Moon & Back Music

I heard them before you. They’ve sold out. It’s raining but not as bad as four years ago. They’re just a poor man’s version of this underground group. Ladies and Gentleman I present the guide to turning up your nose.

I flat-out refuse to watch ‘Nowhere Boy’ the new biographical film charting John Lennon’s early years. I haven’t heard any reviews claiming that it is poor or seen any evidence to suggest that it is overly fabricated. It is because I am a Music Snob.

I am one of those guys who scoff at other people’s tastes in music, if I discover a band when they are tiny and insignificant I adore them; if they become too successful I shun them out of principal. Although I have no personal connection with John Lennon other than liking his music, going to see ‘Nowhere Boy’ feels like I would betray him. That somewhere Lennon is looking down shaking his head in disappointment that I would want to see this film.

Music Snobs are everywhere; they are the cynical but quiet voices, the mocking and the sneering in small groups of similar minded people. These are the people who stand in flood water up to their noses and still insist that it will never be as bad as some other festival they went to. The people who just aren’t interested in music they didn’t discover first, unless told to them by someone they regard as slightly ‘cooler’. The people who refuse to believe anything regarded as ‘classic’ should ever be reinterpreted no matter how excellent the remake.

A perfect and somewhat horrendously embarrassing example is Scouting For Girls. It was around four years ago I was stood in a very wet field (but not as wet as other fields I’ve been in) enjoying three strange looking men singing about He-Man. I saw them again in a small bar in Derby, front-row, and sang my little heart out. Then something terrible happened. They became successful. Now my ears bleed and my face contorts every time I hear even a note of that extreme dribble they peddle as ‘music’.

I’m telling you this not because today I’m feeling particularly sycophantic and feel the world needs to know all about me but because we share a problem, whether you would like to admit or not. I will prove this theory using three topics of the moment and I guarantee you will be mildly outraged by at least one if not all of what I’m about to tell you.

Billy Corgan is not only dating but recording new material with Jessica Simpson. Yellow Submarine is being re-made with four random actors and no original Beatles’ material. Jimi Hendrix is ‘releasing’ a new album of previously un-heard recordings.

Now I know what you’re thinking, that perhaps the first two you agree with but find it hard to understand why you’d be anything but excited for the third. Ask yourself this: How has Hendrix material remained un-released for so long? One of the most respected and revered musicians to have ever lived would surely have sent at least the wallets of the benefactors from this venture ringing long before now. Whilst I look forward to the release it is with apprehension, and a stark understanding of how 2Pac has apparently ridden this market for some time.

It won’t take much more convincing on the Corgan issue I’m sure. But please remember this is a man who dated Courtney Love, he enjoys torturous blonde women.

Yellow Submarine is, by virtue of the Music Snob code of conduct, a downright travesty. Everyone knows you don’t mess with the Beatles. Although one source has rumoured Eddie Izzard as the Blue Meanie, which in my book is a win.

My point today is we no longer have to be ashamed. The snobs need to come out of hiding and make it loud and clear that we will no longer stand for mediocrity disguised as success. We will no longer stand idly by as our favourite acts reach a wider audience and get the admiration we originally thought they deserved (even you Florence and the Machine). And we will continue to piss-off Simon Cowell with Facebook revolutions until everyone thinks it’s cool, perform a complete U-turn and buy whatever crap X-Factor is shoving down our throats because by that time they are the little guy.

It’s ok to be appalled; it’s good to be fickle; and you should never stop looking at music through raised eyebrows.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am a Music Snob and I’m proud of it.