boon entire genres of music and vast wealth for many corporations. Unbelievable.
The fight for copyright control over digital content will get stronger as the Millennials start to get more politically active. Unlike us codgy old X’ers, these kids have been making websites and music tracks since they were toddlers. When they realize that Rupert Murdoch owns all those photos they posted on MySpace, I believe they’ll help turn this boat around.
A part of IMS hate is also the assumption that your tastes make you a part of a team that hates all other teams. For example, if I say I that one of my favorite albums is Van Halen II, you might assume that I’ve never listened to The Raincoats or Wire or Autechre or Arvo Part. Which is certainly not the case.
It’s annoying because on message boards, the instant you proclaim that you like/hate a musician, someone fills in the blanks and thinks they have you pegged as a human being and pops in with some obnoxious joke or insult.
Also, in my anecdotal experience, the worst elitists are classical and jazz snobs. The social dynamic is similar to comic book snobs (pre-1990’s comic snobs; comics are pretty mainstream now) in that too few people are interested in their genres for them to feel very important to society at large, which makes them very cranky and defensive.
To be clear, I like both jazz and classical. I’ve just found a certain strain of classical snobs to be the most hostile about their tastes, using their hard earned technical prowess or their extensive knowledge of history as a sort of Fortress of Solitude to keep all the dumb people out.
You know, I’ve always felt that someone with enough of a sense of humor about themselves to call themselves a snob couldn’t possibly be an actual snob. Isn’t the point of being a snob not thinking that you are one, but just believing that you’re “right?” With that being the case, I interpreted Amanda’s use of the word “snob” to be somewhat ironic, but I seem to be the only one to feel that way.
Amanda, and all other Dylan de-fabulists,
AMEN.
In UT’s most underrated / overhyped class, “History of Rock’n'Roll,” we listened to all the proto-music that preceded country and folk, and learned about the savvy business decisions that mixed gospel, dixieland and Appalachian folk singing into country.
Dylan’s sources were a revelation. Most of his imagery is tracings or echoes of Old English poetry and song - diplomats and black cats and all.
It’s good nonsense, but nonsense nonetheless.
I think on IMS posts, there should be obscure music-trivia questions instead of capchas for comments…
“Finish this sentence: This band sounds like pre-Iggyy _____”
Amanda,
I’m sorry that I haven’t read the comments on this post or your earlier one. Comments are usually blocked for me and I only have a few precious moments before I’m back at the firewalled computer, but I was really surprised to read this in my blog feeder and find that something had made you feel the need to defend the IMS.
I LOVED your last post about the lack of women (or lack of respect for women) in music snobbery. As a music-obsessed guitar player and CD collector, it’s important to me, too. And it’s damn obvious when you acutely feel the dismissal of male music snobs who refuse to believe that you actually know what you’re talking about.
It seems that people criticize hipsters and music buffs because they just don’t get it. I have no idea why it’s as much this way with music fans and not with film or comics snobs, as you mentioned, but it’s definitely an attitude that’s there. Thanks for writing about this!
Snobbery of any kind is a class issue. Only people who have money or time can afford to be snobs of any kind. Only people who like to feel superior to other people act like snobs.
Music snobs are called snobs for a reason. It’s not about knowledge; it’s about class. Wine snobs aren’t the same as wine connoisseurs, they are wine SNOBS.
As the band, Cake, put it in “Rock` N ` Roll Lifestyle”:
Fans share. Snobs horde.
i think the cult of the snob has more to do with a fetishism of the obscure than anything else. there are truly people out there, i’ve had the pleasure to meet a few, who are so wholly consumed by their love of x (x being comics, music, carpet samples) that it pushes them to probe and dig and mine until they unearth new gems to bestow upon the world. this weird, rare, ritualistic practice is now “cool” and “hip.” not the actual life-commiting practice of pursuing your love to it’s end, but merely the appearance of it. so rattling off obscure and unloved bands to astound your room mates and neighbors gives the affectation of obscurity, without all the muss and fuss that comes from breathing in too many carpet fibers and getting a nasty case of carpet lung.
that being said, there truly is a renewed and amazingly creative batch of pop music being made by people who could care less if they ever grace the cover of a magazine. they are there and are probably playing in someone’s house in your neighborhood this weekend. obscurity be damned because one day some weirdo will pick up their cd-r from the bottom of a box and think it it the greatest thing ever.
in some old lady’s attic.
Atrios, that’s a great way to put it. It sums up the spirit of difference very well, but . . .
Sometimes sharing can feel like imposing if it’s done obnoxiously, even if that’s not the intention.
Also, some true fans know rightly that when a carefully nurtured scene or sound is transplanted to a larger arena, it’s may destroy what they loved about it. Kind of like feeling more protective of your little brother or sister than of a random stranger. That can seem like hording.
What’s always bothered me about my fellow music buffs is that certain artists/genres warrant minute attention but others get a very superficial understanding. Calling Nirvana a band from Seattle will get you shunned for not knowing they were from Aberdeen, but no one will disagree if you speak about A Love Supreme as if it was entirely improvised and involved no composition or technical ability.
I’d add that one thing about music snobs is for most of us, our good taste in music was part of what made us “weirdos” when we were younger. Then we grow up to be tastemakers. I can see how getting to transition like that can make people elitist (if they did) and resentful (if they didn’t).
Along the lines of Sally… you might get further as well if you didn’t try to defend “insufferable.”
In my world, having a good sense of humor about yourself is actually a good preventative for being a true snotty elitist. I’m aware that for some, being a target of humor equals being something bad you don’t want to be, but I feel like everyone can be laughed at, especially by their own. The fact that pop music obsessives can make fun of ourselves when others maybe can’t is actually probably evidence that we’re not nearly as snobby as hipster bashers (which was something started by those damn trend-setting hipsters) might like to think.
People label themselves fans and deny that their elitism has an elitism bent to it strike me as much bigger snobs than people who have an honest sense of humor about it.
I don’t think you’d raise the same hackles if you called yourself a music buff.
Yes, but then she’d sound like someone’s grandmother. Seriously, “buff”?
Snobbery of any kind is a class issue. Only people who have money or time can afford to be snobs of any kind.
That’s true. Tenant farmers and peasants tend not to have very many hobbies. As for anyone else, even those in the “lower classes,” I think you’d be surprised how knowledgeable they turn out to be on a variety of things that interest them.
Music Snob says “Your music is shit. I have infinitely finer taste than you, so fuck you and your music.”
Music Fan says “Hey you like Avril Lavinge? Here, try Cat Power, Le Tigre, and Bleach.”
Incorrect. The latter is also a snob and might piss you off even more because they’re saying the same thing AND showing off. Believe me, I know. I’ve definitely said variations on the latter and it’s a lot less welcome. Basically any acknowledging of my music geekery must be done with piles of apologies and mocking self-labels like “snob” to let others feel superior to me in that regard. Which is fine. What’s weird is that people don’t realize the term “snob” is self-mockery designed to allow them to laugh at you so they don’t feel put off because you are, in fact, one of those people who just weirdly knows shit.
Also, I find your suggestions weirdly sexist. The only these artists have in common is a vagina. I’d say, “Like Avril Lavinge? Maybe you’d like real pop punk—here’s Bratmobile, the Queers, the Eyeliners.”
While the rest of you claim that Amanda is sucking the life out of pop music by being a snob about it, what you’re doing is sucking the fun out of obsessive interest in music and musical influences.
People record 18 minute monologues that the history of a drum sample from a 1969 b-side because it’s fun.
I confess that my perspective may be different than the rest of yours; I do research for a living.
Amanda, I think one of the reasons why people dislike IMSs (and here I’m just referring to indie-rock/alt-rock/whatever label you want snobs, not classical music snobs or jazz snobs) more than other types of cultural snobs is because more people have had annoying experiences with IMSs than other cultural snobs. Examples can include snide comments from an IMS during an otherwise pleasant conversation at a party because the IMS feels a need to publicly mock a band one happens to mention one likes or obviously condescending behavior from a record store clerk while one is purchasing the CDs that pay for that clerk’s wages. In my experience, other types of cultural snobs generally don’t make their snobbery known to other people as IMSs. If one doesn’t go to the opera or to opera-oriented events, one generally doesn’t hear much from opera snobs. That’s not the case with IMSs.
Also, I agree with the distinctions made by Atrios and others regarding the differences between being a snob and being a knowledgable fan.
And mind you, I’m speaking as someone who used to be something of a minor IMS. But, then popular music all went downhill within a couple of years after My Bloody Valentine released “Loveless” and then failed to come up with a follow-up, and then these kids, they keep walking across my lawn, and, I don’t know.
Only people who have money or time can afford to be snobs of any kind.
The irony of this is that only a very sheltered, privileged person would deny that the American lower classes have plenty of music snobs. Hip hop alone and the way it developed in NYC communities where people had a lot of records but not a lot of money and so would entertain themselves with block parties should open your eyes to how elitist your little comment is. If it weren’t for the poor, the broke, and the rural communities who kept careful track of their music histories, the middle class music buffs *you* know wouldn’t have a history to learn about.
I absolutely disagree that one gets classified as a “fan” by sharing. Defensive people who revolt at jokingly calling yourself a “snob” are the same ones who joy kill obsessive music sharing because they perceive people saying, “Oh man, this band you haven’t heard of is so great,” to mean, “Ha ha I know more than you, you suburban slob.” If I never revealed my interests and tastes to others, then people wouldn’t know I was a snob and thus I wouldn’t be one. Only by geeking out, sharing, and being enthusiastic do you get called a snob.
I’ve honestly never met a “snob” who keeps their enthusiasms to herself. The annoyance at selling out is a different thing, but nothing makes most IMSes happier than turning on others to bands they like.
Far worse than music snobs are audiophile snobs because their obsession with stereo equipment becomes fundamentally divorced from the purpose of such equipment– namely, the enjoyment of music.
The analogue to this would be the electronica snobs who don’t actually enjoy music but rather like to hang out in the corner waiting for the DJ to screw up so they can show off how they were able to recognize such a glitch (to say nothing of the hypergenrefication of the art form).
People do conflate snobs with people who simply are knowledgeable and have good taste. I think Amanda is trying to ironically embrace the term “snob” because, hey, if people are going to call her that anyway, why not just go along with it?
You’d think the overload with the word “insufferable” would be a tip-off that I’m trying to be cute about it.
You’d think the overload with the word “insufferable” would be a tip-off that I’m trying to be cute about it.
You would think. It’s times like these I can help but wonder: “Maybe conservatives are right. Maybe liberals really don’t have a sense of humor!”
Then I compare The Daily Show to The Half Hour News Hour, and the moment passes.
I am enjoying learning about how people share “irrevelent” expertise. It’s telling me quite a bit about myself and how I react in a forum.
Kali, since you expressly asked for a book, allow me to point you at Levitin’s This is Your Brain On Music http://www.amazon.com/This-Your-Brain-Music-Obsession/dp/0525949690/ref=pd_bbs_2/105-3975774-2746007?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190478492&sr=1-2
As far as snobbery…well…This is how I see it: There isn’t any fine line between fandom and snobbery. If one reads a lot of fiction about high school, or books about work, one might find out snob is a term that’s bestowed on you, not something you typically use to describe yourself. When Amanda uses the term Insufferable Music Snob, I think she is mostly trying robbing the term snob of its inherent feelings of censure, by making it into a sorta joke. Framing as she might say.
I think the US culture is more…aggressive about quirky interests than in many other countries. Japan is more conformist in certain ways, but they have their own wide range of subcultures bent on stirring the pot, as the same with other countries. We tend to think that since we’re not conformist in the fashion that other countries are, that we aren’t conformist. I think that the US tends to be very conformist about knowledge and expertise in a way that many other cultures aren’t.
Returning to the term snob, Snob (removed of *some* of the classist sentiments), in the US, is nothing but a term for people who are graceless about imparting information about a subject or a situation. People in the US are *very* sensitive about how other people express their expertise, as Richard Hofstadter (what can I say, I’m impressed by his work) might explain. In a way, if you enjoy what you do, and you enjoy sharing the information about what you do, you’ll probably get called a snob, even if you are not, as Atrios have said, a hoarder. It’s all in *how* you express your fandom
Me? I get quickly tired of giving a s*** about other people when they are being a fool and I cry FOOOOOOooooollll!!! Don’t You Know What You’ve DONE???!!!!. There is only so much concern for other people’s ego that any of us can give. Then we cry Philistine! And Let Slip The Nerds of Flame War!!
Only people who have money or time can afford to be snobs of any kind.
I was getting ready to respond to this comment when I saw that Amanda already beat me to it. To her example of hip-hop snobs, I’ll add the example of punk kids who can’t hold down regular jobs because they’re always touring with their bands, but spend what little money they have on records and Marshall amplifiers, and live in squalid communal houses. Punk rock IMSs are especially aggravating because they conflate political self-righteousness with their IMSery (I should know, I used to be one). Granted, many of these people are downwardly-mobile middle class, but certainly not all of them.
Thanks for linking that video, I knew what the “amen” break was but didn’t know much about its original context.
I was just going to leap in and say that AManda is being Self-Mocking (and therefore is clearly NOT a REAL snob) but everyone else beat me to it; also, it is funny that her comment:
is Insufferably Music Snobbery De Luxe! “Maybe you’d like REAL pop punk”(subtext: not that Avril shite you THINK you like, which, whatever it may be, isn’t REAL”)
The insufferable Music Snobbery WILL OUT!
But it’s CUTE. It is!
Music Snob says “Your music is shit. I have infinitely finer taste than you, so fuck you and your music.”
Music Fan says “Hey you like Avril Lavinge? Here, try Cat Power, Le Tigre, and Bleach.”
Incorrect. The latter is also a snob and might piss you off even more because they’re saying the same thing AND showing off. Believe me, I know. I’ve definitely said variations on the latter and it’s a lot less welcome. Basically any acknowledging of my music geekery must be done with piles of apologies and mocking self-labels like “snob” to let others feel superior to me in that regard. Which is fine. What’s weird is that people don’t realize the term “snob” is self-mockery designed to allow them to laugh at you so they don’t feel put off because you are, in fact, one of those people who just weirdly knows shit.
Wow, I must live in a completely different world, because my experience is exactly the opposite. Maybe the problem is that I have met many people who wear the “snob” badge proudly, with no hint of irony or self-deprecation, and wow, are they ever assholes.
I’ve been on the receiving end of these kinds of comments in several different fields, and here’s generally how I characterize them:
Knowledgeable person:
“If you like X, you might also enjoy Y (usually followed by details on how Y compares to X.)”
“I like X a lot, but I really think Y is better.”
“Y was pretty influential to X–it really helped me understand X a lot better.”
–My usual reaction is something like “thanks–I might look that up later, I might not, depending on how enthusiastic your recommendation is, and how much your description of Y appeals to me.”
Snob:
“You only like X because you haven’t experienced Y. You’ll see.”
“How can you like X when Y is so much better?”
“If you’re serious about this stuff, you really need to experience Y because it’s so much more important to the genre than X.”
— Yeah, well, maybe I haven’t seen Y, or maybe I have some huge personality flaw that makes Y squick me for some reason. Maybe X is tied into some important event of my life that gives it a special place in my memory. Maybe I don’t feel like defending my tastes to you right now. Maybe I don’t want to be serious about this stuff.
Insufferable snob:
“How can you possibly like X more than Y? No one likes X more than Y!”
“You like X? That’s so juvenile/cliche/stupid/whatever!”
“That person is so stupid, she probably likes X! ha-ha! Oh, you like X, too? No way!”
— Right, fuck off, asshole.
The two “snob” examples are judgmental: the snob judges my tastes and experience, and the insufferable snob pronounces me stupid. I’ll happily continue conversation with the “knowledgeable person”, but I will walk away from a snob or insufferable snob every time.
The “check out this really cool video that you haven’t seen before” posts are neutral and informative. I can take them or leave them, no harm no foul.
The “guilty pleasures” posts are “snobby” and judgmental because they assume that a) there’s something wrong with appreciating one of these bands and b) everyone should realize there is something wrong with them. I skip those.
YMMV.
I appreciate Amanda’s smackdowns in this thread! Sheesh guys, it’s about devotion and enthusiasm and wanting to share what you cherish, and sometimes we become emphatic about the music.
And the defensiveness has a lot to do with the dominance of mainstream rock delivery systems and their grandiosity, power and refusal to make a tiny little place for indy music on the airwaves and in the clubs. The decent rare record store is an unprofitable public service venture. When I lived in a college town in Illinois I had to a 3 hour train to Wax Tracks in Chicago to buy records once a month because of the tight corporate controlled marketplace. Who made these people tastemakers? Why are they controlling access? They have no chops, no knowledge, no taste, and yes it is a moral imperative of an IMS to sneer at these unsupportable conditions.
As for Elaine’s comment, only people who have money can afford to be snobs? Most every IMS I’ve known over 30 years came from economic and social deprivation. Every one of us started our own garage bands and fanzines. We grew insufferable about aesthetics because it’s truly all we had. Why don’t people get this? Maybe some of the assholery they see in IMS has something to do with envy about their own lack of personal development, see two can play at the projection bullshit. Good grief. Every uncomprehending soul would do me a big favor today to listen to Lou Reed’s Rock n Roll, don’t ask questions, just go do it now. Believe me, it’s a true story.
…um… if you had read the comment she was responding to, you would realize her point was that those bands are more similar in genre that what the person she was quoting had suggested — female artists are not all the same just because they are female. Which is a really important point.
I just wanted to point out to people that when someone is rude to you about the music you like, it’s not because they are a snob. It’s because they are an asshole. My social group includes the kind of people you would probably assume are music snobs. Some are cool about it; some are assholes. If someone wants to make you feel like shit, it’s because they are insecure and want to feel superior. In every subculture, there are assholes. Don’t talk to them, we’ll all be better off.
My experience of snobs is mostly like Dorothy’s, where “I can’t believe you’re listening to X” is delivered in exactly the same tone of voice and given the same consideration as “I can’t believe you’re drinking X brand of beer.” I don’t think I’ve ever come across Amanda’s type of snob, who just wanted to share her knowledge but got bashed for it and had to use a self-deprecating label to deflect criticism.
Racy T: Ummm…..I DID read the comment, in fact, I have actually READ this entire thread. WHy do you assume I didn’t?
I get that Amanda is showcasing her superior music knowledge, and NOT being “all girl bands are the same”, a flaw in the previous example.
But she STILL contrasted “real” with “the thing YOU like”. She couldn’t help it!
And it IS cute.
I got “insufferable music snob” the first time I read it here years and years ago. I’m still plenty “snobby” about what I like, but I’m a lightweight on that scale for sure. I’m one of Karmakin’s U2 bootleg people.
If you’re interested in/curious about classical music, Copland’s What To Listen For In Music is an oldie but a goodie.
For technical demystification of popular music, the Pandora podcast is flippin’ great. They have episodes devote to explaining time signatures, vocal harmonies, pedal point, synthesis, etc. — all in language anyone who actively listens to music can easily understand.
Also, I know I can harp on this quite a bit, but a decade’s worth of slogging away in nobody bands from nowhere will do a lot to dilute any snobbish tendencies you may have. Being more discerningly open to other music becomes very easy when you’re on the receiving end of so many “you guys SUCK” gems of genius. It’s dumb and lame to gripe about someone else’s crappy music when you yourself are barfing yours out there to be badly judged and willfully misinterpreted as well.
If you’re interested in/curious about classical music, Copland’s What To Listen For In Music is an oldie but a goodie.
For technical demystification of popular music, the Pandora podcast is flippin’ great. They have episodes devote to explaining time signatures, vocal harmonies, pedal point, synthesis, etc. — all in language anyone who actively listens to music can easily understand.
I get it, KMT. And agree—coming out and saying something knowledgeable tends to be “snobbier” than simply swiping. Everyone hates Avril Lavigne. You don’t get to be a snob for that. Pointing out that she’s imitating a tradition of pop punk that’s actually good is when you start smelling snobby and like a know-it-all.
Oh well. I never claimed that IMSes were the best people ever. Just no worse than everyone else, and that obsessive cataloguing of pop culture has a benefit to it, if you’re willing to set aside anti-hipster prejudice and look at it.
What’s weird is that I still mostly feel like a geek for this. Like last night I geeked out that one of the bands we were seeing was a Gary Numan cover band. I couldn’t explain why that’s pure genius in cover band selection without being offensively snobby and show-offy, so instead I had to settle for seeming like a crazy person who thought something was awesome for reasons that were not immediately accessible to people who don’t share my obsessions.
I think Amanda’s “real pop punk” comment is more to do w/ real=not corporate-manufactured. But it does betray a certain impatience w/ people who don’t understand that corporate-manufactured music is horrible and never looked for anything more, and, in fact, may have been opposed to the idea.
I got made fun of for my musical taste all throughout middle school/high school. Part of the reason why IMSes abandon music IMO is that after horrible people start liking it for horrible reasons, your emotional attachment to it becomes tainted. By their words, by their actions, by their interpretation. You can’t not think about them while listening to the music. It completely changes the listening experience.
Speak for yourself, you fuckin’ snob.
(Okay, yes, “Girlfriend” is pretty wretched. But I actually like most of her earlier hits, bubblepunk as they may be. “Complicated” is actually a sweet little tune.)
While I think your diagnosis is accurate, this strikes me as the second-worst possible reason for shutting yourself off from music you otherwise like. (The worst possible reason, is, of course, that the artist is an asshole or politically dubious or otherwise morally compromised in some way you disapprove of.)
Well, humans aren’t perfect
It’s very unfortunate, I agree. However, I think that if this drives you in pursuit of a semi-pure listening/emotional experience, this can be very rewarding.
That reminds me, I’ve got a bootleg cassette of their “Tear Down the Walls” tour concert (Joshua Tree) in Chicago I’ve been meaning to get transfered to CD.
Hitler was a vegetarian.
That discredits vegans! If I were vegan, I’d feel so soiled and go out and eat a hamburger!
previous comment directed at comments derived from Laurelin’s commet at 77
Avril Lavigne is to music as a mass-produced can of soup is to cuisine, or a fashion magazine spread is to photography. She’s a manufactured icon, with overproduced music in which all ‘imperfections’ are brushed out by computer software. Like most popular artists she’s the perfect example of the transition of music from art (live concerts) to product (CDs).
Guy Debord was right.
[I am assuming that my earlier comment, the one with the links, is merely languishing in the mod queue and not lost forever. Meanwhile…]
Well, except you don’t “just weirdly know shit.” You’ve devoted a lot of time and effort into learning about music. You’ve worked at it. This also seems like a normal thing to do — when I find something I like, I tend to want to learn more about it. What is there to be ashamed of here, so that you need to hide it or couch it in self-deprecation? It’s people who for inexplicable reasons don’t want to learn more about stuff they like that is weird and alienating.
To me, this seems like meeting someone you are attracted to, but not being remotely curious who they are, where they’re from, or what they think about stuff. Obviously, i get that there are people like that, but I don’t get why they seem to exhibit so little curiosity.
I also don’t get the dynamic of people who turn all resentful when they are faced with the realization that someone out there might possibly know more about something than they do. I love it when I meet people who can passionately make the case for stuff I know nothing about. What exactly is there to hate, there?
I’m also surprised that we haven’t touched on cloth snobbery. FashionNazis are incredibly evil, dontcha know? And yes, I want to offend whatever god that inspires Godwin…
Oh god, I’m feeling so much WORD for DJA! How come he can write so much better than me!
/me scribbles that second sentence on a piece of paper and burns it…
Oh man, a monologue on the history of the Amen? SWEET.
I have nothing to say on the subject of IMSery. As someone who spins jungle, but also will defend to the death the artistic integrity of Ace of Base, I have no room to talk.
Hitler was a vegetarian.…
previous comment directed at comments derived from Laurelin’s commet at 77
Aha…the IMS in me thought you were referring to The Residents.
Yes, exactly. You say that like this is some kind of inherently bad thing, though.
Listen, I recently learned (via New York magazine) that the crust on the awesome calamari at Grayz is made with Cream of Wheat and crumbled Nabisco Honey Grahams.
IMS’s — at least as Amanda is using the term — love the musical equivalent of that. It’s only the unironic, actual snobs that have those knee-jerk negative reactions to mass culture.
You know what else was mass-produced according to formula? Motown.
Avril Lavigne is to music as a mass-produced can of soup is to cuisine
While I don’t listen to Avril Lavigne, sometimes I come home late from work and just need food, and it’s good to know i have a few cans of Campbell’s Soup in the cupboard.
you’re not a snob if you’re fucking right.
I just have to add my shock that Amanda’s experienced people who get angry at her for sharing new music. I know jack about music, and love having people (usually my music snob friends) expose me to new artists. The music snobs I used to know in school didn’t care that I knew all the words to every NSYNC song, and let me tag along to concerts and shows that I certainly would have been rejected from had I tried to venture in alone.
Contrast that with one experiece I had, where a Nirvana song come on my friend’s playlist at a party, and I asked who it was. I was accused of being the basest of traitors to music, god, and country for that one. They took it so damn personally! It was as though I’d killed Kurt Cobain myself!
I think that perceived condescension is a key thing for people’s reaction to music suggestions. Some people share new music in a way that isn’t assholish, yet can be perceived as condescending. And frankly, I think that Amanda’s REAL pop punk suggestion is an example of that. If I was a fan, I know I’d immediately get defensive from language like that. Not that I’m accusing you of being a jerk, Amanda. Just that that’s how people tend to react to that sort of thing. You’re being condescending toward Avril, but they think you’re being condescending to THEM. They take their taste too personally. Like with that damn Nirvana song.
>>While I don’t listen to Avril Lavigne, sometimes I come home late from work and just need food, and it’s good to know i have a few cans of Campbell’s Soup in the cupboard.
So do I. But I don’t call it art.
Well, you know, ONE thing to LIKE about this thread is how PASSIONATE most everyone is about music! THat’s GOT to be good.
Back when I was touring the USA playing in punk clubs (1984-2000), boy howdy, did I see a lot of bands. A lot of awful bands, mostly. ANd one thing we ended up deciding (yes, as a group) is that EVERY band, no matter HOW awful, has at least ONE GOOD SONG.
Every band, every act, PROBABLy has done at least ONE THING that is lovable, or creditworthy, or just plain good. Usually when someone writes off an ENTIRE genre of music, be is classical or reggae or Goth or rap or gangsta rap or jazz or Zappa or whatever, it is because that person has unsufficient KNOWLEDGE of that genre. If I were put on a desert island with a thousand (fill in hated genre) CDs, in short order I would become expert on that genre and I would find I did not hate it at all.
THis actually happened to me in real time with the genre..what was it called….Hardcore? Bands like the Dead Kennedys and Fang. FOr some reason, Glass Eye was often put on these bills, (to the outrage of the Hardcore Punk fans, believe me). Initially, I couldn’t HEAR what they were doing. But with increased exposure, I began to appreciate Hardcore.
In short: Probably every band you hate has done at least ONE thing that you like (see FOREIGNER) and every genre you hate, has something to offer artistically that can’t be found anywhere else, and a GOOD POSTURE to take is an open mind.
(But once you have delved into a genre and become expert on every song by every band…..it’s pretty harde NOT to have an opinion!)
LANDSHARK GO!
THat is a very important and interesting lesson to us ALL. For, is there any among us that thinks The Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back” ISN’T capital A Art?
That whole art/mass culture dichotomy is a red herring. Do you really want to disqualify anything that was ever intended for mass consumption purely on that basis?
Again: is Motown art?
Like last night I geeked out that one of the bands we were seeing was a Gary Numan cover band. I couldn’t explain why that’s pure genius in cover band selection without being offensively snobby and show-offy, so instead I had to settle for seeming like a crazy person who thought something was awesome for reasons that were not immediately accessible to people who don’t share my obsessions.
A Gary Numan cover band is “pure genius” because Gary Numan is fuckin’ awesome.
Does this make me a snob or someone with poor taste?
Oh, who is this band, and will they be coming to Pittsburgh soon?
How about the jars of soup I create from my own recipes and can (preserve in jars) myself and open on those nights when cooking a full meal is too much work?
I’ve got a BA in music and I find these threads entertaining because I’m just not that invested. I’m completely ignorant of recent trends in popular music and fine with that. But Mary J. Blige with U2 performing “One” can be as moving as Mahler’s first for me under the right circumstances. I’d rather concentrate on what makes me weep (or laugh or giggle) than what I can converse about, which of course goes against all of my instincts as an academic and intellectual (and which my MA advisor–who knows me pretty well–noted when I was discussing my experience at the Concertgebouw when a former student of mine challenged me on my refusal to name the emotions because I found that doing violence to them.)
Just for the fun of it, my only haiku:
I understood jazz
when i got stoned and listened
to Alice Coltrane.
And yeah, even though Adorno got jazz completely wrong, he’s still got something worthwhile to say about the mass production of art. Listening to a CD pales in comparison to the experience of live music, and a print of Monet (or whomever) is no comparison to looking at the real thing.
But a CD and print are better than no art.
Hey Jeff, do you enjoy Billie Holiday?
I have great sympathy for the IMS Amanda talks about–while not a music snob, unless I am very careful in my delivery, any time I bring up my own esoteric obsessions, I get similar negative reactions. For the most part, it is only by feigning shame that I’ve spent so much effort learning about something most people find boring or pedantic that I am able to avoid being treated as an elitist asshole. (Of course, it might be that my critics are right and I *am* just an elitist asshole, but bear with me.) It is frustrating to be dismissed for being interested or knowledgeable, and so I can relate to the plight of the IMS.
But.
Having said that, there is no shortage of people who would self-describe as IMSes who are real jerks. There’s no point in repeating all the negative experiences people have already shared, but look at how common they are. You can define IMS in such a way as to exclude the assholes (No true IMS would . . .) but if you really want to know why people aren’t convinced of the goodness and pure intentions of the IMS, it’s all here already. It isn’t that non-IMSers are afraid or jealous of the IMS’s knowledge but that the language of the IMS is so often used to recreate high-schoolish cliques. Particularly problematic for the IMS is the customary hyperbole that, for someone on the outside, looks less like technical knowledge than some shallow imitation of it. That a band’s commercial success is so often factored into evaluations of their music and the ready resort to “irony”* make these conversations all the more unpleasant.
*I use the quotation marks because what I’m complaining of is not actually irony, but a way of avoiding putting a reputation for taste at risk. i.e. listening to bad music “ironically” as a means of disavowing the decision to listen to bad music.
In music snobbery, there’s been a real backlash against the sell-out complaint. I’ve noticed that almost no one is ashamed of loving themselves an amount of corporate label stuff, so long as they give the indies plenty of space in the catalog. I think that sell-out narrative lost its punch at some point. I’ve heard it on rare occasions, but not much lately. It’s stale.
Well, except you don’t “just weirdly know shit.” You’ve devoted a lot of time and effort into learning about music. You’ve worked at it.
Exactly. But the reaction you get from people makes it seem like it’s in-born, like you know something they couldn’t know. Same, I think, as why people glaze over when you talk technical stuff. We’ve talked before about the myth that some people are just geniuses and their genius art just flows from them as if they didn’t study hard (aka, the Mozart myth), and I think the geek myth is a manifestation of it.
A Gary Numan band is pure genius because Gary Numan is one of those artists (like Devo) that non-snobs will try to snob at by calling them one-hit wonders and true snobs know is the Real Deal. Making a cover band insinuates that a band has an identity and catalogue that is substantial enough to pay earnest tribute to it. Gary Numan does have these things, but a lot of Americans at least wouldn’t know it. Which is what makes it genius.
There was also a Queen cover band, which made me happy.
You can define IMS in such a way as to exclude the assholes (No true IMS would . . .)
I never said that. Of course a true IMS would totally diss someone for having shitty taste. And sometimes the same person could be mellow and nice about it. We’re not all the same all the time. My point is that people want to define IMSes as people drawn to music to be snobs, and while I’ve met horrible snobs and have definitely given the IMS sneer in my time, the central reason people are drawn to it is positive—a love of music—and the negative personality traits that sometimes crop up do not change this fact.
Thank you!!!
There are, of course, artistic geniuses. However, their talent, their technique, etc. always have to be nurtured. Mozart was trained to be a musician.
Art is social, in its production and consumption.
Even if the “sell-out” complaint is now passe–and this certainly hasn’t been my experience, though I grant it is far less common today than say, 5 years ago–that’s hardly the only complaint that people have raised. “It’s not a problem anymore” is only a partial answer, and not a wholly convincing one at that.
Sorry for the double post…
I definitely agree with you that people shouldn’t define IMSes (or any of their analogs) as actual snobs simply because they’re interested in music. I also agree that the negative personality traits and the IMS sneer don’t change that it is good to be drawn to music.
Having said that, though, if you want to know why people don’t like IMSes and are skeptical (sometimes extremely so) of anyone who is interested in music, I would argue that it’s the very sneering, negative personality traits and “totally dissing” people that does it. However good it is to be into music, talking to people who engage in that kind of conduct regularly (or on your first encounter) is very off putting. Rather than blaming the dislike of IMSes on people being jealous of or threatened by knowledge, being upset by this kind of antisocial behavior seems like a much more plausible explanation. Sorry for the double post…
You gonna taser me if I do?
Well, and for a lot of people, they perceive anyone who’s big into music and uses jargon or makes a reference they don’t get as the exact equivalent of Jack Black running the 80s Stevie Wonder fan out of the store in “High Fidelity”. Which was my point—there’s an eagerness to write-off hipsters underlying the “someone was snotty to me so fuck all hipsters” sentiment. Why are some so eager?
I mean, I get it. I enjoy being a consumate cynic, too. I am so bad that I have moments where I’m enjoying my own life and then I hate myself for having it so good. Which is the sort of impetus behind coining the phrase “Insufferable Music Snob”. I also do it to myself when I’m in a really good spot relationship-wise—biting down the urge, during a moment of couple-related bliss, to say, “Oh my god, we’re one of those happy fucking couples that everyone hates!” has been a struggle. Which I suppose is my point—being a huge cynic is a pleasure that will eventually get in the way of enjoying your own life.
Look, I can’t speak for anyone else, but when I talk about obscure stuff that I am excited about (and as a jazz musician, most of what I might talk about is going to be obscure to just about everyone), it’s not to rub your face in what you don’t know. It’s really not. It’s probably because you asked what I did last night, or you are into some music that I think has some commonality with the music I’m into. I’m not trying