People who don't actually listen to music

Just a minor rant..


People who just listen to the singles of their 'favourite' artists. People who'll list songs they own of their 'favourite' artists rather than albums. People who like Pink Floyd because that 'Comfortably Numb song is good'

I hate them.

Ok, maybe the last example was a bit harsh and maybe I don‘t actually hate them, I love Comfortably Numb but the principle of loving a band for a selection of well known songs gets me wound up. If you like Comfortably Numb why not buy/steal/borrow The Wall? If you like Stockholm Syndrome buy Absolution.

Perhaps being weaned on concept albums such as Dark Side of the Moon and Ok Computer has made my view on what makes someone a true music fan in the iTunes generation a little dated. But to me being a fan of something implies some sense of commitment. I would not call someone a fan of football if they only occasionally watched World Cup matches. I would not call someone a fan of Italian food if they only occasionally eat spaghetti...or something like that.

Yes I love music, yes I love Radiohead, yes I love Pink Floyd. But don't try to fire up a half hearted conversation on either of them when you've only heard Creep or Wish you were here. I'd respect you much more if you talked about bands you do know, rather than feigning interested in my taste in music.

Go out and buy an album instead of a scattershot bunch of individual tracks, owning an album and liking its theme or style will give you a far greater sense of what kind of music you do like, and what other albums/artists you may also like.

Same goes to please to zealously listen to one genre of music and trash others. There’s no better example of this than the rift being Rock (or ‘Indie Rock’ whatever the hell that means nowadays) and Hip Hop/Rap fans. Both seem to have equal amount of disdain for each others taste in music, both have little idea of what the others taste preferred genre is actually like, preferring to fall back on long established stereotypes for each. Rock being entirely made up of skinny white men playing guitar really fast and screaming dark hateful lyrics down the microphone probably all clad in leather covered in makeup. Hip Hop of course is dominated by criminals, large intimidating black men wearing basketball jerseys and constantly singing about participating in drive bys and how many ‘ho’s’ they’ve fucked.

Like most stereotypes these do have some truth in them. The stereotype of rock music could well apply to any Metal band. The stereotype of Hip Hop could be any of the torrent of ‘gangsta’ rappers spawned from the late 80’s. But like all stereotypes these stereotypes only offer a very narrow view into what is usually something very complicated.

To wrap this up. What im trying to say is, be a true fan of music. Listen to as much of the stuff as possible. Don’t limit yourself to one genre of music, it’s a waste. And BUY ALBUMS!

That is all.