Pearls before swine...

OK.

So I'm well aware that my reputation as a "music snob" precedes me in certain circles. And I used to have a problem with people perceiving me in such a way; but have you ever noticed that the people who throw around the term "music snob" as pejorative are the same folks who get their jollies to Avril, Nickelback and the like?

Isn't that kinda like the pot calling the kettle...spoon?

At the gym where I work, we have a corporate policy which limits the satellite radio stations we're allowed to play over the P.A. to essentially 3 stations whose names consist of various combinations of the words 'hot', 'hits', 'contemporary', and/or 'new'. Imagine a consistent, bi-hourly dose of "Hey There Delilah" for about 5 straight months of workdays and you're pretty close to an accurate rendering of the purgatory this grudgingly self-avowed "music snob" is forced to endure. Day in. And day out. And so on...

So in the interest of staying sane (see quotation in blog header), I began three Sundays ago to deviate from the 3-stations-only policy and to play instead the station labelled "College Rock." If I were in charge of satellite radio station naming, I'd have called it "Indie Rock." A minor semantic difference, but I digress. You catch my drift: the station plays a pleasant mix of Spoon, CYHSY, Rilo Kiley, BSS, Rogue Wave, Feist, etc. Granted, this doesn't match my musical tastes perfectly, but it's as close as I can get with the limited options at hand; and--hey! "College Rock" hasn't played a single Nickelback song in a month! Several Sunday regulars have even thanked me for breaking up the monotonous dirge to which they've no doubt become accustomed. But not every one's been so appreciative...

I'm sitting here at my desk in the back office. Guy walks up to the front desk and I overhear him requesting that Janie, our lovely and awesome front desk attendant, please change the station. Guy complains that the music sounds like--and I quote--"Something a snobby 19-year old college freshman would listen to while sitting in a coffee shop."

I bite my tongue.

Janie in her syrupy, Southern lilt: "Well, you know what, sir? It says here that this one's called College Rock..."

He, interupting: "See! See! What'd I tell you!?"

And I'm thinking: OK, so douche correctly identified (A): that college students--at least, the snobby ones--happen to enjoy the Rogue Wave, whose song "Every Moment" happened to be playing at the time, and (B): some satellite radio focus group somewhere decided to connote this type of music with the word 'college'. Brilliant work, Brother Seamus. Just brilliant.

Alas, the customer is indeed always right. Janie asks the man what he'd prefer to hear instead, and he says, "Oh, you know. Whatever the stuff is you all usually play..."

Janie: "Allllllright sir. I'll go ahead with Hot Hits Sweep." Immediately the strains of--you guessed it!--"Hey There Delilah" filled the air, and our douche, sated, was on his way after a parting Ahhh, that's better. This is a great song.

So whatev. Different strokes, I guess. Call me "snob". Call me "elitist". Call me "pretentious", even. I don't give, as they say, a damn.

In this instance, at least, I'd rather be on the side of the 19-year-old coffee-house-dwelling college freshman than on the side of 14-year-old bedroom-pining, TRL-swilling girls everywhere. As I write this, "Holland 1945" by Neutral Milk Hotel is playing on College Rock and my nipples are hard.

LONG LIVE THE SNOBBERY!