Sackpunch #13

If you're a complete music snob, you deserve a sack punch

Look, I'm a music snob. I admit it. The more listens it takes for me to enjoy a song, the more I love it. If a band I dig is unknown to the general population, the greater affection I have for said band. If I can immediately detect the song or artist a current song is biting, I'm far less likely to enjoy it. My collection of music includes the likes of Wrinkle Neck Mules, Woven Hand, Whitey Morgan, Vampire Weekend, Two Cow Garage, Travel by Sea…. and that's just within the letters T-W on my iTunes. Most folks haven't heard of more than two of these artists…. so yeah, I'm a music snob, but only to a certain level.

I LOVE music… music can be fun!….and I can admit when something unhip is freaking awesome or at least unavoidably catchy. But I still usually prefer music that 90% of the population doesn't recognize. And yes, I make my living (okay, my hobby) making fun of mostly commercial music.

That said, if your "Best of 2010" albums list ONLY includes stuff like Beach House, Sleigh Bells, Deerhunter, LCD Soundsystem, Surfer Blood, Caribou and the ilk, you deserve a swift blow to the nether region, and I don't mean the sexual kind.

Yeah, I see you out there. A few of you dropped in some more "known" names like Jamey Johnson and Kanye West on your top 20 lists to make it look like you have broad tastes, but let's get real. You don't really enjoy those albums. In fact, I'm not sure you really enjoy music. You're as bad as the frontrunners whose iPods only include hot artists like Kings of Leon, Drake and Lil Wayne.

Your playlists of bands with animal names and tuneless electronica make me sick. No sensible human can honestly admit to themselves that they seriously only like music that is eccentric, inaccessible, lo-fi, hip and/or features lyrics that make sense to no one, including the artist.

You picked your niche a few years ago your junior year of college and have stuck with it through your sweater-vest clad internship at the non-profit and your fallback job at the Starbucks.

You run a blog where you break new artists five guys in a dorm have heard of, you and your readers debate the obscure influences and subtleties of the latest twee buzz band and everyone scoffs at (or ignores altogether) the newest mainstream releases, especially those who used to be part of your "scene."

You're a liberal… that's mostly beside the point here, but it goes with the territory. Any artist who espouses views contrary to the lefty side of thinking finds themselves at odds with your potential commercial influence on buyers.

Once an indie band hits it big, there's a discussion over whether they are still indie that's never resolved…. but their next release is glossed over, regardless. Arcade Fire, your days as a hipster icon are numbered.

Yeah, your spiritual leaders at Pitchfork will sometimes kiss the toes of an aforementioned mainstream artist who's released a rebellious effort, but that does little to move them or you towards the center. If Kanye's next album features another "Golddigger," you're both off the bandwagon.

You'll never admit any of this to yourself or your followers; music isn't to be enjoyed, it's to be hung on a wall like some abstract painting that everyone who's cool says is wonderful, despite the fact that a four-year-old could match the artfulness. Orthodox and Capitalistic = bad. Impenetrable and subsidized = good.

To be fair, I'll give you an out. If you go listen to all of the following and come back and tell me that you truly didn't enjoy at least 2 of them, I'll admit that you are not fit to stand trial - therefore you will skip the punishment and I'll let you go with a simple "Bless your heart," knowing that your insanity is incurable. Anyway, here's the list: (admittedly it's random, but it's a good cross section of the most listenable, but still a bit outside the mainstream, 2010 releases I heard)

Cee-Lo Green - The Lady Killer

Jamey Johnson - The Guitar Song

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings - I Learned the Hard Way

Trampled By Turtles - Palomino

Truth & Salvage Co. - s/t

Randy Houser - They Call Me Cadillac

Dirty Sweet - American Spiritual

Kasey Anderson - Nowhere Nights

Sean McConnell - Saints, Thieves and Liars

Lissie - Catching a Tiger

If no 2 of those would approach your top 50 of the year or you didn't even take the get-out-of-sackpunch-free card and you remain resolute in your absolute douchey hipness, now is the time for you to prepare yourself. Take a couple of Tylenol, hit a shot of whatever hipster liquor you prefer, tense up your abdominal and leg muscles and close your eyes. Here it comes….