Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

Today I was talking with a fellow employee and we were on the subject of country music. I said that what is heard today on country stations is not country music but this over-sentimental manipulative poppy schlock. She said that she liked new country. I said that was fine but Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens and Waylon Jennings were real country and she had no response to this; probably because she has no clue who any of these people are. She then said that I was a music snob to which I replied, “No I just know what I like and know what is good and what is not.”

So I guess my question would be: What constitutes a music snob? I guess not being a music snob is agreeing with everyone around you about what is good and having no particular taste.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

Watch High Fidelity and Ghost World. If you identify with the Jack Black, John Cusak, or Steve Buscemi characters, you are a music snot.

Me, I'm definitely a Cusak.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

I know High Fidelity well and yes I identify with Rob, Dick and Barry.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

According to the Rock Snob's dictionary, A rock snob is the term for the sort of pop connisseur for whom the actual enjoyment of music is but a side dish to the accumulation of arcane knowledge about it.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

To me, being a music snob isn't just liking less mainstream music, but making sure to point it out to people who like mainstream music, and treating them like morons because of the music they like.

To use your example, if she talked about how she liked somebody like Taylor Swift, and you said that you didn't really like country music like Taylor Swift, but instead preferred Johnny Cash or Hank Williams and left it alone, that wouldn't be being a music snob.

However, your response where you said that the country music she liked "isn't real country music", dismissively referred to her music as "over manipulative schlock" and that real country music only consists of Hank Williams, etc. took it into the realm of snob.

Bonus points toward snobbiness for using the word schlock, but if you really want to be a prick about it, you need to switch to the word "tripe" or at least "drivel"... far, far more obnoxious.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

So basically if you have an opinion of music you should just keep it to yourself otherwise you're a music snob.

I wasn't really trying to make her feel like a moran I was simply stating an opinion* and I did so before I had even heard her opinion of it. Had she agreed with me would I still have been the music snob?



*An opinion that is, give or take a little, pretty much fact.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

Having an opinion on music and daring to express it makes you a music snob. I have no vinyl collection nor do I have any qualms about buying digital music, so I'm not a snob on the format front. But I can't tell you how many times I've been called a snob over the years for saying things like Lady Gaga's* music is pandering pop bullshit (much like the OP's encounter with country music).

On a similar note, I don't like when people say things like "I like everything but _____" (the blank is invariably filled in by rap/hip-hop or country). What that says to me is that you don't spend any time trying to find music outside of what the mainstream has to offer. It also sounds like you're daring me to try and find something you'd hate outside of the 1-2 genres you specifically hate, and I assure you, I can bring that up on my iPod in no time. At any rate, I don't care for shit like Lil Wayne* or Toby Keith*, but that doesn't mean that there aren't artists out there making something listenable in those genres.

The plus side to listening to things outside of the safety of the mainstream is that I rarely pay more than $30 for a concert ticket.

* Apologies to anyone who enjoys these artists. I don't understand the appeal, but more power to you.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

I don't care if someone thinks I'm a snob. I just like a huge variety of music and probably dislike just as much. I remember a friend in college calling me a snob and limited in taste because I railed against hair metal at the time (this was around '86). He shut up when I went into all the types of music I truly loved.

I got into an mini-argument with a friend at work who was a country fan. He couldn't believe that I thought Johnny Cash was better than Garth Brooks. Groan.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

To me, being a music snob is not just about having an opinion of certain types of music and expressing it. I mean, everyone has their own opinions and I'm sure everyone has a particular type of music that they think is just garbage. It's more about being closed-minded to musical genres other than the one(s) you favor and favoring particular genres just for the sake of it.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

Guess that makes me a music snob as I agree with everything the OP said.

When I think of country music, I think of anything pre-1990's. While I do like a few post-1990's artists(Garth Brooks(well technically late '80's), Dixie Chicks, early Brooks & Dunn. etc.), I would much rather listen to Cash, Cline, Jennings, Hank Williams Sr. or Jr. over anything being put out today.

My wife is the same way. She will on occasion turn the radio to a country or rock station and hear a song she likes, but she is so bored with todays music in general that she would just assume listen to talk radio.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

Being a music snob has less to do with taste as it has to do with repeatedly and vociferously declaring the ways in which your taste is superior to another person's taste.

Of course, anyone who likes "Hey, Soul Sister" by Train empirically has no taste, so being snarky about that song is not being a music snob.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

"music snob" = the way someone is seen who has strong opinions on what they dislike that offends an invididual who likes said music. poor them.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

What classifies as country on the radio these days is poppy schlock. That's not being a music snob, that's just common sense.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/members/som...re739-snob.jpg


But, in all seriousness, I'm kind of a snob. I piss my wife off because I diss the music she likes sometimes. I don't do it on purpose, but there's just some artists (Courtney Love) that I can't stand.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

^ funny, but what happens if you only like Radiohead albums NOT past 'OK Computer' ?? ;)

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

Then that still makes you a snob. See, if you're the kind of douche who can't appreciate an artist's full career, including the highs and lows (and radiohead is all lows, baby), then that makes you the radio-friendly snob instead of the look-how-obscure-they-can-be snob.

Sorry, I don't have a flow chart for that.

;)

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

"Tosh" or "twaddle" work well, too.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

^ "twat" too

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

fixed.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

there's this one :lies:

...

:D

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

Speaking of Radiohead, I have recently come across a similar trend with regard to The Foo Fighters. Is this new, or just me reading too much into comments?

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

I call bullshit. How many people do you know who like country and rap and punk and metal and classical and jazz?

A music snob actually listens to a wide variety of genres from different periods. And when you do that, you notice how derivative and boring most pop music is.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

Are you saying it's becoming snobbish to like the Foo Fighters? 'Cause that's crazy talk.

I've always theorized that Cobain committed suicide after Grohl asked him to listen to some songs he was working on, and Cobain realized that alternative music was going to devolve into pop crap.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

Bullshit to what? I didn't say that people who weren't music snobs listened to (and liked) every musical genre. Everyone has negative opinions about some type of music. To me, automatically classifying a particular artist's music as trash based solely on the applicable musical genre is what constitutes snobbery. That's what I meant by being closed-minded to other genres.

Re: Another "Music Snob" thread + Bonus Question!
 

Your definition makes most ordinary people snobs, while the people usually classified as snobs are excluded. Most snobs don't hate Taylor Swift because she's country, though lots of ordinary people do. Snobs hate her music because it's bland singer-songwriter pop.