This music is bad and you should feel bad.

Your music sucks. No, seriously. It really does. The music you choose to listen to doesn’t reflect an intellectual thought process. Your choice in music proves to me that you have no grasp of musical appreciation and that your tastes are that of a deaf caveman. In fact, you have no right to listen to music at all. You’re not allowed to listen to music, now that I’ve heard your horrid likings. You are what makes the music industry keep producing this shit. You are why we can’t have nice things.

Suddenly, a giant pelican with a wingspan greater than Jesus’ crucified arms swoops down and picks me up, flies me to Mt. Kilimanjaro, which subsequently triggers and volcanic eruption. This divine pelican drops me into the white-hot lava below, leaving me and burn and boil in agony, to be forgotten forever. The pelican flourishingly flies upwards into the blue sky, flaps its majestic wings, and triumphantly cries:

“You fucking elitist douchebag.”

I’m sick and tired of hearing all this bullshit about how obscure bands are greater than so-and-so pop divas and mainstream music will never been respectable and blah blah blah. Taste is not a objective thing. There is no right and wrong.

Art is not an objective thing either. In art, there are no correct or incorrect answers. You can’t say that this kind of music is wrong. You violate the very laws (which I believe the only one is ‘Be creative’) of creative expression.

Yes, I have been to 4chan, specifically /mu/, the music board. Yes, I have seen their memes of Neutral Milk Hotel, Animal Collective and Radiohead hivemindedness. Yes, some of them are trolls. And yes, I know for a fact that they are elitists.

But still, a majority of /mu/tants are devoted fans of the teachings of the board. They follow its advice as if a guiding deity is showing them the light at the end of the tunnel. That light is not the outside though. You won’t find the answers to musical knowledge. That tunnel has a big, giant sign, hidden in the dark, saying ‘You tool.’ If you sacrifice that certain Kings of Leon song that is stuck in your head and try to supplement it with endless unknown prog-rock or post-hardcore, you are subjecting yourself to the very reason why this thinking exists.

Yes, Lady Gaga is a good artist. Yes, Lil’ Wayne knows how to sell albums. And yes, no matter how much you, I or everyone else hates it, BrokeNCYDE will make more money than most acoustic singer-songwriters. You know why?

Because people have some tastes that are different from others. Maybe it is shitty taste. Maybe BrokeNCYDE really deserves to go die in a hole. But fans will listen to them because taste cannot be stricken down as incorrect. You can’t fail a person’s musical preferences. If you try, nothing will come out of it. Trust me, I’ve tried.

You’ll have to sit back and let it steam for a while. Hopefully, like most musical movements, they go away. Maybe screamo-rap and jerking and all those other hated trends in music will fall off the pedestal of popularity and something greater will arise.

Don’t just go and say, “Mmhm, you like this music? Here’s a match. Burn yourself.” Chances are, you might find some similar music that you actually like. Say I find someone’s music playlist with 200GB of space. Say they have only 200 songs on there. But each song, even though there aren’t that many, has music that ranges from classical to rap to pop and jazz. I’ll prefer that person over any playlists that consists of absolutely no bands I have ever heard of. That doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy those bands, it just means that this person is consciously trying to separate themselves from the mainstream because they can’t get over the fact that sometimes music leaves us with things we may not enjoy. It’s high time this stopped.

Hypocrisy is how the internet runs today. You might find someone who says Lady Gaga is a transsexual whore, yet secretly he/she sings Poker Face in the shower. More often than not, people will get scared that they find out some music grows on them, or just starts off as catchy to their ears.

Don’t panic. Breathe a little. Rethink your options. If this music is good, and its not particularly a musical trend I like, what do I do?

The elitists will tell you, “Either never, ever go near this kind of music again, kill yourself so you never expose yourself to it, or download everything from this list of bands because I tell you to and because my musical tastes are right.”

And I’ll tell you the only thing I should be allowed to tell you.

If you like it, listen to it.