Music Fans/Transcript

The following is a transcript of "Music Fans", the one-hundredth episode of comedy web series A Dose of Buckley.
== Transcript ==
Music fans are pretty much the most annoying people on the planet. I mean, everyone likes music to certain degrees, but I'm talking about people who claim that "music is their life," despite the fact that they can't play an instrument besides the skin flute; they sing like an American Idol reject's deaf brother, and they have no connection to the music industry whatsoever—people who, if they were to make a list of their favorite forms of entertainment, would put music well ahead of movies, TV, and definitely way ahead of reading. You've met these people. You have 'em on your Facebook and your Twitter: people that believe certain songs and artists define them.
It may come as a major surprise to some of you—even though it shouldn't—that I really don't care much for music. If movies, music, and television are considered the Big Three forms of entertainment, music for me ranks a very distant third. The reason for this might be because I work in a business where I listen to music all day, and in the same way that chefs probably eat crappy meals 'cause they don't want to spend another hour after they get home from a long day of cooking for everyone else making meals, or janitors probably have the filthiest houses because they don't want to come home and clean some more, the last thing I want to do after eight hours of listening to music is come home and put on more music. When someone asks me, "What kind of music do you like?", lately I've been responding with silence. But let's get into three reasons why I hate music fans.
Reason #1: the way they act when discussing music, specifically music they don't like.
Let me start by saying that very few people are actually what I would consider "music fans." See, that would suggest that they like all music. If someone said to me, "I'm a sports fan," if they're actually a sports fan then I would say, "Oh, so you like basketball, football, baseball, hockey, soccer, tennis, rugby, lacrosse, cricket, boxing, MMA, fencing..." and they'd say, "Oh, I mean, yeah, I got my favorites, but I'll pretty much watch anything." If they're not a sports fan, they'd say, "What? No! I just like football and basketball! Soccer's fuckin' gay, baseball's boring...the fuck is cricket?! Hockey's for Canadian queers!" and then they'd go on like that. So they're not a sports fan; they're a fan of football and basketball.
And in my experience, music fans are just as dumb as example #2, because they're so quick to tell you how much a whole genre sucks, and how the people who listen to those genres are fuckin' idiots. People who only listen to rock and metal love to talk shit about people who like pop and rap music, and vice versa—and then there's the infighting between metal and electronic music fans who will fight about which subgenre is the best.
Now compare that to fans of movies or TV, who aren't necessarily all rational by any means—but when the fuck was the last time you heard someone say, "Oh, you watch comedies?! What are you, a fuckin' idiot?" or, "You like dramas?! Fucking nerd!" You'll never hear that. So all of you people claiming to be music fans, but you only really listen to metal, or you only listen to rap, or country, or whatever: you're not a music fan. You're a fan of a specific genre, or potentially only a specific subgenre of music.
The #2 reason these people piss me off: the statements they make about how important music is, or how some music is art, but some isn't.
First of all, music isn't "important." Food and water and air and shelter is important. Music is entertainment; you don't need it to survive. I don't think art is particularly important, either, but I'd like to clarify my stance on this. A lot of people will claim one type of music or one artist is art, while another type or another artist is a product. After thinking about this, I've decided that if you consider any one song to be art, then you consider all music to be art. And regardless of which way you lean, art or not, all music is a product.
And why can't it be both? If you have determined that the process of creating music through whatever means is art—in the same way that painting a landscape with watercolors or making something in Photoshop is art—then all music is art. However, anything that is made for the purposes of making a living, created to sell to another human being, is a fucking product, and I don't give a shit if it's Radiohead or Rihanna. If they're makin' money, their music is a product! You think Bach and Beethoven created music for the fun of it?! They were commissioned by rich people to compose what we now consider masterpieces, paid money to deliver a product for the entertainment of the well-to-do of their time.
So all music is a product! Justin Bieber and Mozart are both musicians, in the same way a Honda Fit and a Ferrari Enzo are both cars. Are they in the same class? No, not by a fuckin' long shot, but they're both cars, and no one would argue that! So all music is a form of entertainment by paid entertainers—or people who aspire to be paid for their craft—and if you classify one song as art, they're all art. If you believe any song is not art, then none of it is art!
And the third reason I find so-called "music fans" to be annoying as fuck: the fact that they can't take a joke, or they feel that music "defines" them, and therefore any jokes about their favorite artist or song must be an attack on them, and that they must defend it!
A song you like doesn't define you any more than any other product you buy defines you. Would you fly off the handle if someone made a joke about Coke, or Colgate? If I said that the plastic container that Swanson's TV dinners come in tastes better than the food itself, and you sometimes eat Swanson TV dinners, would you get pissed?! If you're a rational human being, you'd say, "Ha, yeah, they are kinda terrible, but they're quick and easy to make," or you might even say, "Uh, you know, I like 'em," but you wouldn't say, "Fuck you, faggot! You never got laid in your life, you piece of shit! You're just jealous of Swanson's success! I'd like to see you make a TV dinner as good!" Why? Because you'd look like a fuckin' idiot!
Movie and TV fans are generally a little more rational here, too—again, not all, but far more than music fans. If someone made a joke about Memento—something along the lines of being boring, or how Christopher Nolan's a pretentious douchebag, and that he should try and make a movie that actually makes sense for a change—me being a fan of that movie, I'd say, "Well, if that's how you feel, that's a shame. I thought it was really good," but what I wouldn't do is defend it. Why? Because what the fuck do I care?! I didn't make it. I'm not Christopher Nolan; I'm not friends with Christopher Nolan, and he's never done anything for me, so who gives a shit?
If someone made fun of a song you like, and you decide you need to defend its honor for some reason, really think about it. It's not your song. It's not about you; it doesn't define you, and you don't owe these artists a fuckin' thing! Until Katy Perry comes and helps you out with your dishes, or Mumford & Sons comes and does your yard work, or until Lil Wayne fixes or sink, or The Black Keys lend you money for a car, you don't owe them a fuckin' thing, and they don't owe you anything, either! They made a product, and you purchased it, or you listened to it for free. Your transaction is complete, and your emotional attachment to a song or an artist is as ridiculous as having an emotional attachment to a Twix bar.
So, that's why I hate music fans—not all of them, but I seem to come across a lot more examples of bad ones than I do good ones. This doesn't mean I hate all music, but what I listen to is completely irrelevant to my comedy. What if I told you I actually liked every song I ever made a joke about? Would you unsubscribe? If so, you probably should just go ahead and do that now. I don't like all those songs, but that part is irrelevant.
I watch a lot of movies that I know aren't particularly great; for example, I have all the Transporter movies. They're pure action garbage; the stories might as well have been written by a 13-year-old boy going through puberty, and the car that Jason Statham drives is a better actor than Statham himself. I know they're bad movies. I probably would put Transporter 3 on a list of the worst movies of 2008, and I don't act like a fuckin' idiot when someone tells me they're bad.
So, music fans, smarten the fuck up. Quit arguing about something that's not important; stop being such pussies when someone makes a joke about something that you like, and understand that you're not the music you listen to.
Category:Transcripts