Pretentious

It’s not a well kept secret that I have terrible taste in music. I like Brittany Spears, I like Creed, I like Kelly Clarkson, I like the Mamma Mia Soundtrack, I am disrespected constantly. I’m really not impressed with a lot of “cooler” music.

1. Excessive technical ability is unimportant song quality. If you’re not at a live show, the “artists” ability to play great is erroneous. As long as you’re good enough to pull off the recording, you’re good to go.

2. The musicians don’t have to be the songwriters. There’s nothing magical about the singer/songwriter. A songs quality shouldn’t be effected by who did or didn’t write it. Erroneous!

3. A band’s unique sound doesn’t automatically make them superior. The main stream sound is popular for a reason, diverging from is it certainly allowed and encouraged, but simply doing equal free kudos.

4. The hip band you’ve never heard of isn’t cooler then Brittany Spears solely because they are underground. Unless you don’t want your music to reach very far, the concept of underground should be a disparaging comment, not an acknowledgement. Big bands have simply been successful, it’s not awesome to be less successful.

5. A band’s longevity doesn’t necessarily add up to quality. Any tenacious piece of crap band can just not give up, doesn’t equal goodness.

6. A bands level of aggression has no bearing on the quality of their music. I’ve always hated it when people say things like, “This band makes Metallica look like a kiddie band, they are really hardcore!”

7. The comparison between an full band and a solo artist is also erroneous. No one knows the bass player’s name regardless, so what’s the difference? Unless every band member is independently famous, full band acts are exactly the same as solo ones. The full-time or part-time status of band members most often has minimal effect on the music.

I really hate it when someone asks you, “So what kind of music do you like?” In my experience, it usually seems like an opportunity for the person asking to then fire off with as many unknown, or extremely non-current bands in attempt as impressing me. It’s exactly the same with film snobs. They tell you their top 5 includes the most low budget indie films ever made and with distribution so it impossible you can recognize what their talking about. But then day to day you hear them quoting Hook or cheesy Arnold Schwarzenegger lines.

I wish people would simply consume the media that they enjoy and not use it as a means to gain respect.  And I wish that when you are forced to participate in those awful, “So, what do you listen to” conversations, that it doesn’t quickly spiral into a dick measuring contest about who’s music is cooler, smarter, more unique, more technically proficient.