Musical Elitism Quotes

I don't think all music that is considered 'avant-garde' is bad, but it's definitely elitist. I hope my music is not that.

When I'd tell people I like country music they'd get this look on their faces. People were kind of ashamed of country.

People who like progressive music tend to sneer at the idea of a kind of punk aesthetic, and people who like alternative indie rock or punk rock tend to sneer at what they see as the pretentiousness and pomposity of progressive music.

People speak with enormous pomposity and arrogance about music.

Anybody who loves jazz has a little bit of snob in them.

Many elitists hate rap as much as they hate country, though they don't like to admit it for fear of appearing racially insensitive.

I'm not gonna sit back and listen to somebody who listens to 3LW all day.

I am regarded as a usurper, as an imposter and dilettante, because I do technically come from the wrong side of the tracks in musical terms.

I think that people are too... They've become genre snobs.

I've never felt opera was a party I've been invited to, and maybe I've got a bit of a chip on my shoulder about it.

If a man tells me he likes Mozart, I know in advance that he is a bad musician.

Beethoven, Schubert, Schoenberg, Berg imply a type of pianist who is intellectual. That's not always associated with female soloists.

In the '60s, people were still very protective of each field that they belonged to. Avant-garde artists didn't know about rock or pop or jazz. And the jazz people of course didn't want to know about any other music. They were all just kind of protecting their territory.

I can be a badass DJ when I want, but I am also an insufferable music snob.

You're not really supposed to like ABBA in Sweden. It's nerdy.

The most wretched people in the world are those who tell you they like every kind of music 'except country.' People who say that are boorish and pretentious at the same time.

When I was a kid, it was so important to listen only to bands nobody had ever heard of. I missed out on so much interesting music because of my need to listen to a psychobilly band that only two people knew about... Because I thought I was cool.

I hated prog rock; to me, it was the ultimate expression of a bloated sense of self-importance and mindless self-indulgence.

I despise people who revel in the ignorance of not being able to play their instrument.

To me, being a classical snob in the highest possible way and being an indie snob is just as bad!

Somehow in the 20th Century an idea has developed that music is an activity or skill which is not comprehensible to the man in the street. This is an arrogant assertion and not necessarily a true one.

People do look at it as an insult that I say I don't listen to country music, which cracks me up.

There is simply no limit to the tyrannical snobbery that otherwise decent people can descend into when it comes to music.

When you're a little kid, you just like music that makes you happy and is fun. As you get older, you reach college or your 20s and you decide that music should be challenging and all art should be smart. So you start to think it makes you like high art more to put down things you consider low art. I don't even think things are low art.

I love opera. I love jazz, especially Mingus. This makes me sound highbrow. I'm not.