Pet Peeve - Everyone else's music tastes

In any sort of internet context you can see people responding to the question "What's your favorite kind of music?" as anything of the following:
"I like all kinds of music."
"Everything...I listen to it all."
"Pretty much anything!!!11!"

The answer is "False, I listen to crunk crap rap, American Idol-ized pop rock and 'Don't Stop Believin'. Actually 'Don't Stop Believin' is my Myspace profile music so everyone knows how diverse my musical tastes are." Because if you listened to everything, then we would be able to have intelligent conversations on 70s Jamaican ska or Icelandic rap. Unfortunately I don't even listen to that, but we could have intelligent conversations on oldies soul or even some jazz along with the every day music.

When I'm at the bar and I hear the opening piano riff to "Don't Stop Believin'", I immediately tense up. Everyone else is ecstatic. I roll my eyes. "Just a small town girl!" Damn it. "Living in a LONELY WOOOOOORLD." Long sigh. "She took the midnight train going EH-NEE-WHEEEEERE!" At this point I take the midnight train to the bathroom because no one's peeing when that song comes on because we all have to sing along. Loudly. Off-key. With every other girl and guy in the bar. This is the ultimate bar anthem now. And it's the most unfortunate category for such an inspirational song. I absolutely love the song and I enjoy Journey beyond DSB. (Pending my future husband is a Journey fan, I hope our first dance will be "Faithfully".) To see its quality being pissed away (literally) by every drunken peer in my immediate surrounding infuriates me. And to see Journey as everyone's favorite band on their fAcEbOoKaNdMySpAcEpAgEoMgZZZZ is even worse. When you only like one song by a band, even if it's your favorite song, news flash: it's not your favorite band.

Am I a musical elitist? Yes. I'm much more inward about it than I used to be. I used to scream at my friend Jake when he wanted to borrow my Something Corporate CDs because he was 'too preppy' to listen to that music. I was, at the time, an avid shopper at Hot Topic and thrift stores and spent every last cent I had on CDs of bands I had only heard of. Oh, to be a seventeen-year-old emo poser again. My Pandora station is almost as stacked as my iTunes. The answer to whatever your question is 'Yes, I do listen to better music than you do.' Define better. Okay. Songs that are about more than 'making love in this club', 'licking the lollipop' or 'only having four minutes to save the world'? Using real instruments? Overcoming life struggles to release their music that isn't 'I had an eating disorder because my parents spent thousands of dollars on me and made me take 40 hours of dance classes a week'?

I won't lie. I do listen to the music of limited quality. God help me, I do love Taylor Swift's CD. Odd considering how I prefer to have my teeth cleaned at the dentist than listen to country. Then the country buffs say "She's not real country. She's pop country." Okay, thank you for that clarification that I don't care about. Moving along. Also, due to my recent influx of hanging out with fraternity "gentlemen" combined with Pandora, I have gotten into electronic music, notably Daft Punk. I love blasting "Technologic" and "Voyager" with my sun roof open, imagining that I'm in my own car commercial, selling 2002 Ford Focuses. And yeah, I probably won't call Lil Wayne to get it juicy for me, but I'll listen to the horrible mess of lyrics and beat when I'm in the mood for a switch from Anberlin or Sonny Rollins.

My favorite song of all-time? "YMCA". Yeah that's right. (The Village People is not my favorite band, side note, not even close.) I love the song because it's probably the happiest song ever. The difference between YMCA and DSB is that YMCA isn't telling a story or inspiring or anything like that. It's about the YMCA. Sure its underlying theme is about gay guys getting together to bump asses at the gym, but when I was in elementary school and learned the song in my gym class on our 'free gym day', it was amazing.

Big side note: I have never been the popular one, especially in my elementary days. I was the tall nerd and then, after my sister was born (I unfairly blame her for a lot of things in my life), I became the tall nerd with super short fro hair cut, huge gold wire glasses and a dazzling array of sweatpants who got boobs in second grade and armpit hair in third. I kid you not, fools. Puberty hit early with a capital E. Anyway, I got teased a lot and boys didn't like me because I was awkward and fugly. I was the only girl in my third grade class not invited to Sam Phythian's birthday because she didn't think I was cool enough. In fourth grade, Mandy Therrien and I had a discussion on the bus on the way to a field trip on how to be cooler to get Derek Robertson to like me. (It didn't work because my mom didn't let me grow my hair out or, God forbid, wear something other than a sweat suit and high tops.) And when people got married on the playground in the fifth grade, I took my Goosebumps notebook with a cross taped on it outside because I was the priest.

None of that mattered though, because, when Mr. Holowicki put on the tape cassette and I heard that beginning, I was ready to dance. I say the term loosely because no one had rhythm. It was just bouncing around and waving your arms. Everyone stopped what they were doing, got off the rings, the uneven bars, the scooter things, and danced. All together, for about four minutes, everyone sang along and did the hokey dance over their heads. No one cared about what anyone looked like because we all looked like fools. And when I request it at every function, everyone groans and goes "Oh God, Ruth." But that song plays and we all dance because, if you're like me, you can't dance. "YMCA" means that I can dance. With alcohol added to the YMCA I can dance pretty well. And I sing along. Loudly. Off-key. All by myself or with a much smaller group. Because that song is meant for people acting like idiots. Some people are running to the bathroom or taking a break while the people who don't give a shit are dancing like it's 1978 all over again.

I get shit from people all the time that my music tastes suck. (I know "YMCA" has no real merit towards musical genius, believe me.) I don't care. Because I like what I listen to and, while I think (know) my music is better than yours, I don't take myself too seriously. I'm always open to others' suggestions because I like to expand outside my box for my own personal gain and not to fit in with my friends. Open your minds to more music. Don't just say you are because you have "Stairway to Heaven" on your iTunes. With zero plays.