I HATE music.
Of course, that is patently ridiculous.
I’m something of a cinephile, and a number of people, upon learning that fact, have told me that they “don’t like movies.” I always internally roll my eyes at that. You may not be interested in films as an art form, but surely, in the entirety of your life, you’ve enjoyed at least one. So, it is more accurate to say that I am uninterested in music, though that doesn’t usually get my point across.
There are many songs that I like, but for the most part I’d rather listen to a podcast, watch a TV show, read, or even sit in silence. And when I do listen to a song, I don’t want to talk about the granular details. I’m not interested in discussing the timbre of the guitar here or the metric structure of the melody there; I just want to listen to the song.
Maybe my approach to music is anti-intellectual, but if someone expressed a similar sentiment to me about films, I’d just say, “okay, fair enough.” Not everyone has to be equally invested in everything. But for some reason, my disinterest in music garners offense I would think more appropriate as a response to me calling their grandmother a whore.
It seems uniquely acceptable to be a snobbish asshole about music. Imagine, for example, someone told me that, while they don’t usually like movies that much, they did like The Last Jedi and I said, “oh, well then I’m sure you’ve seen Yojimbo.”
They’d probably say, “no, I’ve not seen Yojimbo. What’s that?”
Imagine if I then went, “You’ve NEVER seen Yojimbo?! How can you say you like The Last Jedi but you’ve never seen Yojimbo? You need to go watch Yojimbo, what are you doing?” You’d think, ‘wow, that girl’s kind of an asshole,’ and you’d be right.
Yet, if I so much as bob my head to “Pink Pony Club,” someone will crawl out of the woodwork to be like “You’ve NEVER heard seatbelt song by headlight car crash? How can you say you like ‘Pink Pony Club’ when you’ve never even heard seatbelt song by headlight car crash?” Somehow, this is perfectly acceptable.
Another example, two weeks ago I was asked to describe a certain band’s music. I wasn’t particularly familiar with the band, and the person who asked this knew that I wasn’t all that interested in music (in fact, I had previously told him “I don’t like music” to eliminate any notions about my ability to describe the sound of a band), so I simply said, “it’s metal music.” He said, “that’s it?”
Now, I would expect pretty much everyone to be able to give me a basic description of the genre of a movie they watched, but wouldn’t it be ridiculous if I asked someone whose interest in film doesn’t go deeper than the Marvel movies to describe the mise-en-scène of Moonrise Kingdom to me? Obviously, it would.
Now, I must admit that, to a degree, this grievance is somewhat unique to me. For one, my attitude towards music is obviously quite atypical considering how the majority of people react to it. Second, I am infamously defensive. I can’t stand to be condescended to, and that’s what is happening 90% of the time in these scenarios. Because, believe it or not, I am not a music idiot.
At various times throughout my childhood, I played piano, clarinet, violin, cello, and ukulele (save your groans for later). I took private voice lessons; I did musical theater for a decade (now you can groan). My parents are music lovers of a very high order. They think peak entertainment is watching shaky iPhone recordings of concerts on our 65” television and they watch DJ sets for hours! I know ball! I just don’t like ball.
And so I beg you music lovers: leave me alone.
Featured image by Helena Swiderski
