by Kevin (@prufesuroak)

I’m proud to say that I enjoy listening to ABBA, The Bee Gees, Barry White and tons more. Here I am a proud Hard Rock fan, admitting my fondness to Disco, because what is Disco anyways but just a Funk-Latin fusion.

With anything there are always those elitist know-it-all’s who think they know better than you and think that they’re ambassadors for taste. So this his post really isn’t about my love for Disco, but rather my rant on elitism within musical genres.

I mean really, get over yourselves, you can’t deny that Fernando by ABBA is a great song, no seriously though. As a previously clickbliss article said “play what you love” but play them for the right reason. Listen to something because you actually enjoy it, not because you want to belong to a group or  someone cooler than you likes them.

I admit I did have a phase (early teen years) where I used to think that New Wave and Disco were gay, but I always secretly thought they were okay… I mean who could resist. But that time shames me, I grew up listening to New Wave, both my parents loved New Wave and man so do I.

This whole thing with elitist music know-it-all’s probably started back when music or any “art form” started, actually probably started when social classes started. There’s always those who look down upon others, judging by their “taste”, whatever taste means.

Don’t let anybody tell you what you should and shouldn't listen to. Nobody’s an authority when it comes to “taste”, trust your own preference. And if what you prefer is Latin music, then go listen to that. If you like “real punk rock” then go listen to that, don’t give shit to those who think you’re poseur, as long as you listen to it for the right reason. They may think that you don’t live of a “punk lifestyle” or dress like one, who cares, listen to whatever you want.

I know a lot of people who listen to certain generally hated bands feel no shame, and they shouldn’t, if it’s a good song to you then it’s a good song to you. You shouldn’t really be ashamed of anything, I’m not. I think it was Dave Grohl who admitted that Toxic by Britney Spears was a good song. And that may have opened me up to the idea of not having any shame. If someone who was in Nirvana says that Toxic was a good song then I shouldn't be ashamed of liking any song. And when Switchfoot covered Beyoncé’s Crazy in Love that I opened up my mind even more.

I know that by saying that the reason why I owned up to my love for New Wave and Disco was when someone cooler than me said that he actually loves Disco (Dave Grohl), and yes I do admit that it’s rather hypocritical of me to once shame myself for singing to a Disco song in my mind, but i was 12 then and I know better now. We all have to start somewhere.

Maybe learning to stop being an idiot and hide the fact that me, a hard Dead Kennedy’s fan also loves ABBA, perhaps the latter more than the former even is really just a part of growing up and of maturity. Perhaps being shameless is part of being “mature”, and no one’s more shameless than an old geezer hitting on a waitress.

So what was the point of this rant/blog post/thing? Well, perhaps what I really want to say, which is what I said in the beginning, which is listen to whatever the hell you want. Who gives a crap about what some elitist dickhead says about what you should and shouldn’t listen to after all, I mean The Rolling Stones Miss You was a Disco song, a great one at that. But really, like what you like and don’t ever be ashamed of it.