Popular music is popular often for reasons of the music industry having the access to the money to market a
record or
cd enough to make it extremely well known in the
umbrella group of markets and people. This of course means that the music has to pander to a generic commonality that will sell to the maximum number of people. (Hence the music you hear in
TV advertisements). People who support this kind of music are in fact sheep, since they refuse to take their eyes off the uni-directional force that music downward spirals into when trying to pleasure en masse.
I agree that not all popular music is bad, and it is possible to miss good music by being a
commercial music hater. I missed out on some of
Daft Punks music because i refused to listen after being marketed to. Personally, I'd prefer to not see myself being mindless about something i love. Of course some people can get
evangelical about
rare music, and it can be a bit tough to relate to someone in a totally different scene, however they have passion & interest. The intellectual snob, spewing for the sake of spewing information, is an easy
stereotype to make yet untrue to the majority.
Good music is always good music, and rare good music deserves to be discovered and shared.
If someone invests the time and energy to learn about music that most people might miss otherwise, they deserve the opportunity to share their discoveries and not be dismissed because they aren't a major multi-national corporation.
Egotistical information snobs can be annoying, however other peoples refusal to try something new.. or to understand that which is different discomforts them to confront such a person in the first place. A
Dj is someone that searches for the rarest music and present it in their own styles in a fun manner, otherwise every DJ would have the same music and they would all be generic
juke boxes.
This is why I would never hire a '
commercial DJ' to do a wedding for me, and is also why
i hate wedding receptions. I want to hear
good music i do not know, and in that sense it is good music.. imho better music than hearing
Huey Lewis & The News or
Metallica.
Complacency in
music culture shows that said person is complacent about their own identity and courage to explore and expand as a human being.
Good music is good
music, regardless if it becomes multi-
platinum or not. I am not ashamed to have liked
The Prodigy when they first came out. Their
12 inch singles were and are still spectacular, and i'll recommend them to anyone, however for me.. the newer and largely
pimped material does not have the same effect on me.. and it's not just that they've been
marketed to death. I have listened to my share of
commercial music before i woke up out of complacency, and i find i can hear honesty and originality/spirit in music.
Puff Daddy is a retard while
KRS1 has managed to hold onto (mostly) his true identity (his cover of Rapture was nice the first listen.. after that nuh uh).
If you are looking at
MP3.Com and calling most of it crap.. you fail to see who those people are on MP3.Com. They are new musicians trying to find a voice. If you've ever tried to play a violin or a trumpet or the drums.. you'll know it doesn't sound great right away. I go to MP3.Com to listen to ideas.. not a polished perfect song. Noted there are a lot of bad ideas.. or ideas over-cooked and overdone, but the
sense of adventure and finding someone that might speak to you, speak to your soul.. I think is very important.
That's my point in regards to non-commercial music, if you learn and understand yourself better.. you can find music that much more effectively speaks to you, gives you what you need to go on each day, and isn't necessarily a multi-platinum machine.