[Genteel Death]

A few of Keeping it Aggro's posts made me think about this. Is it even possible to display a snobbish attitude in regard to the sort of music you listen to, when literally even previously unknown recordings of Russian soldiers singing are relatively easy for everyone to find on the internet? Do you think there is much left that can be really deemed as obscure?

[demonrail666]

I don't think snobbery and obscurity are necessarily the same thing. There are just as many Classical music snobs as there are those that champion more relatively unknown music. Whether obscurity itself is in decline, I think it's the opposite. I remember a time when a band weren't even deemed to really exist unless they'd made it onto TV or a music paper. Now literally millions of bands appear to be existing obscurely on sites like myspace. It's probably possible now to listen solely to music that's never had a single 'official' release.

[gualbert]

Originally Posted by Genteel Death

Do you think there is much left that can be really deemed as obscure?

Yes.
I got hundreds of records that can't be found on IN.
Most of them suck, but a few of them are good to me.

[jon boy]

to keeping it simple stupid everything is obscure.

[the ikara cult]

I dunno, the next incarnation of that phenomena will probably be that the person on here with the most posts is considered a sellout scumbag and anyone who posts once a year and never comes back is the epitome of undiscovered genius.
Its the mentality thats important, not the music, is what i mean.

[automatic bzooty]

obscuri-what?

[noisereductions]

who cares?

[ann ashtray]

I'm glad 2010 means most anything I could ever find myself wanting to listen to should be fairly accessible.

[Genteel Death]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I don't think snobbery and obscurity are necessarily the same thing. There are just as many Classical music snobs as there are those that champion more relatively unknown music. Whether obscurity itself is in decline, I think it's the opposite. I remember a time when a band weren't even deemed to really exist unless they'd made it onto TV or a music paper. Now literally millions of bands appear to be existing obscurely on sites like myspace. It's probably possible now to listen solely to music that's never had a single 'official' release.

It's true that there is still that classical music/everything else divide, as well as the mainstream/anything non-mainstream gap which is wider than it's ever been. Today, though, with your myspaces, mediafires, last fms, mp3 blogs etc, anyone with a passing interest in slightly more daring sounds has the chance of reading about it on a website, and can access the band's music straight away, so you can check for yourself if that mysterious band really is worth the praise. To make an example out of someone who posts on here, atsonicpark's band namedropping would dramatically decrease if it wasn't because of the internet. This is no criticism of atsonicpark, by the way.

[Genteel Death]

Originally Posted by the ikara cult

I dunno, the next incarnation of that phenomena will probably be that the person on here with the most posts is considered a sellout scumbag and anyone who posts once a year and never comes back is the epitome of undiscovered genius.
Its the mentality thats important, not the music, is what i mean.

Good point. I don't think less or more posts determine how interesting what someone writes is necessarily. Sonic Youth themselves hardly ever post on their own forum, yet not everything they say on their interviews I find that brilliant.