I dated one for a short spell. I knew it wasn’t destined to fail when he insisted on sitting me down in his room so he could “educate me”, as he put it, and then turned to me during a Plaid track and said excitedly “Did you hear what they did there? They went from 7/4 time to 12/16” (or something to that effect… I’m not snobby enough to remember the exact terminology).
:rolleyes:
It’s a subculture that almost exclusively consists of overly intense, nerdy, white males, the most devoted of which insist that “real music” should be purposely disguised as atonal noise and static so that it can weed out the mainstream sheep, and that anything that sounds remotely pleasant is mere consumerist pap.
I was coming to nominate the Deadheads. I used to be a big Phish fan, and one of the things I loved about that crowd was that their musical taste tended to be pretty broad and generally positive. For instance, when Jay-Z joined them on stage and did “Big Pimpin’”, the audience seemed to know every word.
Since then I’ve gotten to know a lot of Deadheads, and I expected them to be the same way, but they’re really, really not. They seem to actively and vocally hate any music that isn’t vaguely Dead-related. They’ll gush over some third-rate Ratdog bootleg, but if you try to play them something new they just roll their eyes.
It could be the particular Deadheads that I know, and it’s probably a function of the fact that they’re getting older, and like most people they’re getting set in their musical ways with age. But they’re by far the biggest music snobs in my orbit.
Three years ago I would have definitely answered “Fusion Jazz” fans. the reason being that they refuse to explain the music to the uninitiated. The only thing worse than someone who insists upon "educating"you, is someone who insists that you just “don’t get it” and must, therefore, be too stupid to “get it”.
But then I dated a guy who collected movie soundtracks. Oh, excuse me, “Scores.” And insisted that Hollywood is the Vienna of our day. [Retch]
Sure, but if Hollywood isn’t, then where is? Where else can a composer who wants to create long, instrumental works get employment? They can try writing for orchestras and trying to get it played in concert halls - but they better keep their day job. But someone like Danny Elfman can move from a moderately successful (though critically acclaimed) band like Oingo Boingo to become one of the most successful and well-respected composers of film scores. I don’t specifically look for films that feature Elfman’s scores, but I’m usually happy to see his name in the credits.
I don’t collect movie soundtracks (calling them “scores” is kind of douchey), but I can understand.
There’s at least some justification in calling those albums “scores,” though. “Soundtrack” often means the popular music that gets played or excerpted in a movie, and then there is the whole “music inspired by the movie” field, which is really just a ridiculous cash grab by record labels and movie studios, but even so, it gets called the soundtrack by some people and there’s an intelligibility problem.
I find snobbery comes not so much by what people will listen as okpposed to what they won’t listen to. So many folks use criteria OTHER THAN whether they like the song to determine if they will like a song. “You have JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE on your iPod??? BWAHAHAHAH!! I’ve never even HEARD this song!”
Uhhg, I see this here a lot, actually. Have you ever noticed that “who’s your favorite Simpsons character” turns into “who can name the most obscure Simpsons character”?
"Ooooh, I just luuuuurv Lunch Lady Doris! She’s my hero and such a deep character and I have her tattooed on my butt and I named 7 out of my 12 cats after her and and and . . . "
:rolleyes:
If your favorite Simpsons character is not Homer, you’re a douche. And your favorite Star Wars character is not Wedge Antilles. It’s Luke Skywalker. Don’t fucking lie.
I don’t think opera fans are that snobby, though I have run across a couple that claim to enjoy opera, but never have actually been to an opera. Going to operas in Omaha was interesting, as the audience had no idea what the experince would be like; the performaces I saw there were extremely accessible without pandering.
The snobs I don’t get are the ones who like music that “you probably wouldn’t like”. Mostly I’ve heard this from indy kids, who think that any one who wears a shirt with a collar and is over 26 only listens to the Beatles or classical music. And they won’t play it for you, or even explain why you would like it.
Country music even has it’s own snobs. There are the people who say all “pure” country is The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers and all modern country is really pop. Then there are the “alt country” fans, who seem about the same as these “indie rock” clowns. Okay, that stuff is all fine. But I still like Alan Jackson and Tim McGraw too.
I’ve enjoyed (for a given value of enjoyed) several fun evenings of watching very earnest young men attempt to define their place in the pecking order by arguing (and I paraphrase here, because it was too boring to listen to) whether that last track was “house dub jungle down step break ambient trance electro” or “oldschool chiptune UK Garage industrial dark ambient newbeat”.
If it weren’t for the tendency of their girlfriends to get bored with the conversation and wander off with me, I’d stop attending these functions altogether.