Music Fans- You are the annoyance
 

Obviously, there are billions of people that are into music, and many fans are on the net and span across many message boards. This is where you find great people who enjoy music or many people who are ridiculously annoying when it comes to music. Which fans of music annoy you the most when it comes to music?

So these are some of the fans you will always run into with music. Some fans are extremely smart and love music and all types and are great to talk to. Which fans of the above do you run into most? Would you fit under any of those categories?

I run into underground fantatics alot if I go to a metal related message board. The irony that people spew with most comments pertaining to popular bands is hilarious. One comment that stands out to me is someone saying that whatever band is on Uranium or Headbanger's Ball is enough to tear apart a band's credential. Kind of ironic when Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Pantera, and many other popular metal bands have been played on those shows. It really grates me sometimes.

I've also encountered the your band sucks kind, again, in metal message boards. I love the music, hate the fans.

Underground obsessives can be fucking boring at times, certainly.

The people I really dislike though are the obsessive collectors and trainspotters. Some people feel the need to own every single piece of music in their chosen field to the extent that they can't possibly ever listen to all of it or appreciate it. People like that are interested in the music just as a collectable rather than to listen to I think.

Trainspotters are even worse. Every time I've seen Aphex Twin doing a live dj set, there's always been a few nerdy looking types hanging around the dj box trying to read the labels on his records. I can't understand why you'd pay to go to a banging club where eberyone's enjoying themselves just to stand in the corner and collate a set list.

The Underground Fanatics bother me the most. It's almost like the fans are just getting excited over the fact that they know a band that most other people haven't even heard of. In the end, it just seems like another "I'm going to do this because I purposely want to be different" type of thing, only transposed over to music obscurity.

I have friends like this. They love the band until they see their CD in stores. Then all I here is, "They were better when they plyed at small shows. Now they're sellouts".

You could almost merge this with the "your band sucks" category. Usually friends of mine will ask me if they've every heard or listened to a certain band before. Knowing full well that they've already asked me about them 5 times earlier. Selective memory.

Saying your "open minded" is basically a front for saying you like only 1 or 2 genres of music. Usually Rap, R&B, or Country in my friends' case.

This goes almost hand-in-hand with the whole myspace band following. Beyond the couple of bands that they hopelessly argue about, they aren't very musically inclined.

I have to say these are the people I dislike the most. For example: when Gorillaz' Demon Days album was released. I tried to get people to check out the album. I got some hilarious responses. "Oh yeah, I got like Clint Eastwood and Feel Good Inc." Typical.

I really have to say, there really isn't much of a varient in the "scene" area. Just different colors of makeup and a few pieces of hair going in another direction.

I have a variant on the "open-minded" one: the whiny gits who think that to be open-minded means that you have to like everything, and that hating certain bands, or styles of music, means you're "narrow-minded" (when you just simply can't stand it). They are usually into "avant-garde" or "experimental" styles, because of course, they are more "open-minded" than you. And they like to whine about elitism all the time, even though they are basically elitist jerks themselves.

Re: the "underground fanatics". I've been referred to as that. It's not entirely false, but the premise is wrong or badly interpreted. Actually, I have never met someone who hated a band simply because they were popular (okay, I did meet one, he was talking about how he liked Slipknot before they became popular when in truth they have always sucked, but he was a 'Lica fanboy so obviously he didn't fit the type otherwise). It's simply very frequent that the more popular a band gets, the suckier they get. The opposite is also rarely true, though it certainly happens (Iron Maiden or Therion come to mind).
What can I say, the correlation is there. Many bands DO simplify or tone down or otherwise alter their sound, in a shitty way, because of label pushing and/or to get more sales. Or maybe they genuinely want to experiment (and coincidentally it's more accessible and make them more popular...), but they still suck. The result is frequently disastrous. There are too many examples, but here are some obvious ones: Megadeth, Metallica, Sepultura, In Flames, Soilwork, Samael, Children of Bodom, Iced Earth... all these bands reached a "peak", usually with the second album, and then became progressively more popular and progressively inferior for the most part.

But we so-called "underground fanatics" hate these bands because they start sucking, not because they are more popular. It's merely a correlation. :D After all, I like many bands that are getting more and more popular, and some that even changed their sound (gasps) - only difference is they do it well.

Anyway, I don't think that the "I hate them because they're popular" cliche really exists. I don't know anyone who really thinks that way.

How exactly are these people elitist jerks (I include myself here)? If we "like everything", as you have put it, that's pretty much the exact opposite of elitism. I listen to Fred Frith as much as I listen to Warren Zevon as much as I listen to Wu-Tang. Hating bands is one thing, but as soon as you hate an entire genre, yes, you are narrow-minded.

the "I luv you" kind are the ones that get on my nerves the most.
they are the reasons I can never get tickets to shows, because they sell out in five minutes cuz the little bastards saw them on the "buzzworthy" rack at Criminal Records or whatever or they were played on the OC or MTV or something.

You might think I'm picking on you. Well, I suppose I am, but only because of your infuriating smugness. NOPE COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE A PROBLEM WITH ME SO HERE'S THE REASON WHY EVERYONE ELSE IS WRONG, NOT ME, NOPE, COULDN'T BE.

Have you honestly ever entertained the notion that you are judging music based on some set of personal--not universal-- criteria?

Technically proficient music doesn't mean it's objectively good. I mean really, who doesn't like "Born to be Wild?" And no, you don't have to like certain types of music so long as you don't make it some sort of crime to like them. It wasn't long ago that the mere mention of certain bands set your heart to palpitating and got your typing fingers all a-flutter. Frankly I'm surprised you let the comments about Fear Factory go without some tired rhetoric about making a thread of their own.

I guess I like most things, there's only a few genres I eschew because I just don't enjoy them. But I don't claim to like "everything," although I think my tastes are relatively diverse. I know people whose tastes are more diverse, and people whose tastes are less diverse, so I fall in the middle someplace.

Certain music fans can annoy me, though, usually the ones who assume that their tastes are the penultimate collection of the best music known to man, and anyone who likes stuff besides their favorites are complete idiots. Metalheads seem to do this A LOT. One's relationship to music is a highly subjective thing—we love the music we do because it speaks to our temperment, our experiences and memories. Obviously, not everyone is the same, so not everyone is going to like the same things.

Now, I'm guilty of faulting people for their taste in music from time to time, but not necessarily because it doesn't line up with mine, but because they don't take the time to explore. One thing that bothers me is complacency, and people who simply eat what the media feeds them without trying to find something more just strike me as lazy.

OH YEAH. That's the other group of music fans who annoy the piss out of me—anime-obsessed otaku who swear off all American/European music in favor of trite J-pop that they can't even understand, and who maintain that ALL ENGLISH MUSIC SUCKS and Japanese music is better BECAUSE IT'S JAPANESE. These people engage in the same sort of intellectual laziness as MTV-fed kids.

Hmm, I suspect you didn't read my post carefully enough.
Anyway, the people I have in mind are elitists in the sense that they dismiss those who are not as "open-minded" as they are (i.e. that don't like their avant-garde weird stuff because they don't "get it").

And hating a genre does not make you inherently narrow-minded. It just means you hate a certain type of sound. If my grandma can't stand the sound of a distorted electric guitar, and thus hates rock music, that doesn't make her narrow-minded. Open-mindedness is defined by an attitude towards music (the desire to try new things, to discover more, to not judge hastily, etc.), not by your tastes. If grandma's been exposed to enough rock music to know that she can't get over the sound she finds so grating, she's not narrow-minded for refusing to pursue this path further.

I have no idea what you're babbling about here, nor why you are so hostile, so I'll just assume you didn't read my post past the sentence you quoted, and that it must be that time of the month.

See above. Since I enjoy Venom and Mötorhead, I'd love to know where you got the notion that I equate technical proficiency with quality.
Smoke on the Water, baby!

...Ok?

Or you can just be like me and a lot of other people who don't care what we listen to as long as it sounds pleasing to us. No, we don't and won't like everything but we really don't care if the genre is rap, trance, rock, country or whatever, so long as the song is well-composed and has an interesting sound.

I wish people would stop trying to affix labels on everyone else.

With these be-all-to-be summarys of stereotypes, i guess i must hate myself alot.

I live in a neighborhood with a bunch of obsessive & ridiculous music fans. Every time I step outside to go somewhere, I looks like I walked through a rap video, literally.

I think you're forgetting a genre: Those who listen to only indie music. I know one person last summer in particular who was all over the "indie" scene. Every name he rattled off were well unknown to the masses and me. And when I tried to listen to some, they were all very, very weird. But I can't say much about the music itself since indie encompasses such a large variety. I remember he mentioned the Mars Volta, but I don't know think they're considered indie anymore.

I would have to admit I'm a little bit of some on that list, but not entirely only one. Like if I hear a good single, I'll check out the album, and if the album sucks, well, at least the band has that single. I wouldn't say I'm open minded either, since I largely dislike modern rap, modern country, and most modern classical (hm, I see a trend), so I admit to that.

Most of the type of fans that have been listed are extremely annoying. I think the most annoying to me would be the people who think that everything other than their type of music is crap. I would never say to someone "___ sucks" if I knew they liked them. Everyone is entitled to like whatever they want and it just annoys me when people consider anything other than their taste to be shit.

Underground music fans annoy me, when a band they like gets big they immediately dislike them yet they tried to get everyone to listen to them before. When I listen to any type of music, if it's popular or not, and judge it purely on the song itself and not what kind of status the band/artist has.

Another type of people who annoy me are those who listen to mainstream music and consider it "Normal" and anything else outside the charts to be "Weird".
"Hey so what type of music do you like" "Oh the normal music". What? Since when was one particular type of music considered normal and the rest abnormal. Blah to them all.

Sure. But if the songs you like the most follow a pattern (or several patterns), then you will find yourself focusing on what fits the pattern of what you like. I don't think doing that makes anyone narrow-minded or stupid. Likewise if a certain type of sound, prevalent in one style, displeases you, and you avoid it.


(I'll add, for the record, that I don't only listen to metal. I'm saying this because I'm sure some people belive that... )

Labels aren't the problem per se, they can be useful as descriptive. It's just a matter of not becoming obsessive, and not limiting yourself to them.

Double Post:
Hmm, I spotted an obvious contradiction here. Can you see it?

(Hint: people are also entitled to hate whatever they want. Why should that annoy you?)

I know that people can hate whatever they want, what annoys me about it is the way they go on and on about how shit they think it is and they try to offend people about what type of music they listen to.

Honestly now, how many different ways are there to read this, Morrigan?
And after I just got done mentioning your desire never to be wrong, you basically told me, in no unspecific terms, that you couldn't possibly be wrong. Of COURSE it must be me who didn't read your post, because that would mean you made such complete and utter sense yourself that your argument could never fail. (I mean DUH, right?)

Since you tend to associate bands that play in a certain style with a certain level of suckiness, there's really not much to be said beyond that. For lack of a better term, that's how you roll. Well fuck it, I don't care, but it's far too often that you try to impose some kind of imagined standard on other people, and pass it off as fact. I have no doubt you listen to other music besides metal, but you're just so protective of what you think is metal. It's like the little conversation we had with Iwata over acoustics in the metal thread a while back. It doesn't hold water.

I really don't get your sudden hostility. Take a chill pill, for crying out loud.

It's not my fault you misinterpreted my comment (what can I say, you did - interprete that as smugness if you want, it's not my problem). It said nothing about technical proficiency being synonymous with quality. "Simplify" can mean many things, and not just refer to technical aspects. And then there was "tone down" and "otherwise alter", which should have been more than enough to tell you I was referring to various other things than technical skills.

As for the rest of your projecting/strawman, I'm merely amused at your pettiness. Bringing back old arguments from before, that I for one hardly remember at all, transcends mere whining. And with that Fear Factory comment, it's as if you wanted me to have made a nasty comment, and practically yelled at me for not doing it... sheesh, get a life. :|

I'm sure you don't believe me, but I am not attempting to needle you. I'm asking you how you expect me or other people to read you if you insist on making everyone else the source of the problem (which was all I really cared about to begin with).

Look, this isn't even really about metal. Or music. You offered an explanation that conveniently left you free from any responsibility in the discussion, and I wanted to make sure you understood as much.

Forget it. You are right in the sense that it's not that important. I tend to crusade a lot more often than is good for me.

So according to you, liking one style of music a lot is bad, and enjoying older music is . . . bad?

Well, I don't. I don't see that I was doing that. I simply disagreed with one of the stereotype's premise, because in my experience it's really not that commonplace. And the gods know I've been around many narrow-minded elitist metalheads, that make me sound like the "open-minded" stereotype I described in comparison... :D But even they, as elitist as they are, don't fit this "I hate them now that they're popular" description. Though, I can see that it could be perceived as such, because of the correlation I described initially. I just think that a lot of people confuse the correlation with the motive, that's all.

If you want, I can provide actual stereotypes of narrow-minded metalhead I encountered a few times. My favourites are the anus.com / Prozak wannabe intellectuals elitists. They like to use big words to say nothing, and that's supposed to make them smarter than the rest of us. They're amusing.

*shrugs* Okay then, fair enough.

No, what I meant in that particular paragraph- Mostly metalheads who I run into are stuck in the 80's with their music and don't accept ANYTHING other than 80's metal because that was the only "true" style of metal, and it just branched off into a bunch of ridiculous nonsense.

The other day, I got yelled at by a slayer fan because I am a fan of metal, and I don't like slayer's music. I listened to it many times, but it's just not for me. He then asked what I listened to which is Syphony X, Dream Theater, Nightwish, Blind Guardian and many other bands and artists. He then called me a "Fucking metal pussy faggot". Which I found it funny as hell that anyone would be dumb enough to say something that ridiculous. He then said I wasn't a true fan of metal.

People like that are great to listen to, but annoying at the same time.

Like I said, most metalheads are very close-minded when it comes to music. Sad, but true. [HA, METALLICAAAAA.....]

I've run into pretty much the opposite problem as you, Living Legend. I get flac from Dream Theater-people for liking the rawer stuff sometimes. You're dead on with the 80's people though. Can't stand those guys. Fucking detailed facial hair.

The "music lovers" that I really don't like are people who only listen to one type of genre. Something like only rock. Everything is damn rock related. Has it occurred to them that there are other types of music worth listening to? I'm not saying I hate rock, but if that's the only thing you listen to, I don't think you can consider yourself a "music lover".

EDIT: Looks like the tension disappeared from this thread, so now I'll change this to reflect the normal condition.

Personally, I prefer music to not have lyrics, so I gravitate towards the classical and instrumental genres. I also tend to prefer older music like oldies over the newer stuff. So maybe I fall into that "it's not as great as the classics" stereotype at times.

I tend to find annoyance at indie fans and others like them who tend to be band-hopping people in search for the latest in obscure cool.

A little rocky on the proper notification procedure, sorry for the delay. All gangbanging and grasping for straws has been split here. You can have your thread back now, Living Legend.

Huh, so that's what happened. I was wondering why the thread suddenly got so much shorter.

Hahahaha... hold it right there. You, friend, encountered a Slayer fan *, which explains everything. They are quite the interesting specimen, in the sense that they are impossible to reason with, and tend to have a collective IQ in the double digits. Their brutish stupidity is only matched by that of the Pantera fan, who give the Slayer fans quite a run for their money. :D So far, I have yet to encounter a dumber metalhead specimen than the Pantera fan, however. Now, those are great examples of types of "annoying music fan".


(*I like Slayer. Their first few albums are legendary, and the first one's a masterpiece. But the typical Slayer fanboy, from my experience, is pretty much as described... :D)

Because we all know that anyone who likes all of Slayer's albums is clearly below us, and can't listen to anything that might be different.

Underground Fanatic-These fans are usually the ones that love underground music, but once the bands they like become big, they completely turn on their band for becoming successful.


I run into them a lot at the local shows. They are pretty annoying in my eyes. I mean just because someone becomes famous doesnt mean there music sucks, just means they are getting paid a lot more for it. Personally I am an open-minded music listener, I want to experience it all and so far I've liked everything I've heard. Rap, reggae, all forms of metal (death, black, nu, thrash, etc.), classic rock, classical (like pianos, orchestras and such), jazz, all forms of techno like house and trance and all those. I even like country which most younger people dont, atleast around here.

im a Open-Minded cracka!!


another type of music fan:
The close minded: they only love one style of music...

Haha, would this be Big Jake? The guy with the Slayer hat and the Misfits tattoo on his ankle? He can be such a douche sometimes. He walked by me once when I was wearing a Metallica shirt (which is all the time) and said "Metallica was cool once, but you should listen to Slayer."

Got news for ya pal, Slayer was cool once too. Now they're not.

Anyways, I guess I could have been classified as "obsessive" a few years back. I used to listen to NOTHING but old Metallica, and thought everyting else including Metallica's newer stuff was shit. Now since I've been hanging out with my friend Dan alot, who is very musically open minded, I've been introduced to alot of new bands and styles such as: The Black Crowes, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Jimi Hendrix, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen, Gary Moore (AWESOME guitarist), and the list goes on and on. Obviously I had HEARD of these bands and artists before and some of their music, but in the past I had either been quick to dismiss them or not really sat down and listened to their music. Now I'm just glad I have a much better understanding and appreciation for them.

Yeah. We also all know that knkwzrd has no sense of humour whatsoever, and that it's perfectly fine to make fun of some music fan stereotypes but not others.

hyperbole |hīˈpərbəlē| (noun):
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

I am most definitely open minded, but there's a catch. My mind has a tendency off shutting itself off from the outside world whenever there's something it just doesn't like...so I guess I really don't know what you'd call that. I'm actually kind of on a musical binge right now, as I have been for the last month or so. I think it's all in preparation for the 60GB iPod I plan on getting next week, God willing. I already have 31GB's, baby! But yeah, I've run out of good music or something, so I've been getting all kinds of new, crazy stuff I never would've dreamt of grabbing.

I can't say I'm open-minded, but I would say I'm a bit versatile I can switch from classic to metal then listen to video games music. But I'll never put Rap or R&B on by myself. But if it's playing on the radio I won't bother to change station though.

I'm closest to "Open Minded"..... but I really don't claim to be open minded.

Bottom line is, I like what I like and I'm not about to say I like something I don't like. Rap sucks, heavy metal (aka sound effects) isn't even music half the time and I'm not about to lie and say, "Oh I like all types of music" because I don't. Coincidentally, I run into these mother fuckers all the time.

I also run into some of the "Your Band SUCKS!" people. One of my friends in particular immediately came to mind when I read the description - once you tell her you don't like one of her bands, she wants you to have the 8-CD box set to prove how "wrong" you are.

Hyperboles don't mix well with sarcasm. ;)

let say we can never be 100% open minded....... we just get more and more open minded over the years we discover stuff. I remember when I was younger I was a big hip-hop head and then discovered many important rock bands of the 60's and then I fell into electronica, etc...without neglecting all my previous tastes in music. The important here is that you have open ears for anything...you are willing to accept any genre.

**...though...i still cant stand country music :P **

The metalheads I dealt with were all in the "Your Band SUCKS" category. Too bad they never heard of Hyakytaro Tsukumo, Daisuke Ishiwatari, or Daiki Kasho because they show what happens when you don't limit yourself to a single band and genre like most of the idiot Metallica fans were. Too bad most mainstream rock is one beat and might as well be considered instrumental rap in the first place. They don't need vocals to ruin their music, their time signatures and timbre ruins it for them. They all sound too much like survival horror anyway in sound quality most of the time so technically they're not music anyway, just like rap isn't but hip-hop is because it's time signature is usually 2/x-snap, while everyone else is just 1/1 and incredibly annoying and amateurish. Most mainstream songs I've heard have been lucky to reach 20% in musical quality, while my VGM is always >= 100% in sound quality.

Notable exceptions:

DMX
Eve6
Mariah Carrey (after her last single she's good enough for VGM of Xenosaga quality.)
Tool
Static-X
Bikini Kill
Hoku

I'm #3 and #5 and kinda #1

I usually only ever come across the underground fanatics and the "I luv u" kind.
I always feel like the fanatic when I say "I only like the older stuff" (such as Jimmy Eat World), but it's a valid statement if the music style has actually changed over time.
I think that "underground fanatic" should be considered a sub-species of hipster.

I don't know what I am basically. I could say I am either open minded or the your band sucks type of person. I can and will listen to other types of music but it really depends on the mood I am in. Ask Kairyu, I have listened to some tunes for the first time and said it sucked, then a few months later he plays it in my car, and I will say, this song is great what is it? So yeah its strange and I know it gets on his nerves.

I mostly listen to all forms of rock, and I listen to a lot of video game music too, but I am a fan of trance, dance, 80's pop, and others. Can't say I am a big fan of hip hop or today's pop music.

But I do get kinda agitated when someone labels my music as emo and all that shit. And then when I hear something from their collection that sounds sad to me, they pass it off as relaxing.

Your band SUCKS!-These fans HATE everything that they don't listen to. If they find out you don't like a band they like, they will try to argue with you saying how great they are until you either agree or just tell them to shut the fuck up.

if i could hit everyone who says that to me, i wouldn't say no! those peopel annoy me like their style of music is the rightful thing and everything else is wrong!

From my personal experience 99% of every genre sucks. I seek out the standouts of a particular genre and then I move on. I'm open minded in a sense that my musical tastes are not limited by style, epoch, or geography (most of which can't readily be defined as being any specific genre at all). I guess its also important to mention that I'm as far away from the mainstream as can be humanly possible whilst still inhabiting earth. This isn't so much born out a total and irrational contepmt for all that is popular as it is with what music stirs my soul and leaves an indelible mark on my being.

I search out music that stretches boundaries, creates it's own unique space, and keeps me guessing - not that the mainstream is incapable of producing music that I may at least find interesting, just that it's considerably less likey for me to find it there. So I guess I wear the title "Mr. Non-Commercial Guy" - a threadbare adornment that garners respect from and evokes the ire of my contemperaries. All in all, listen to what moves you and all will be right with the world.