The Rock Snob
Snobbery is as woven into the human fabric as the sexual and aggressive impulses it seeks to refine. It’s no accident, then, that Rock Snobbery emerged just as young people started dressing in blue jeans and pretending that social class didn’t matter. Adolescents simply found novel ways—ways more acceptable to their newly egalitarian pretenses—to marginally differentiate themselves from one another.
Ouch! But I basically agree.
The article also brilliantly rebuts another argument I’ve heard:
It’s even been argued recently that the advent of the iPod spells the death of the Rock Snob. True enough, thanks to the digital revolution, nonsnobs can now filch 20 years of compulsive squirreling with a single drag-and-drop.
… I think such fears are overblown, myself. I’d love to say it’s because genuine pleasure—that enemy of both snobs and satire alike—will always take precedence over the need to condescend. But the reality, alas, is otherwise. At some point, drag-and-drop deposits will overwhelm even the most cavernous hard drive; a person will have to choose, and then their true colors will out: The Killers? Lenny Kravitz? Dave Matthews??? Because let’s face it, only one thing is more incorrigible than my snobbery, people, and that’s your indefensibly crappy taste in music.
Yes. Beyond just filling up your hard drive, there’s the simple fact that life is still finite, and music still takes time. With my new laptop, I’ve started ripping my music collection from scratch. So far, I’m about 2% done, and I already have 2.2 days worth of music. And also, while difficulty of acquisition of rarities may be part of it, I think knowing more than the rabble was always more the point. And while the digital revolution might give the rabble more access to knowledge, its given the same to the Rock Snob, who still has the advantage of wanting to know more.