A question which has been posed to me many by my friend’s and has not really troubled me until now is...
‘Am I a Music Snob?’
Am I a Music Snob? Well firstly I will start by admitting with no hesitations, that music, quite simply, is my life. If I am doing anything, no matter how mundane no matter how important I will have music playing. In the morning I get woken up by my Radio Alarm clock, when I’m driving to work I have a CD on, when I’m at work I’m on Spotify/Last.fm/YouTube , when I drive home Its a CD, even as I write this blog I’m sitting on a plane 32,000ft up, yet I’m still watching Michael Jackson’s ‘This Is It’ on the TV, anyway, you get the picture.
But where has my love of music come from and why did it begin? This is something I have never actually thought about until I decided on the title for this post; why am I so into music?
My parents don’t like music, there not at all musical. In fact they almost despise it, my mum is always telling me to turn it off and was always discouraging me at a younger age saying that if I knew my French verbs as well as I knew lyrics to songs I would be fluent. My dad was not much better, he has the most terrible taste in music and is without a shadow of a doubt the most tone deaf person I know. My dad did tell me this one story though that gave me some hope, he was actually at a gig that Brian May was quoted as saying was
So I definitely did not get my fascination in music from my parents...
After thinking long and hard about this I have come to my own conclusion that my music obsession started when I started physically playing and writing songs. Don’t get me wrong I have always been into music, but I think this was the turning point when my love turned into pure obsession.
I had my first guitar lesson when I was 8 years old at Primary School with my guitar teacher Mr Cook and was forced to learn boring Hymns and camp fire songs; I soon lost interest in the instrument as most 8 year olds do until I arrived at secondary school. It was here that playing guitar became cool again, so I asked for a new guitar for my 13th Birthday and went to the Local music shop to pick it up, I know a lot of people will not be surprised by this next statement but it was bright purple and was in the shape of a Gibson SG. It was the first of many!
It was here I started to the learn the guitar for real, I didn’t want to have lessons and so decided I would teach myself learning only songs that I wanted to learn, which at the time consisted of mainly Red Hot Chili Peppers, along with some Metallica and Hendrix for a little variety. It was here that my passion for music started to grow more and more. The more I learnt the more I appreciated the music and how it was made and formed, the subtle twists and fiddly bits as I call them which sometimes you might miss if you are not physically trying to recreate the music.
Soon after this part of my life had started and was still growing (along with my guitar collection) another part of my musical fascination started to take over, Live Music! This is where music is at its pinnacle, the stage, where songs are recreated live in front of your eyes , where songs are changed and lights are synced and emotions are so closely linked with the music that a song you’ve heard a thousand times can still cause the hairs to raise on the back of your neck. For the audience as well as the artist! In my eyes there is nothing better in this world than going to a gig.
My first gig experience, my gig virginity you could say, was lost to a band called Incubus supported by Brand New at Wembley arena, I was 14 years old and I have never looked back, travelling far and wide all across the country to visit small random pubs and clubs to massive thousand seat venues to see my favourite artists play. I could fill a whole gig post with amazing gigs and moments from them, but I will resist this time...
But why do people decide to call me a music snob?
I think that one of the main reasons is that people see my taste in music as peculiar. It is what others might call it non conformist. As readers of this blog will soon learn I am not one to follow the crowd with anything and with music this is especially true, and I think that because of this people think I purposely avoid ‘Big’ supposedly ‘Popular’ bands which is simply not true. I just don't love something just because other people do.
Some of my favourite music bands are massive multi platinum record contract holding musicians, just look at my previous paragraph where I list the artists I was trying to learn as a young guitarist. Red Hot Chili Peppers, with 13+ studio albums and a massive record contract with EMI I would hardly call them an Indie band!
Do I try and avoid popular bands? No, I listen to them with the same ears and head I listen to all bands with, but when I hear them and I don’t like them, that’s my taste!
The main thing that annoys me is I can tell straight away with Bands and people like that is that they don't care! Do you think that Cheryl Cole cares about what she is singing or what chord is played in her songs, all she cares about is how many handbags she can buy with the amount of Albums she sells. Do you think Victoria Beckham stays late into the night at the recording studio because she has lost track of what time it is and is having so much fun recording her song she doesn’t want to leave, I don’t think so! She is just another face on front of a giant corporate music machine! I realise that all the examples I gave were women, but this is not true, I think of many male artists who fit this description as well!
Another reason people think I am a music snob is because I stop loving bands when they become popular, this again is simply not true. In fact a number of my favourite bands are ‘popular’ I do just enjoy more non commercial music. Pop music is called so from the word popular, so pop music infers that most people will like it, I do not like pop so by definition I do not like the same music that a lot of other people like, it does not mean that I do not like music just because a lot of other people like it!
I guess another reason that I get called a music snob is because I ramble to people about music so when I find people who only enjoy music which is essentially forced down their throats, essentially, music from crap American Dramas, the Radio and X Factor it annoys me greatly! I just want them to get their own taste as opposed to following everyone else like a sheep, and help make these uninterested, lazy and truly terrible 'music' artists as famous as they are!
I realise that this is a massive ramble and includes a lot of parts that need further discussion, but it was in my head and I wanted to get it all down. Please feel free to comment as it is now time for you to decide…
Am I a music snob?
