Them's Fightin' Words

Let me kick this one off by admitting that yes, I’m a music snob. I’ve been one since I was about 11 or 12 years old and the older I get the worse it becomes. I am fully aware and comfortable with that fact, it’s never going to change because I’m never going to try and change it and here’s why.

I judge people openly when it comes to music because it’s such a powerful force in my life that it’s like a fucking religion to me. Forget heaven or hell or Jesus or Krishna or Brahman or Satan or God or Santa and the Tooth Fairy. They may or may not exist and I couldn’t really care one way or the other because in music I’ve found a higher power that accepts me for who I am whether I’m wretched and seeped in sin or rolling holy and righteous without a goddamn care in the world.

To say it puzzles me when I meet people that are completely indifferent to music would be a gigantic understatement. I’ll never say it openly because I learned back when I was a kid that no one likes having someone else’s opinion rammed up their butt, but when I meet people that say or do one of the following things my estimation of them immediately plummets to the same level I reserve for people who’s biological parents are blood relatives.

THING NO.1 – We’ve just met, I ask you what music you’re into and you shrug and reply, “Oh, I dunno, anything really…”

It baffles me how many people say this, especially girls. There are a number of reasons people say this about music, namely:

• They don’t want to say something you might think sounds stupid so they’re going to sit on the fence on this one and hope for the best. Get off the fence. Admit to your love of Norwegian Folk Metal, fly that flag brother! I’d rather hear ANYTHING than the sentence in bold underlining above.
• They’re drawing a total blank. This happens, just breathe and try to calm down a little, I’m not going to bite your head off if you say you’re into someone I think is shit. You can listen to whatever the hell you want… except Nickleback.
• They honestly don’t give a rat’s ass what’s playing. They will listen to commercial radio stations like 5FM every day of their lives from the minute they wake up until the minute they arrive back home after work and not even notice when the same song gets repeated 6 times in as many hours. I mean fuck’s sake! I don’t even listen to the songs I like six times a day because by day two I’d be bored to tears of it. These people cannot be saved. Their favourite movie of all time is Mr Bones. Just… give up.

THING NO.2 – People who describe music that is even slightly down-tempo or sad as “slit-your-wrists music”

I can’t tell you how much this infuriates me. People who expect music to have the same effect as Prozac are, nine times out of ten, terminally boring human beings.

A perfect example of this actually happened to me recently when I was copying some music over to a friend’s laptop who is totally clueless about music (some gems while I was copying the stuff over were “Foo Fighters? What do they sing?” and “Oh Green Day, I like them! Can you give me the first album, the one with American Idiot on it…”).

Her friend, the music expert, was sitting with us, advising her what to copy and what not to copy when we came across Ben Harper.

“Ben Harper?” she said, “Who’s he?”

“He’s a bit like Jack Johnson,” I replied, “they actually tour together quite a lot.”

“Yeah, but it’s real ‘slit-your-wrists music’”, the expert chirped in.

“It is, but unfortunately all my ‘High School Musical’ stuff is on my other drive, sorry,” I replied in my head.

Walk away son, walk away.

THING NO.3 – People who pull you aside to play you a song that sounds like utter crap and then ask you what you think about it

Bonus points if they give you their greasy earplugs to put in your ear and double bonus points if they know what you’re into and are deliberately playing you something they know you’ll hate in some misguided effort to try and reprogram your musical taste.

For these people, music is an argument that they must win at all costs. If you do not like the music they do, they will make you like it or they will die trying.

Despite what you might think, while I am a music snob, I am not one of these people. You listen to whatever the hell you want to listen to, I’m totally fine with that. Just don’t make me listen to it, respect the fact that our tastes are different and let’s both just carry on with our lives shall we?

THING NO.4 – People who only buy “Best Of” or compilation albums

Why the fucking fuck would you ever want to buy a compilation album, ever? So you can hear the same old songs that artist has had playing on the radio for the last God-knows-how-many years all over again?

Here’s a crazy question: What if you actually stepped WAY out on a limb and bought the album that one or two of those songs appeared on? And here’s another wild thought: What if you found that your favourite track wasn’t actually one of the ones that gets played on the radio all the time?

Why, that song would become “your” song in a way that the one that everyone knows and loves never could. It would have a special meaning to you and who knows? Maybe one day you’ll meet someone else who also fucking loves that song and you’ll instantly share a connection that is actually meaningful.

You know what my favourite Beatles song is? I’ll give you a clue, it’s not “Hey Jude”, it’s not “Yellow Submarine” and it’s sure as shit not “Yesterday”.

It’s “Rocky Raccoon” because it’s a story about a guy who’s lady runs off with a total jerk so he goes to kill the guy and ends up getting shot by the dude instead. Then this drunk doctor fixes him up and he just kinda carries on with his life.

Poetry I tells ya!

THING NO.5 – Playlist Trolls

They lurk in corners at parties and wait until no one’s looking so they can hijack the playlist and make it their bitch.

They won’t relinquish power, take requests or play anything that has any merit whatsoever.

Expect Vanilla Ice. Expect Abba. Expect “Bohemian Rhapsody” at full volume. Expect Mr fucking Jones. Expect Rod Stewart. And just when you think things couldn’t possibly get any worse, expect “Barbie Girl” or fucking Whigfield being blasted at you until your skull implodes.

What’s worse is they’ll play the same kak song three times, occasionally back-to-back just so you can get an intimate insight into what their hellishly mediocre lives must be like.

If you’re a person who is guilty of any of the sins listed above, there is good news. I’m offering free lobotomies all week to help you overcome these terrible afflictions, just hit me on tellthetiger@gmail.com and Uncle Slick will make everything better or your money back!

-ST