How can I stop being a snobbish jerk about music?
First off, a life lesson long and hard learned: trying to get someone to appreciate something good that they just don’t like is just pointless frustration. You think and you think and you think they must “get” how great it is and they just don’t, generally. Many moons ago I had a couple of significantly long car trips where musical intersection was unlikely, and what really worked for that was books on tape. Decent libraries have lots of books on tape and CD. Controlling outbursts is the work of a lifetime, seriously. It mainly involves pinpointing this tiny little moment when a tiny little voice says “let it go,” and then listening to that voice. All parts of this process are difficult. Is give and take a possibility? My wife and I really have to do this on the veg-out teevee. There is some shit she will watch that I just can’t take and it is mutual. Sometimes it is easier to take when you can remember that it will be your turn, later. And next time you’ve got a question up, maybe you
You don’t have to love all music. Some musicians are better than others. Some musical styles are better than others. Every style that is broad enough and old enough has some geniuses, but, for example, the average jazz recording (or performer) is better than the average country or metal recording (or performer). But you can learn to be amused, rather than annoyed, by bad music. Metal can be comedy, and serious fans of metal — the ones who don’t realize it’s a joke — can be very amusing. Try to be amused by the badness of your boyfriend’s music. And, as suggested earlier, maybe you can train your boyfriend to like better music. Wean him. Listen to what he sings in the shower — those are the songs most important to him — and try to find music that is somewhat close to them (in terms of instrumentation, rhythms, lyrics, mood) but better. That “guitars-and-male-singer stuff from about 1990 on” must be expressing something he relates to. Look for music that expresses the same sort of se
A point of clarification: I am not advocating that crinklebat laugh at her boyfriend or his taste in music, which is why I included the remark about ironic enjoyment often being odious. I am advocating that she learn to take a genuine, though slant, pleasure in his music for what it is, and for what he and other people see in it.
caddis, I have developed pretty broad tastes and pretty much the only area I dislike is the area my boyfriend likes. This is our big problem. If he would listen to jazz, or rap, or dance music, or beepy techno, or pre-1985 punk, or funk, or show tunes, or psychedelic rock, or bluegrass, or mariachi, we could find some common ground. He just really likes sort of basic guitars-and-male-singer stuff from about 1990 on, which is a sound I’ve gotten really sick of. It seems like I could find some common ground where we could listen to old punk that’s influenced the music he likes, but he doesn’t like the production values. Because I’m such a heinous bitch about this, he doesn’t even want to listen to my musical suggestions anymore. I’ve made my own bed, and now I’m just trying to find ways to lie in it.
1. Find musical overlap. A big turning point in my current relationship was when I showed my country-luvin’ girl that Mike Ness could do country-punk. It also helped that I showed I was trying to meet her halfway (which, to be fair, she hadn’t). 2. Think not so much of the music, but of the feelings you have when you’re around this person. Now, whenever some poppy girl-country comes on, I tend to smile a bit, because I’m thinking of my girlfriend. 3. When you find this music, make mix CDs. I make my girl a mix CD once in a while, of music I think she’ll like and of music that makes me think of her. My gf loves when I do this, because music is a big part of her life, too, and it means a lot to her that I’m making the effort to share (and I usually take months of painstaking song selection to make a CD for her, so the appreciation is somewhat warranted). YMMV.
