So 'snob' means 'ignoramus' ? I'm going to have to re-read this whole thread now with that knowledge in mind.

Baz, I'm with you to the extent that I dislike the volume levels at which pop music is sometimes played. Yes, yes, excessive volume is not specific to pop music, and I once had to walk out of a Contemporary Music Network concert in Cambridge. In the early 1990s my then lodgers took me down to The Venue in New Cross. I was the oldest person there, jumping about to the music, and it took about three days for my ears to get back to normal. Actually I enjoyed it, apart from the volume, and people grinned and called me "granddad", but I found out later that most of my friends wore earplugs, because they had been there before.

I dislike the bmmmf bmmmf bmmmf that comes out of many of the cars which pass me in south London, because I don't want to have someone else's choice of music forced upon me. Luckily they are usually zooming past so fast that it doesn't last long. I also find buskers in the Tube irritating, if I have music going on inside me. That may be my weakness, in that their music always manages to force mine out, but they give me no choice in a confined corridor. After all, I don't try to force my music on them.

Our local has no music at all, interesting books, even dictionaries and thesauruses (for ignoramuses) on shelves around the walls, though it does have a TV in the corner, but with the sound turned off. That's not bad for south-east London.

Cheers, Pianola

One should not construct ivory towers, trading in such materials is banned under international law, not to mention tremendously old-fashioned vis a vis taste!. If any towers are to be built they should be clear, so that we may quite see the powers that construct them and the positions of power that may occupy them. Regardless, notions of taste are social constructs and will reflect hierarchies that exist in any given society; snobbery is a consequent manifestation of this hierarchy.

Snobbery and ignorance are not so far removed. A snob, in the attempt to align themselves with social superiors, to get to the upper floors in the tower, has to ignore much street-level activity. To declare that all pop music is this or that is clearly ignorant since it belies a breadth of practice that only a true aficionado could hear. Do all black people look alike? No. Are all men arseholes? (er...)No. Does all pop sound the same? No. The kind of material you hear in pubs is reflective of only a tiny proportion of this mass medium. It would be like saying Classic FM defines classical music (and BTW - I think the principles of heavy rotation apply to this station as much, if not more, than Radio One). In my opinion, as far as that stretches, this delimitation approximates stereotyping and is really unhealthy and, paradoxically, most distasteful.

Breadth is, of course, a problem to the snob. The Mass-ness of mass media, its ubiquity, its sprawl; all smack of unelevated, non-refined, undistinguished culture. This stems from fear of the mob and equally as important, fear of the lack of control - the idea of life without hierarchy is scary. I would hazard that this underlines an attitude that is not only ignorant of most of the world but actively encourages ignorance. How much easier it is to follow millenia (re: music) of cultural practices and pedagogic strategy than to junk it all and start again? For instance, musicology is only very recently been coming to terms with pop/rock because it wasn't designed for that purpose. Far from indicating a lack within pop music, this demonstrates we require broader structures of appreciation.

It's those safe, high ground parameters that stifle the appreciation of new music as much as it does pop/rock. I'm extremely distrustful of it, indeed I hate it, probably as much as some hate the thud, thud, thud of pop music. So, the towering irony for me is that I'd call myself a snob, I'm forever sneering, heaping derision on bad or worthless culture while championing what I believe is good. I'm not anti-tradition, I just believe that culture is  alive, fluid and varied; thus if bound by condescension it is liable to shake free. I'm not against value judgement, however I do question the criteria for judgement and I hope I always will. There! I'm the king of the castle and you're the d...

Yes, but hardly within the 3-minute chart pop genre that Bacharach was working in.

Baz, you are being I believe just a little disingenuous if you want us to believe that your attempted onomatopoeic ridicule of pop music is an innocent attempt to characterise its sounds.

I like pop that goes bong, bong, bomb diddle ding-ding, bomb.

 Edit -Odd, I listen to  jazz/classcial 90% of the time these day but this thread has got me back into listening to dub, early punk etc.

Well Richard - I think that statement is another way of telling me that it is your opinion that I am, indeed, a 'snob'. Thank you.

Baz

I think Baz' choice of Amy Winehouse is flawed becquse that is not the "pop" music being discussed is it?

What is dub? Is it spelled dUb as in the union of d and b, thus drum 'n bass?

Pardon my ignorance snobbishness.