Scott, you obviously didn't read my post too thoroughly. Or I can't get my point across right. My point is that the music hardcore music nuts find tends to be far more mechanically interesting and creative than the stuff you hear on the radio. The reason they try so hard to find bands that aren't mainstream isn't always just because they want to listen to things that aren't mainstream, it's because there is other music out there that they think is a lot more interesting and that personally suits their ear better. I could be an average guy and listen to the Chili Peppers like everybody else and that would be fine. I like them pretty well, so that's cool. But I love music and have taken the time to find a lot of other bands that I like a lot better. If I'd never looked, I'd never have found them. Why? Because the radio doesn't play them and nobody else I know listens to them. So the fact that I took the time to educate myself on what's out there means that I found a bunch of bands that I like twice as much as what I hear on the radio. That doesn't make radio music inherently shitty, it just means that if you try harder, you'll often find something that speaks to you on a deeper level.
No, it isn't a bullshit response. It's the difference between being somebody who cares enough about music to listen to what everyone else is listening to and a person who cares enough about it to find something off the beaten path. It's the difference between the guy that takes a hike with his girlfriend up the hill for a picnic and the guy who climbs Mount fucking Everest. Why is it so hard to accept that even where the appreciation of art is concerned some people care more and are better educated? It's no different with music than it is with anything else.
And no, I'm not talking about stupid teenagers who think that because they found a band before everyone else that they're somehow cooler, or the little shithead who sits in his basement all day listening to Blenderhead and thinking he's cool, ignoring the fact that people don't listen to Blenderhead for a reason. I'm talking about people like myself or Hoob who spend lots of time with music and greatly enjoy it. We like some of what's played on the radio, we appreciate plenty of more mainstream acts, but we also have gone out of our way to find other music that a lot of people probably haven't heard of, and in my experience most of that off-the-beaten-path music is what I find most engaging on a personal level.
EDIT - Again, I don't think any lover of music should go around saying that good music sucks just because it's more popular or whatever. I'm just trying to say that yes, there is a lot of underground music that *is* more creative and more interesting because it does something that your average person doesn't want to take the time to understand. When it comes to music, there is a lot of stuff that your average person doesn't grasp because he has no musical background, no education in theory and such. Just like people appreciate paintings because they're "pretty" but a painter can better appreciate what techniques are used and such. That's all I'm trying to say. Music "snobs" suck, but I don't think just because somebody likes a lot of out of the way music means they're a snob, neither does it apply just because someone has a complaint with a mainstream band. I get labeled that a lot and I don't like it because I don't think it applies. I know a lot more about music than some, I listen to some obscure shit, but I also like mainstream bands and if I think something is good, I really don't care who listens to it.
