Apparently, I'm a music snob.

The other day someone close to me half jokingly called me a music snob and I took issue. The song I refused to listen to was If I Had $1000000 by Barenaked Ladies, and, really? Firstly, I've never liked Barenaked Ladies and secondly, I especially never liked that song but because I now listen to mainly Indie stuff, the fact that I don't like a particular song by a band I never cared for makes me a snob? I beg to differ.

Years and years ago I started to very slowly meander away from the herd of mainstream music and started finding seldom heard of artists to listen to. Not because I was setting out to be a "music snob" as it were, but for the simple reason of, well, liking the music. It was purely accidental and I can peg it back to Damien Rice's O. My break-away from radio was done at a snail's pace so that it wasn't terribly noticeable at first and no one complained. A new artist here or there throughout the year and I mainly kept them to myself. But I'd say that over the last two years, it's now "my thing" and it can be several new artists or albums a month (on a good month) and I don't seem to hear the end of it from my friends.

I am forever reading music magazines, reviews, blogs, websites and so on in the search for new music. Again, I don't do it so that I can be "different", I just genuinely can't get enough. I get antsy knowing there's great stuff out there that I might not be listening to. And there's nothing better than when you take a chance on an album and find you can't stop listening to it for days, weeks, or months. There's so much good stuff out there I find it a shame that it doesn't get more attention, which is actually something I'm still baffled by.

The fact that I like music that doesn't get played on the radio shouldn't deem me a snob, I say. And, actually, there are quite a few bands I like that do get radio play, so that's not entirely accurate.  But overall, I cannot (though Lord knows I try when I need to) help it if I find listening to the radio to be incredibly mind numbing. It's the same ten songs played over and over and over again.

I can't help it if during road trips (which I take often with friends) I get genuinely bored or restless listening to the same artists and albums they (my friends) can't seem to move past. Even within the new artists I find, some albums I get attached to for years, while others make much shorter appearances on my iPod. My restlessness is not  reserved only for mainstream music. Again, I don't feel my impatience with music that doesn't stimulate me should make me a snob. Maybe it's musical ADHD, I don't know.

Lastly, a lot of the music I like is arguably questionable and certainly not critic proof, so I don't think I can be called a snob when I myself have questionable taste. At the end of the day, we all like some stuff that makes others scratch their heads in wonder. What I do have an issue with and find incredibly frustrating is people that never try anything new, who blindly accept those overplayed ten songs on the radio and think that's all there is. In that case, if that makes me a snob, then yes, I'd readily admit I am.