Scott BresslerA certain Washington University music magazine (whose name might or might not be a fist pumpingly good rip-off of “This is Spinal Tap”) published an article last semester on how to be a hipster. Being the respectful journalists we are at Cadenza, we decided that we would not print the following article based on our knowledge of the upcoming printing of the hipster article. However, the hipster article was neither entertaining nor informative. It, unfortunately, was a full page on something that can be broken down into one sentence: to be a hipster one must smoke a lot of cigarettes and wear a lot of expensive clothing that still somehow looks like it was picked up at the swap meet.
Clearly the vast majority of the Washington University student body could never be a hipster. Since 95 percent of Wash. U. was at some point pre-med, there really isn’t a ton of cigarette smoking here, and while Wash. U. is really into spending a lot of money on clothing, the community’s intense desire to someday find a job that makes boatloads of money keeps students looking respectable.
At Cadenza, we are more in tune with the student body and are pleased to release this guide which helps achieve some of the goals shared by most Washington University students. These goals are: one, to know (or pretend to know) more trivial information than your peers. Two, to be (or pretend to be) of a higher caste than your peers. Three, to be more interesting at parties. Our handy guide to being musically pretentious can help you achieve all three of these goals. The other key point to remember about pretension is that not only are you better than everyone else, but that others need to be periodically reminded of this. Thus, without further ado, Cadenza is proud to present How to Be Musically Pretentious (Or At Least Fake It).
Acting pretentious is a subtle art form. It takes years and usually a well-informed parent or older sibling to perfect. In this age of instant gratification, we realize you don’t have the time to figure it all out on your own. Being pretentious is hard and takes practice, but it also has a simple formula which can be broken down into three main components: what to like, what not to like and how to talk about each of the former.
what not to like
First off, what not to like. This may seem self-evident, but it is the easiest trap to fall into. When beginning your quest for musical pretentiousness, never admit to liking anything. Once you become more comfortable with the following guidelines, you may then feel free to support a few bands. However, few is the operative word. Never admit to liking a band if it’s popular. If you can find their T-shirt at Hot Topic, throw the CDs away. If, while looking through someone else’s iTunes library, you should come across K-Fed and a favorite of yours, get rid of it. If you listen to K-Fed don’t even bother finishing this article, you have no hope. If the band’s newest single is on the radio or by some freak chance featured in a hit TV show or magazine, delete the files, and not just from your library. When these bands come up in casual conversation, feel free to mention them in a “I knew and liked them before they were famous” tone of voice, but never explicitly say that. Lastly, never use the phrase “sold out,” it’s annoying.
what to like
Now that you know what you shouldn’t be listening to, you likely no longer own any music. So what now? With your iTunes library at a state of tabula rasa, you should proceed to attend the live shows of bands you already like. Also, show up early, the openers may be your new favorite band. Check out band Web sites; side projects are less well known and thus better. Along the same lines, it’s about time you learned the names of every member of the band, not just the lead singers you used to like. Nothing is more pretentious than referring to a band by the names of the members. Search allmusic.com for artists that have only released EPs. Fewer albums released means less of a chance that people have heard of them. Learn the difference between an EP and LP if need be.
If you have to listen to more mainstream music, do it in a way that makes you different. Find your preferred Zaireeka listening method (Cadenza staff enjoys both disc 1 and disc 3 started on track 4 and disc 2 started at the beginning. We only listen to disc 4 for track 8, in which case we like all four discs playing track 8 together).
Another easy way to make your music experience different than others’ is to listen only to vinyl. Firstly, the sound quality is much better than either CDs or digital music. Secondly, you haven’t really listened to an album until you’ve experienced it on vinyl. Never let anyone around you forget you listen to your music in a different medium, a better medium, a medium with richer sound quality. On the off chance the person you’re telling this to also listens to vinyl, tell them yours is a first press. Also, never call it a record player, call it a hi-fi; that is, unless you’re listening to lo-fi. If you can get hold of 78s and not just 33s, this will definitely add to the list of things you can brag about.
If you’re feeling particularly pretentious, get yourself an 8-track player. Take pride in the fact that no one else is listening to that song, in that medium, anywhere. This is the stuff music snobbery is made of.
If, by chance, your problem is that there is no music you can really relate to because you feel the human experience is unique, we suggest listening to music in another language. First off, you have no idea what they’re saying. Feel free to make up the meaning of the song, especially if you are sure no one around speaks the native language of the song. However, following this methodology is not an excuse to break any of the other rules. Just because J-Lo’s new album is in Spanish does not make it acceptable listening for someone musically pretentious.
If Italian or Farsi is too mainstream, maybe what you need is an imaginary language. Sigur Ros has you covered. With the release of “()” came the advent of Hopelandic. With no real syntax or semantics, the words sung mean whatever the listener feels. The 12-page booklet is blank and allows the listener to fill in the lyrics themselves. It’s as if the snootiness god created Sigur Ros just for you.
how to talk about it
Now that you’ve formed all of the correct opinions, all you need is the proper way to express those newly perfected musical tastes. Never worry about angering your lesser contemporaries. Bring music up constantly. Ask people their favorite artist, album or song and no matter what their response is, tell them it sucks. Be very specific in your reasoning: hollow vocals, guitar line too dissonant, guitar line not dissonant enough, clich‚ lyrics, uninteresting choice in time signature, bass drum too heavy, not enough bass drum. Use words like kaleidoscopic and atmospheric to describe music, claim you know what this means, but never elaborate. Make up genres to more adequately describe a band. Whoever said a genre needs to contain more than one band clearly wasn’t pretentious enough. Sneer at anyone if they ask you to explain.
Describe everything as a poorly executed imitation of the Velvet Underground. Feel free to find out something about them; Wikipedia is a good place to start. For bonus points and added humor, get people to agree with you on music released before 1965.
Read “High Fidelity” in public and when anyone comments on the book, scoff at the writer’s obviously limited musical knowledge. Feel free to comment on this during the movie as well. When watching independent films, interrupt to name each song played and add entertaining tidbits about the artist him- or herself. Sure, people will be upset that you’ve ruined the plot with your endless chatter, but they’ll be glad you’ve opened their eyes to the wonderful world of worthwhile music. (Plus, you’re a music snob, not a movie snob, and no one likes those people.)
Thus concludes our guide. We assure that this is a damn good start to being musically pretentious, and while it’s not all encompassing (we have to keep some of the best tips for ourselves so that we can still be more interesting than you at parties), we encourage you to experiment in ways of being more pretentious. After all, being as in touch with the Wash. U. community as we are, we know you’re all a bunch of overachievers anyhow.