maybe ‘pure happiness’ was not the best way to describe it. I guess it’s a more complex emotion being indicated but I still think she looks really happy. it’s like unbounded happiness in addition to youthful exuberance. but I think devious is too strong a word because it implies some sort of nefarious motive.

and I don’t think I could claim to be involved with any kind of scene. more like, I had adopted a certain framework for evaluating, and sort of looking at all music through that indie prism. it’s not so much about having friends who are into stuff, but more of a personal way you evaluate things. I agree that all sorts of interests can devolve into oneupsmanship and elitism. I guess I have a special hatred for it in the case of music for two reasons 1) that I find I actually enjoy music a lot 2) it’s a way of thinking I feel I was indoctrinated into and the ultimately didn’t do right by me. it’s just like an emperor has no clothes moment.

i don’t think Momoko looks that happy in that cover image, she looks more devious, look at her eyebrows! i guess taking pleasure in deviousness is definitely a type of happiness, though.

i think once you get far enough into ANYTHING there becomes some kind of one-upmanship among the scenesters/fans, whether it’s music or movies or comics, etc. everything gives a person some kind of cred, like what movies (or excuse me, “films”) you’re into, or, speaking of which, there’s even all sorts of manga and anime purists if you get into the scene, who would scoff at “corporate” editions and translations, blah blah blah. it’s everywhere.

i guess i’m surprised you felt that way about music, though, mark. it’s so easy to divorce yourself from the “scene” or what other people are buying and listening to and how it affects things… i’ve been into metal for a while but i’m totally divorced from any kind of scene or community of metal-hipsters/purists, i still don’t know the differences between all the subgenres, i wouldn’t even know where to go to get involved with that if i wanted to. i guess i didn’t know you were that involved with any kind of scene. :\

maybe it’s easier for me since i 1. don’t really have many friends, and 2. the friends i have don’t listen to the stuff i listen to and vice versa, XD. i’m glad you’re getting past all this, though, you seem like you know what to do. \m/

besides in high school when everybody was all about one-upping people with music choices (“omg the latest 4AD release!”), i think the closest i’ve gotten to what you’re talking about here, mark, and tying into what zach is saying about technicality in guitar-playing, is there was this guy i talked to briefly online after i bought his self-produced metal album; after he asked what other bands i was into he scoffed and sent me a couple mix CDs of stuff to “convert” me or whatever, because i guess the bands i was into had shitty musicianship and their riffs weren’t good enough. dude was such a metal snob.

but can there be a crappier velvet revolver?

another aspect of metal one-upsmanship are all the different genres. obviously electronic music has the most genres but metal seems to have a lot too.

lol, I can’t think of too many bands where I was the only one I knew who liked them. there are some. I could picture andre doing that though maybe.

but you guys are right though about these sorts of issues applying to all types of music, additionally, I think a classical music snob would likely be more insufferable than an indie snob. that’s the worst

rob: is there really such a split 7″, that will be my xmas present to myself, although I’m not really sure what kind of music it is. I just imagine all of those sacramento rock bands you talk about sounding like a crappier velvet revolver. lol

agree on that benefit of aging, when he was here zach and I were talking about how screamo was the last thing to happen in popular music that we could have understood. what you say about ‘unpretentious rock music’ definitely sums up a large part of what I was trying to get at.

I have to agree with Zach on the all-pervasiveness of annoying one-upsmanship in the music world. As far as indie music goes, one of the nicer aspects about aging is that I’m sufficiently out of the hipster loop so that I can never get all of the references anyway. This means that even if I wanted to use the (ultimately false) criterion of hipness to determine what music I’m into, I’m now pretty much incapable of absorbing music on that level. So I’m free to judge indie music (or any kind of music) mostly on the merits.

But beyond that I’ve definitely gone through periods of thinking that most of the music I was listening to was subpar. There was a period in college when nothing was doing it for me, and then I got “The Hot Rock” (Sleater-Kinney), which restored my faith in unpretentious rock music. I’ve recently been into Japandroids for a similar reason. And of course there’s Blownload and Sexrat…

sumomomo momomo sounds pretty good when you describe it – but i can’t get past the manga-weirdness going on in the pages i read at your place.

anyway the music thing – i think your points are well taken. obviously getting bogged down in the cred race or in out-obscuring the next guy in line is a quick trip to nowhere. and there’s also a pitfall you can fall into where you’re willing to overlook flaws in a band because you’re the only person you know who likes them.

but i do think that the whole idea of credentials in music is all-pervasive. in indie rock it amounts to your touchstones and namedropping, in metal/shredding it’s all about how technically adept and ridiculously filigreed you can make your solos. and for mainstream music it’s all about album sales. i think the cure for that sort of all-pervasive mentality is to just wall yourself up from it as much as possible, and experience the music you like as authentically as possible. obviously nobody can truly separate themselves from how other people view them. but i think there should be no such thing as a guilty pleasure.