Originally Posted by SaintSwan

I tend to mostly ignore music snobs, partly because of their arrogance, but mainly because of their narrow focus. Too often I have taken their advice and tried out a new artist only to find the new artist very one note. Like Metal bands who only play one kind of song because melody equates to selling out. Or Rock bands who want to do something different and end up not being rock bands. The snob looks for the different as if different is inherently good when different is just inherently different.

Nothing wrong with going out of your comfort zone from time to time and trying something new but when recommending something for people outside of their comfort zone I'm not going to recommend the most strange and obscure band that does that kind of music, I'd recommend a gateway drug kind of band. Like if you were introducing someone to Metallica it would probably help if you started with the black album rather than with Kill 'em all.

Some of those snobs might be actually honest in their recommendations (as if they think you might actually like that group) but I find most fall in one of two camps: The ones who want you to be impressed with how non-mainstream they are and the ones who want to feel superior intellectually to you for not 'getting' it. And if they recommended something you might ACTUALLY like, they wouldn't get to feel superior to you.