Be a self-aware snob

You cannot get a good party started with a fiddle.

I assumed this was an objective truth, but many people felt otherwise. Specifically, 11 of the 20 voters in the music league I participated in during summer 2024. The theme for that round was “Swing From the Rooftop: The summer sun is shining, you’re surrounded by friends on a sick rooftop, shades on, drinks are cold. This is the song you put on to start the party.”

The winner was “Callin’ Baton Rouge” by New Grass Revival, and I could not have agreed less. I would have left a party that tried to get the crowd hyped on a song that has been famously covered by Garth Brooks. The correct winner was the 2024 song of the summer, Jamie xx’s “Baddy on the Floor.” It only received nods from six voters.

I quit music league.

A year later, I rejoined — thanks in large part to the FOMO that burns fiercely in my core: The friends of mine who were still in the league kept talking about it. Commissioner Lindsey offered an open door and I stepped back in with a brand-new attitude: Don’t be an uptight music snob; be a fun snob.

Loving music is at least 14% of my personality (70% is my hair; the rest is a mix of lingering Catholic guilt, wine knowledge, and bad jokes). I’ve moved through different musical phases as I’ve aged, trying to pepper in as many different genres as possible so as not to become one note myself. I’ll read up on artists, scenes, and styles; I subscribe to music newsletters to keep tabs on new albums. I’ve been lucky that many of my friends are just as — if not more — curious about music and have introduced me to great tracks and artists. You know how some women can’t be attracted to a man if he can’t fix a car? I can’t find romance with someone who hasn’t changed their playlist since they were keg-standing back at state college.

(I was seeing a guy years ago who proudly told me he’d just inherited a great new stereo system. Turns out it was just an old turntable with 10 hand-me-down albums, six of which were musicals. He later tried to take me to a dueling piano bar “because you like music.” SIR!!!)

My dedication to learning about and enjoying music has absolutely turned me into a snob, which could easily make me the most insufferable person in the music league’s group chat — especially considering about half of its members don’t know me. Would some folks’ dedication to jam bands or Daddy Yankee (respectfully hilarious) cause me to roll my eyes so far back in my head that I could see my own bitchy thoughts? Maybe!

I ended this season tied for 10th place out of 23 players. I also came away realizing just how many musical blind spots I have, and how we all think we know a lot about music — when we actually just know a bunch about our preferred genres. No matter how much I know about Dilla Time, despite how much vinyl I own, and regardless of how flawlessly I can sing along to “Not About Love” by Fiona Apple, I cannot know what will speak to others. Case in point: There are 13 people who agreed that Alabama Shakes’s “Hold On” was one of the best songs from 2012. It was not! But who am I to say where those individuals were emotionally that year? Who am I to know who hurt them the year that Hurricane Sandy barreled into the East Coast and Obama was reelected?

(I submitted Lana Del Rey’s “Ride” for this category. Was it the best song from 2012? Also no. But I had a connection to it!)

I will be rejoining music league for as long as they’ll have me. This isn’t like playing Apples to Apples with close friends, where you generally know what will tickle people. I cannot figure out what will appeal to this mass, and that is honestly fun.

I’m still going to submit what I think is the objectively right song (I stand by Tom Waits’s “Chicago” for a great jail break song). I’m still going to leave sometimes-snobby comments on other people’s choices (Tame Impala is just diet John Lennon and the Cocteau Twins were of their time, not ahead of it). 

Taking your passions too seriously is just as exhausting as taking yourself too seriously. Hogging the auxiliary cord is just taking the air out of the room!