the music snob

I am not a stranger to music snobs. I live in Athens, GA and they are not hard to find. Sorry. That's sort of a polarizing statement, and I find it difficult to be simplistic.

In fact, I am a music snob.

But I despise them with every fiber of my being, and I can't help it. I try to explain it away and say that I am the way that I am because of my upbringing. I became a diehard music nerd and an adamant elitist on principle, and for some reason I never turned back or tried to even myself out.

I became a snob in order to infuriate my peers. You know, the ones who listen to music for "feel-good reasons." Music as a background drone for drinking and such.

And, I thought it to be the "educated" thing to do. I had a terrible case of small-town syndrome and felt it necessary to do anything to piss everyone in my town off (once, during Field Day, I wore a long-sleeve flannel shirt, jeans, boots, and a stocking cap because I thought Kurt Cobain would be proud. It was May in south Georgia. I was lucky I survived).

So now I'm a music snob and, just like most music snobs, I hate other music snobs. I feel that I have a reason to like the music I do and other people are being pretensious jerks for no apparent reason than to feel better than someone who knows less about music.

Phew! That was a long sentence. Anyway, I feel important because I know music. I shouldn't feel good about being a snob, and my self-loathing has prompted me to write a little list to help you identify the snobs in your area so you can take them out, preferrably with some imaginative anti-zombie weaponry.

the music snob:

* will like a band that you hate just to spite you.

* will like a band that you like, and claim that you can't like that very same band because "you don't understand why Johnny Cash/the Pixies/Radiohead is so good."

* will like a cheap pop group and come up with some bogus, pretensious reason for liking them so they can seem cool.

* will insist that a cheap group is great two years after the hype is over just so you know they don't hate "all popular music."

* in that same breath, the music snob will talk about how some band you've never heard of is overrated so you can't "question the cred."

* will wear the clothing of a completely vacuous group to be trendy.

* secretly loathes himself/herself for disliking all popular music.

I am not in this group! Ha!

And, just to be honest, I hate those people just as much as the snobby assholes who won't let you feel good about buying the new Dave Matthews record.