Dear Marge,
I am writing to you because I think I may have a problem.
I like to think I am open minded, inclusive and liberal guy. Why, some of my best friends have music collections that consist of Adele’s last album and Abba’s Greatest Hits, they even like Ed Sheeran.
And yet, yesterday while listening to the dancer Wayne McGregor’s very Afterword friendly choices on Desert Island Discs, he introduced one of his choices as”George Michael’s cover of the Roberta Flack song First Time I ever Saw Your Face“. No its not I mumbled to myself, and from that point onward he was dead to me.
Please can you help me: am I a music snob?
Embrace the truth…… It is my particular loath when these elementary errors are made. I am prone to shout out, such as when I was watching the Simon Cowell show, whatever it’s called, and someone sang a “Bonnie Raitt song called Dimming of the Day”
And I suspect the seeds of my 2nd divorce were sown when I loudly interrupted my then wife at a dinner party, when she described Beyonce as R’n’B, giving her and the others present an impromptu lesson about the Emperor Rosko show and what he played. It was ill-received, I seem to recall.
But Beyoncé is R’n’B!
You go, girl!
What tosh. You are more than old enough to know better, Tiggs. And, despite being uncertain what she means, she being a young person, Mr Breakfast must know I am right.
…. er, you’ve lost this one. Everybody in the world says Beyonce is R’n’B. The fact that she isn’t a poodle-haired white bloke in a black t-shirt stretched over a beergut, gurning through recycled riffs to 50 people in a pub…. doesn’t change that.
Pshaw, young people……….
She is so. Not THAT kind of RnB of course, but the other one. You know, with grinding.
I don’t know what you mean. Could you demonstrate please?
(Wait until I’ve got ready)
Okay, hope you’re ready. Hello? Moose?
MOOSE, WAKE UP!!!
Sorry, I was having me tea.
Ooh! You’ll catch your death of cold, luv!
I don’t know if he had, it was the young woman auditioning (successfully as I recall) who introduced the song. I remember live blogging the audition to the Richard Thompson email group because I was online when she appeared.
Yes bigjim you are, but then so am I as I said exactly the same thing.
I prefer to use the term “discerning” rather than “snob”. There are so many low brow covers of great music normalised by the fog of history that leads new, happening people to like histrionic but heartless covers. Cnuts like Cowell have the audacity to make money and appropriate a decent song delivered on amateurs night like the rapacious businessmen they are. But not just cowell; many a mediocre artist seeks to raise their credibility by appropriating a song. Duran Duran’s “white lines”, simple minds “sign of the times”, Annie lennox’s “whiter shade of pale”, etc. the problem is not covers: it’s bad covers. Yes, I am a music snob. Most of us here are. The rest of the world doesn’t give a toss. Expect little mix covering Nick drake for charity some time soon.
It’s not the cover, I own that track and like it. It is the fact that he seems to think it is a Roberta Flack song. No, no, and thrice no.
It’s perfectly acceptable to feel a little rankled. The “dead to me” thing is rather OTT, since Roberta’s cover is of course the best-known version, but this is the Afterword so we won’t hold it against you.
To civilians? maybe…
you are on here aren’t you BJB ?
QED
This stuff is important.
Snobbery? Not sure. More of a general annoyance to me.
Simon Bates on the TOTP repeat last night announced:
“20 years ago it was a hit, and now The Beatles are back in the charts. Here’s John Lennon”
What? Whatabout the other 3, or is Please Please Me now declared as a solo track?
Yes I shouted at the telly and declared Bates to be a high ranking pillock (whats new?)
Loath as I am to defend Simon Beast, it was clear to me that he was referring to John’s intro of the song on the VT.
OK, fair enough, don’t doubt that – but never let the truth get in the way of a good slating of a former Radio 1 Jock (especially one as smarmy as Batesy)
I thought that, but it sounded like Macca to me. I need to go back and watch again…
I hope this Wayne McGregor fellow didn’t follow up The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face with “My next choice is a Pogues cover of the Dubliners song Dirty Old Town“
Am I a music snob? – You are a member of the Afterword massive – of course you are.
Daft question…
It’s a fine line between the autism spectrum and OCD. Or both.
We’re all on the autism spectrum. What with it being a spectrum and all.
I was on the C64
Wow, I didn’t know the NME was giving away cassettes that early!
Well done, Mini, lass, you were listening!!
It could be argued that, given that Roberta Flack’s version was so different from the original and that GM’s version took the Flack version as a template and hardly, if at all, deviated from it, that Mr McGregor spoke the truth.
My goodness, a sensible and well reasoned answer!
*faints*
We’ll have less of that, thank you very much.
We have standards to maintain.
I’m not a music snob.
More of a music fascist.
In my younger years I am ashamed to admit I ended a relationship with a girl as she had 3 Celine Dion cd’s in a pathetically small collection of music. Filed underneath her ALBA hi-fi.
‘Nerd’ seems a little closer to the mark than ‘snob’ in my case – and I suspect I am not alone on this site in that…
Or possibly “slight pedant”?
I would wear that.
From the Today’s Choices in the Radio Times for yesterday’s Tony Blackburn’s Golden Hour:
“Back in 1980 I rang into Junior Choice and won a competition that asked “Who is the lead guitarist in the Jam (Bruce Foxton)”. Laughable, but nothing to get upset about.
For what it’s worth Roberta Flack’s version is the definitive one.
I used to think Bruce was the guitarist and was shocked when they swapped instruments on TOTP.
I am a music snob.
But this is not snobbery.
A fact is a fact…..well maybe not in this post factual world of Trump….
Depends.
There are two types that I have discerned over the years:
Type A (The Completist Snob) – knows that [] is a cover of a song written by [] and originally released on the [] label, and optionally what make of instrument the members of [] preferred. Has all releases of [] on vinyl and CD boxset.
Type B (The Authenticist Snob) – has decided what is cool based on what the music press of their youth told them. Anything they were told is shite due to the band members’ wearing the wrong trousers or voting for the wrong political party remains shite for the rest of their lives.
To be fair to Wayne his ‘just one track’ was We played Some Open Chords and Rejoiced by A Winged Victory for the Sullen. Sounded lovely.
Yeah but in my considered opinion that just makes him another no nothing schlub wearing a Ramones tee-shirt . Not saying it’s up against the wall time but….
Know nothing. I blame alcohol for my illiteracy.
I was beginning to strike up a friendship a few years ago and, although he is a very funny guy and a good conversationalist I hadn’t plunged in fully because he said the odd alarming thing that made me think “oh shit -run!’. When we moved to the subject of music he was passionate about Bryan Adams and Sheryl Crow. Mad, mad nutcase of a fan he said. He named 2 or 3 of their best known singles and, when gently pressed on albums, he didn’t know what they were called. He then told me a story of how pissed he got at a Bryan Adams gig and he and his mates was nearly chucked out i.e. I strongly suspect he is one of those fuckwits that we all despise. On that basis, I decided, it was time to apply some distance and it was the music that did it. Thank you for the music.
He sounds even worse than the guy in my office who, hearing that I had an extensive music collection, decided to engage me on the subject and started by saying, ‘That Billy Joel – did he ever write a bad song?’ I didn’t say what I wanted to: ‘Yeah, there are some good ones in there, but a number of them like ‘Piano Man’ and ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ make me want to stick red-hot pokers in my ears’. Instead, I started talking about middle-eights. Billy Joel wrote some really great ones, sometimes in really crappy songs….
It’s great when you find a kindred spirit though. I had a guy train me on my new job 17 years ago. He made references to gigs and music etc while we were chatting. I asked him about favourite bands and he tentatively said ” Depeche Mode” . I said “me too!” but he dismissed this – insisting that that are still a going concern and releasing quality stuff. “I know!” I said. After a brief period of testing the waters as to the sincerity of my devotion, I seemed to pass the test and we talked about the JCGEH for days and days until he left the job. Several months later he popped over to my flat. He gave me their new CD “Exciter” released that day. This was 2001 so downloading/streaming was not as widespread as now. He wouldn’t take any money for it. “All part of the service” he said.
My best mate. A standoffish snobby sort of guy was my impression. Found him on his knees (cue Moose) rummaging through my record collection. He stopped and hauled out Jeff Beck Truth, import of course and Hot Rats Import too. Respect. Been mates ever since.
One of the unintended consequences of the predominance of digital: your physical product can no longer be displayed in your living room for all potential kindred spirits to discover. Though it must be said that Mrs. Ivylander is quite happy about this.
Songs reappear after 20 years or something so this oneupmanship (or snobbery) simply marks one as being (of) a certain age. My kids love this, immaterial of whether they’ve absorbed the Chaka version I play. Hearing it again, in fact they knew the song from hits radio but didn’t know Chaka.
That is very agreeable: a nice loungey, almost bossa feeling about it. Of course it can’t compare with the mighty Chaka but what can?
Massive hit almost everywhere in 2015, not Britain*, 8 weeks at #1 in Germany. Your man was 20 at the time, the girly 16. Wolf Wolinski of Rufus will have been well pleased – he wrote it.
* Nobody had explained to him you need a snappy name, not one people don’t know how to pronounce!
Sorry, Hawk not Wolf.
I was at a record fair recently and pulled out a copy of Fleetwood Mac’s Pious Bird of Good Omen, the Blue Horizon compilation circa 1969. The young bloke next to me said “I looked at that one but couldn’t see Stevie Nicks on it so put it back”. The look of disdain I gave him can hardly be described
Ha ha of all people to say it to. Gold
At the same record fair I heard a guy pull out the first Arlo Guthrie LP and ask the seller “what’s SHE sound like, mate?”
I’m sure there’s an H M Bateman ‘The man who…’ cartoon about that episode.
It can work both ways, in a way – I moved out of a share house full of music snobs/nerds/whatever into a house that I’d share with one other person, a music teacher. Some music show was on TV playing an old (relatively, this was 1985) clip by The Police, when she walked in, looked at the screen and said “I didn’t know Sting was in a band before.”
I got down on my knees and gave thanks that I would no longer have to put up with the constant recital of facts, corrections, one-upmanship and arguments from my previous place.
Every August bank holiday weekend in Liverpool they host a music weekend with lots of live music, record fairs etc.(nowadays it is known as The Beatles bank holiday weekend).
At the back of the Liver building a stage was erected and on the Sunday a free concert used to be held with artists playing an hour set.
One year after watching Gerry and the Pacemakers and what was left of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, The Proclaimers topped the bill.
10 minutes into the set my GLW pipes up ” Those two singers could be brothers you know”……………cue much hilarity from a 10 metre radius of the audience.
Divorce papers should have been immediately filed but on reflection she makes a lovely Thai green curry !
“A one way ticket to Coventry, I do not think I will be returning.”
I am afraid to admit that I had not heard the Peggy Seeger version until this morning.
Looks like I may now have to emigrate to Oz and move in with Sniffity’s old housemate. She’s probably hotter than a honey badger and ccoks a sizzling hot vindaloo. Maybe civvy street is not so bad after all?
I am a music snob and thus look down on anyone who likes, ugh, ‘folk music’.
Yes.