{"id":2842,"date":"2010-11-15T06:17:59","date_gmt":"2010-11-15T10:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/let-s-face-it\/"},"modified":"2010-11-16T16:50:25","modified_gmt":"2010-11-16T20:50:25","slug":"let-s-face-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/let-s-face-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s Face It"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Let’s face it:<\/em> I’ve got better taste in music than most people. If you’re reading this, the same probably goes for you.
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\nMusic’s animated my life and emotions from as long as I can remember<\/a>, and I’ve been listening to good music for all that time. At a very young age I was listening to some kids’ album that featured a ripping version of “Hickory Dickory Dock” and the 45 of The Royal Guardsman<\/strong>‘s “Snoopy vs. The Red Baron.” Then my uncle bought me a few Beatles<\/strong>‘ albums and The Band<\/strong>‘s eponymous album along with granting me his box of R&B 45s, and from that time forward I’ve spent more time in a darkened room, playing records, than 99% of the population.<\/p>\n

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“Ordinary fucking people,” as Repo Man<\/a><\/em>‘s Bud (Harry Dean Stanton) would succinctly put it, “I hate them.” Some of my best friends are ordinary people, but what could those people possibly feel in the music they listen to that I haven’t already felt more deeply than they will ever feel? When I love a piece of music, it’s true love, a love across time. My love for a piece of music is a rock. When I dislike a piece of music, I know what I’m talking about too. No, Phil Collins, there is no misunderstanding. If you’re reading this, you’ll probably admit that you’ve felt this way more often than not.<\/p>\n

Who can forget the landmark aesthetic battles I’ve faced? In 5th grade a friend and I spent a couple of hours crammed underneath a card table covered in construction paper decorated to represent the “Human Jukebox.” Kids at our school fair could toss a nickle in the slot and choose from our extensive playlist from the American Graffiti<\/em> soundtrack. “Why don’t you have any Seals and Crofts?” one kid shouted through the slot.<\/p>\n

In 1973, I bought Timmy Thomas<\/strong>‘ “Why Can’t We Live Together.” My single looks just like the one spinning in this video<\/a>. Maybe you know this song. It’s very sparse and is driven by a hypnotic, primitive rhythm box beat. This was long before critics and kids started dropping dimestore references to Sly Stone’s There’s a Riot Going On<\/em> and Krautrock. This was a minor hit song on AM radio.<\/p>\n

The following year I picked up George McCrae’s “Rock Your Baby.”<\/a> I’ve got to give myself credit for being so cool despite the fact that I was one of the most socially retarded kids in my class. In the following 2 years, as I reached the painful years of attending Bar Mitzvahs and middle school dances, KC and the Sunshine Band<\/strong> were all the rage. Although KC’s early hits weren’t bad, I knew they weren’t as cool as “Rock Your Baby.” It didn’t matter a few years later, when I would learn that KC himself and another bandmate wrote and produced the song for McCrae. McCrae’s song was still cooler, and I was cooler for always preferring it over the super-popular smash hits of my middle school years. This, by the way, would be years before I could misguidedly justify such feelings of snobbery by attributing my preference for McCrae over KC based on any kind of “cultural” credibility.<\/p>\n

I will never forget those who came late to the party. Don’t get me wrong – better late than never and all that jazz – but there were stoner rock dudes in high school who called me and my friends “pussies” for our taste in ’60s pop and punk rock who, 2 years later, were running around in vintage plaid shorts at English Beat shows. I’ll give those dudes a pass, but in the late-’80s I started seeing older Deadheads cut their hair and don leather jackets. These were the assholes who turned CBGB’s into a t-shirt store and helped extend the excruciating d\u00e9nouement of The Ramones.<\/p>\n

So many battles would be fought and lost. I stared down an entire decade’s popular music in the 1980s. No one paid me any mind. The battles only strengthened my will and deepened my knowledge. I was more sure than ever that I had better taste in music than most of the population. It’s not that I was right<\/em> about anything, necessarily, but that my cause was just and meaningful.<\/p>\n

Mathematicians and scientists can rely on theories, methodologies, and objective measures to bolster their claims of expertise and feelings of superiority in their respective fields of study over ordinary fucking people. Similarly, I believe that real music lovers, rock snobs<\/em>, if you must, have their own means of claiming expertise and superiority over most of the population. We have not yet clearly identified and validated these means, but I am confident that one day we will. Or maybe it’s nothing more than feelings. Let’s face it:<\/em> these are among the reasons we gather here on a regular basis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s face it: I’ve got better taste in music than most people. If you’re reading this, the same probably goes for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[280],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2842"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}