Sunday, 24 October 2010

Does this make crazy only me?

I've given this some thought recently, mostly because it happened more than once.

Say, you've taken to post a song or two daily on your FB wall, and you call these "Songs of the day". This is a favourite thing for a few - by no means many - of your friends who enjoy these posts and wait every day to see what song it will be for today. We are all enjoying ourselves - me posting my favourite music, my friends waiting to hear what I've found.

Then there's this other kind of people - and you've met them in real life too - who can't exist unless they have tried to improve at least one person's musical taste each day.
On FB these people see my post of song "X" by this great artist Y. They listen to it, but since "X" is a hit and fairly popular they feel obligated to point out to me that while "X" is of course a nice song, I really need to listen to "K", because it's much less popular but so much better than "X".
Or a slightly different scenario. I've posted "B", which was written by the legendary artist "O", but I have found a nice version performed (or even recorded) by this other artist "R". As you can guess, the well-meaning music snobs of my FB friend variety don't have time to click play, because they see that the song is the great "B", but for some reason the artist isn't "O". This of course must be noted in a comment, because I cannot be allowed to go on not knowing that there is afar superior version I need to hear, and even more - it's the original.

If the letters confuse you, imagine, that in the first case we're talking about, say, "Born To Run" bu Bruce Springsteen and I'm recommended "The River", but in the second case we're talking "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley and I'm told to listen to Leonard Cohen.

It is all fine, and I'm glad my friends are so educated/informed/obsessed/full of trivia when it comes to music, it is all good and noteworthy. But do you seriously think I need you to tell me what else I should hear from The Boss? I know "The River", but I don't like it, or just like "Born To Run" better today, because I'm in that kind of mood. Do you really think I'm not familiar enough with Bruce Springsteen's discography to have my own favourites? Or do you think that I only know this one song? Please, don't patronise me, I am more than able to find music on my own, and when I won't be able to - no doubt I'll ask for help.

Also, what kind of moron do you think I am? Of course, if I listen to a cover version of a song, I most probably know who the original is. Especially if I'm linking to a YouTube video, seriously, do you think I'm braindead? I can see the "related" list on the right, and you can bet your mother's favourite dinner set that the original is there. Besides, I thought you knew me better and had higher opinion of me than to think I would post a widely popular song and not know if it's the original or not.

So, please, dear informed friends. Just listen to the song I've posted and keep your opinions, suggestions and important facts to yourself. Nobody likes a know-it-all, and you are acting just like one. If you like it, say you do in the comments. Or click the "like" button. If you don't like it - keep it to yourself. If you have some new information about the artist, say, they're having a show in my city in the near future - do tell. It's interesting. If you know the artists personally, tell me, I'll be impressed. If you happen to have listened to this exact song this morning, tell me - I'll think it's a sign from Universe. If you find a particular line in the lyrics to be out-of-this-world great, tell us - we want to see if we agree with you.
There are so many things you could do when you see a song posted, why must you ruin everyone's fun by educating us? If we wanted to be educated, we wouldn't be posting stuff on our FB walls, now would we?
There, just learn to keep things to yourself, it's a good skill, will help you with keeping the friends you have.

2 comments:

Ria Ria said...

"and you can bet your mother's favourite dinner set" - THIS, nyahaha.

It beats me, however, why you still worry about things on FB when you have The-Source-of-Awesome-that-should-not-be-named.

Ginger said...

Mm, that came to me in a moment of divine inspiration :)

I don't think Tumblr shouldn't be mentioned. I love it, it's great, I think others should know about it. Well, not ALL others, but in general.

And I like FB, you know :)