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Why Are We So Snobby About Music?

When we compare music to something like visual art, or fandom, or general "interests" and so on, why is it that music in particular is something that is so... snobby and weird? Why do we get so stuck on specific artists and genres, and tend to just listen to what we know or what we already think we will like?

Music Is Just... Odd

I was in a chatroom at some point in time and was witnessing a "conversation" about music. I don't know if it could even be called a conversation - it was just several people name-dropping artists they liked and saying whether or not they liked a different artist, what artists' albums they own, what shows they have been too, what artists they know personally.

It didn't feel anything like a conversation, it just felt like people listing off things they know of, own, etc. I didn't understand what the point of this is. We just need to show off our knowledge? Our consumption habits? Just a lifeless rattling-off of names? To prove our bonafides and assert our identity? What is the point of that?

This is exactly what always bothered me about music, and why I just didn't care about it for a long time. It seemed so shallow. Visual art, on the other hand, seemed "deeper." With visual art there was more interesting conversations to be had about technique, history, interpretation, and so on. Visual art is something that just lends itself to interesting conversations. Literature and fandom is also things that there is much more "conversation" happening around. Music, on the other hand, is very often the opposite. We tend to treat music like a "bumper sticker."

A False Consensus Fallacy

When we emotionally bond with a genre or style, we naturally develop this illusion of shared experiences and values. "People who like x are like me" - is what we think. On its face this is pretty silly, but it is something that gets very deeply engrained in us. We assume people are drawn to things we also like because they have a similar outlook or that we will get along.

I remember as a lonely teenager music was the "ice breaker" conversation topic, something for socially awkward people to bond over. For a lot of people though it stops being a crutch and is like... a wheelchair. Their "interests" are all they have to form connections with other people, and because those interests don't always or even very often correspond to compatibility and are really surface level, it doesn't actually lead to very meaningful relationships. It happens not just with music but with a lot of subcultures and stuff - but i think it tends to honestly be worse with music, specifically because of how punk tried to make music a political force.

Making music overtly political is also in any honest analysis a pretty stupid idea: the point of music is to express what can't be said in words, to communicate - and even lyrical music is poetic, metaphorical, abstract in some way. Politics is and should be the opposite of that - something that is easy to communicate in words, and about drawing a line at certain moral and, ultimately, class differences. What political music does and political subcultures do, is make the act of speaking one's beliefs equivalent to any other more "real" form of political action - whatever one might think that entails.

Barriers to Entry

Sure, some people can talk for hours about music in an interesting way, and of course, there are friend groups of musicians or audio artists who can nerd out about technique and gear and so on, but a lot of the time there is a lot of exclusivity in this as well.

Music - not always, but often - takes a lot of education, practice, experience et cetera. Musicians often know a ton of music theory. Gear costs a lot of money (especially if you play something like violin, woodwinds, etc). So there is an inherent exclusivity to a lot of music just because of how it is made. So already you can see why music in general gets people to be so elitist or snobby, a lot of it is the medium itself.

You can compare this against something like poetry, gaming, tv, movies, books. These are things that there is a really low barrier of entry into, and the concept of the "amateur" is much less prominent. Instead of "amateurs" there are just people that are new to something. In the fandoms around things like this, people who are "older" or more "into" the fandom are usually really happy to invite in new people and treat them a bit more equally. Music is often the opposite: "newcomers" to a scene are treated suspiciously and called "posers" for instance. People who like a certain scene feel guilty if they like an artist or genre that isn't part of that scene.

Chasing Fame and Money

A lot of musicians, and artists in general, are extremely poor. It makes sense to try and make money at a side hustle. The tendency though, in music, is that a few artist break through and get extremely popular, while most stay unknown. There is a lot of gross internalizing of wanting celebrity and fame in music. This doesn't get better with the fact that "fame" for many poor artists isn't just an egotistical desire, but is literally something they need to get in order to make a living.

The result of this, for musicians, is a perverse incentive system where even if the artist doesn't desire fame and celebrity, the have to seek it in order to get any recognition in an industry where a tiny percent of workers can make ends meet.

And yes, i say workers because music and art is work. A lot of work. I used to think art and music should never be monetized because it is a "luxury." It doesn't provide anyone with "real" value like groceries, or a car, or a home or even some fancy clothes or something. Music, i thought, is "not real" in a way, but then you can come to think of so many other things that aren't "real", yet that people absolutely deserve to be paid for their work in, such as in journalism, teaching, therapists, social work, and so on. Obviously then, musicians and artists deserve to get paid for their work, so long as we live in a system where money is needed to survive.

How Do We Make Music Better?

to be continued, i guess.