Stop Being a Music Elitist

Music elitism is annoying, and everybody just needs to accept that people like different things. There you go, that’s it, that’s my whole message in the first line. But maybe I should go a little deeper into it. What even is music elitism? And Why is it harmful? Well, let me tell you a little about it.   

Music elitism is the idea that your chosen genre or music taste is objectively better than others, and often takes music too seriously. It can manifest in smaller forms, like saying that one band is awful compared to your favorite band. While there’s obviously no problem with preferring music over others, it becomes a problem when people use this against other people to shame them or put them down. For example, I don’t like Imagine Dragons, I think they’re derivative, overproduced and hold no real value in the genre, but it gives me no right to make fun of someone who does like them. 

There’s also room for music that isn’t meant to be taken seriously, not every album has to be deep and meaningful. While I love a good concept album, sometimes you just want that dumb fun album, and it shouldn’t need to be a guilty pleasure. 

We all know everyone has their own taste, and unless the music is harmful, they should have the right to like the music they like without being judged for it.. All this alone should be enough of a reason to not be like this, but it becomes dangerous when people start making statements like “rap isn’t real music.” I really hope I don’t have to explain why rap is music, but intentionally or not, this idea is disregarding a predominantly Black genre for no other reason than it does not have harmonies, which is also not true a lot of the time.

There is so much music to listen to out there, and you seriously limit yourself by holding any of these ideas. Life is too short to care about whatever other people like to listen to, like what you like, and they will like what they like. To end this, I encourage you to go out and try a new genre that you don’t usually listen to, and if you don’t like it, that’s fine, just don’t tell other people they can’t.