Defense of a Music Snob

A friend of my posted this on my facebook wall in response to my iPod top ten.

YOU ARE SUCH A MUSIC SNOB!!! HOW DO YOU EVEN SLEEP AT NIGHT?! You know that once your little mythical ferngully indy artists hit mainstrem you'll just betry them YOU JUDAS!!! You can't stand to like anything other people like! And if you do you don't openly admit it! You just love these little "I'm so tragically young and beautiful and I think I've experienced enough to write bittersweet songs" artists. You music snob, how do you even sleep at night? TELL ME!!!!!

First off, in my top ten, only Gram Parsons and Nick Drake could possibly lay clame to the "tragically young and beautiful" claim, as they were both tragic and young when they died. (I'm not so sure if Gram was beautiful... you know, he had a beautiful soul. It counts.) Josh Rouse could kinda squeeze in there. He's young (thought not that beautiful or tragic - but his music can be) That's three artists.

As far as turning my back on the popular, Death Cab for Cutie (two songs), Joni Mitchell, and Johnny Cash are all popular (Johnny and Joni legendary) and I haven't turned my back on them.

Also, Patty Griffin and My Morning Jacket are both of limited appeal. The masses just don't like a little Americana piece of heaven served up between Jessica and Ashley Simpson's latest insults to the word "music." In fact, both the folk singer and band have probably reached their greatest levels of fame, meaning, in a certain light, they are "popular."

That leaves Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, an up and coming band. I will admit, name dropping them sounds kinda pretentious (ok, very), but if you listen to the song, you might like it.

So there ya go, because of one band (CYHSY) and two singers (GP and Nick Drake), I'm a music snob. I disagree. I think my list is perfectly accessible to anyone with ears (that work). If I were a true music snob, I'd have Waugner on my top ten.