What if The Beach Boys Love You was scrapped?

[the captain]

...most people certainly admit there is a subset of art fans--and we can call them hipsters or whatever else--who inevitably take a kind of contrarian position, picking obscure or early or late or otherwise unpopular items, seemingly based on some almost ideological position that rare taste is superior to common taste.

Oh, the captain, you disappoint me.  From your moniker, I'm assuming that you share at least one other of my tastes in music, and I've frankly lost count of the number of times I've had to read articles / listen to blowhards insisting that nobody actually likes Trout Mask Replica or would ever dare listen to it for fun, or that to claim appreciation of it is to be contrarian for contrarianism's sake.  And that experience has given me very limited patience with this particular train of argument.  Gimme that old time religion, gimme that old time religion, don't gimme no affliction, that old time religion is good enough for me.

To quote Inigo Montoya, get used to disappointment. 

I do indeed share at least one other of your tastes in music. But I also argue that many who share it with us probably share it for the aforementioned reason. That said, I argue often (as can be found in the general music forum) that the late, great captain's music is best appreciated without any of the trappings of critical acclaim (and incessant accompanying description that it's "difficult music"). Beefheart is easily enjoyed by throwing off both popular and critical context.

[AndrewHickey]

I do indeed share at least one other of your tastes in music. But I also argue that many who share it with us probably share it for the aforementioned reason.

But this is just the same kind of thing you're *accusing* the other people who like Beefheart of. "Oh, *I* just happen to like Beefheart. It's those other people, they don't get him like I do. They're just *pretending* to like his music, so they can be cool like me. They probably really like Adele or something. Posers."

I agree with Theydon Bois on this one -- and in fact it was the experience of reading all those "everyone's just *pretending* to like Trout Mask Replica, no-one could really like it" articles that made me so annoyed by this argument as well. (And really? *Trout Mask Replica* is unlistenably strange and weird? It's just what you get when you're playing Chess-style blues but also listen to a few Ornette Coleman records... One interesting thing for me was when a friend, who's mostly into fairly soft pop music, listened to Safe As Milk for the first time -- his response was "It sounds like the Monkees". And he's right, it does...)

I keep seeing this claim, that people pretend to like music they don't really like, in order to impress other people. What I've never seen is an example of anyone who's actually impressed by that -- at least, anyone out of their teens. I've seen a hell of a lot of people who mock and scorn people they claim are doing that, though.

I've said, lots of times to lots of people "I like Trout Mask Replica" or "I like The Beach Boys Love You", and not once has anyone found it impressive. Why would someone keep doing something like that to impress people, if no-one's impressed by it? Occam's razor says they're not, and that even people you find annoying can be honest about their musical tastes.

[the captain]

We already established that you don't agree with me (though I still think all the arguments against seem to be straw men). It's really not such a big deal, and there is a thread to discuss it if you want.

[the captain]

Though actually, I do believe I owe the board an apology. I was wrong and I can admit it:

Upon further reflection, it wasn't Inigo Montoya who said "get used to disappointment," but Westley. I'm sorry for any harm my careless actions may have caused.