Interesting discusion.  I tend not to dismiss any kind of music because I don’t have the technical knowledge to deal with the charge that it’s all a matter of taste – though intuitively I suspect it isn’t and that some stuff really is rubbish.  Perhaps I’m a bigger snob than Mary will ever be: after all, the main reason I have nothing against McCartney’s Requiem is that I have taken reasonable care never to have heard it!  And while I remember K Jenkins from much-enjoyed Soft Machine albums I tend to avoid his recent works.

I enjoyed punk; but I suspect that has a lot to do with my age and that the Pistols are musically pretty poor (like The Comets before them?).  I must say, though, I was firmly in the prog-rock camp at the time so I could hardly agree with the notion that all sophisticated popular music had to be opposed.  Of course it’s unlikely the punks really believed that.  I heard that Mark E Smith was a big fan of VdGG – and I know he was disgusted by the route some ‘punk’ bands took because I heard it from his own mouth at the Electric Ballroom when he led The Fall on before The Cramps announcing ‘we’re still punks’ and saying some very unflattering things about the (to my mind) unconvincing mix of punk & rockabilly we were to hear later.  Mind you, if you called Smith a snob it probably wouldn’t worry him.

It occurs to me that one thing punks and prog rockers had in common was a disdain for ‘pop’ or ‘chart’ music; a disdain which probably did amount to snobbery in some cases.  The main insult in those days was ‘commercial’ – because, of course, we fondly believed our heroes weren’t driven by commercial motives.   But the pop charts of the mid-seventies were more than usually full of formulaic pap: and even if we couldn’t prove it we knew it wasn’t just a matter of taste.  I remember one lad at school was charged with being a snob because he just refused to listen to certain bands and retaliated by bringing in a load of old ‘Top of the Pops’ albums (remember the albums of copies of pop songs – usually with a girl in a bikini on the cover?).  He gave these to his chief accuser and suggested he listen to and form an objective  opinion on each track if he wasn’t willing to accept that some things are just not worth hearing.

Overall, I tend towards the opinion that if the only argument you have against someone is to call them a snob you’d be better keeping your opinion to yourself

Re Mary's reply.  I don't listen to current Pop Music at all, couldn't tell you who is who in The Charts.

However, I admit I am a Pop Snob, in that I listen to Dr. Robert & The Blow Monkeys, Morrissey, Echo & The Bunnymen, Nirvana, Pet Shop Boys, Marc Almond and George Harrison.  Now that's what I call Classical Pop    The rest is rubbish.  Although I admit a liking for Malcolm McLaren (Fans in particular)  and The Pistols just for being so in yer face, but I was more of a New Romantic.

As for Classical, people at work think I am a bit snobbish for liking Classical but when challenged their reply always is "It's too difficult/too long/too heavy"  In other words, they have not been exposed to it and just can't cope with the length of it.  Maybe it's the 3 minute attention span thing?  I do admit to a twitch of snob when it comes to Karl Jenkins or the CFM list.

Mary mentions A Whiter Shade of Pale.  I wonder if she knows The Blue Jays and Every Boy Deserves Favour?  Justin Haywood eh?  Anyone know him?

I dont know if punk was reactionary or not but it was better than Genesis. Are the lyrics of Polystyrene reactionary?

While I was still into prog rock from school/uni I got into reggae in my early 20s, Marley at first then got a bunch of albums on the Island label; never say all reggae sounds the same, still love that mid-70s reggae, saw some local bands, and living in Coventry I then got swept up in the ska-revival Specials, Selector, Beat Boys and the London bands who came in on it.

I wasn't into the big punk names like Pistols, Clash, Damned but there were some bands I considered were 'musical' so I got a bit snobbish there and the punk bands that I bought and saw were The Jam and The Stranglers. But were they punk? The Stranglers lyrics were, plenty four letter words and some lyrics derogatory to women (but they meant the opposite and I believe them) but their music wasn't really punk, the growling bass and brilliant guitars and drums put them in a class of their own. The Jam were just a geat little rock band who played at a frenetic rate (wasn't keen on Paul Weller's later solo efforts).

Today I rarely listen to 'pop' but I'm only really listening to 'pop' that's derived from prog, e.g. Porcupine Tree, though I did find 'garage' interesting, again it was 'musicial'.


John W

Quite surprising how many things we agree on in this context!

All fabulous stuff.

I don't really think of either the Jam or the Stranglers as punk, though arguably they grew out of the same set of circumstances. But l like both of them immensely (especially the Stranglers nowadays). It's pretty hard to defend Jean-Jacques Burnel's contributions in particular from charges of misogyny, though equally I think one can read some of them as indicative of a sadomasochistic sensibility which doesn't have to be misogynistic if read on a purely sexual level....

As far as the Jam is concerned, whilst great stuff, I'm not sure if I don't rate some of Weller's (admittedly uneven) work with the Style Council even higher.... 

That's got to be one of my better typos!  It is, of course, Nights in White Satin and I in no way intended to imply Mr Hayward had anything other than that in mind when he wrote the song.

 Ive heard the Situationist connection raised before. not sure i'd buy it! the connection, not the book

Oh, yes.  I didn't mean to suggest the disdain was consistent or even defensible - in fact it did amount to what could be called snobbishness at times.  On the prog side Pink Floyd, The Nice & Jethro Tull had singles, to name but a few.  And several of the 'heavy rock' giants - whose fans often showed the same disdain - did, too; with bands like Deep Purple clearly having no objection to 'commercial' success.  But 'mainstream' pop (whatever that is!) was simply not respected as it had been in the heyday of The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks, The Who etc