When I was a kid, I listened to music because I liked it. If I didn’t like it, I turned it off. Then came the teens and everything changed. Suddenly, what I listened to mattered to other people as well as to me.

I quickly realised that I didn’t really like that pop-stuff that I’d been forced to listen to at birthday parties and after school clubs. I had always preferred rock music when listening to the radio or watching music shows and have strong memories of loving Metallica when Reload had just come out and The Memory Remains and The Unforgiven II where playing on the radio.

When I was 13, a friend and classmate of mine whom I haven’t spoken to in years now discovered Linkin Park, and chose to share her discovery with me. I loved it at once. She, of course, grew out of “good” music, as you do, while I started making more and more friends who seemed to be into the kind of music I was growing to enjoy.

I was fifteen when I first understood how close minded people could be about music, even people who appeared at first sight not to be. It was when I started seeing Daniel, my first proper boyfriend. He has very strong opinions about music, and did not hesitate to explain to me why liking Linkin Park was unacceptable, and why I should immediately start listening to other things. Many of the bands that he showed me helped shape my music taste as it is today, and I am, of course, grateful for that. But why the hatred? Why the utterance of, “No, that band sucks, you need to listen to these!”

The funny thing is that there are some bands that almost everyone who’s into alternative music agree are bad, except for the ones that really, really love them. Nobody says, “So-and-so Emo band are okay, but not my cup of tea.” Either they completely love them, or they will go on at great length to make you understand how much said band sucks. I don’t think I know anyone who’s really into music who say they like Linkin Park. Even the ones who admit to having liked them when they were new will now tell you how awful they think they are. And the rest of us aren’t allowed to like them either. Of course, I’m guilty of this as well, but it’s a habit I’m trying to break.

It’s like it’s trendy to hate certain bands. Maybe it’s a part of hipster culture that just keeps spreading outwards, but for whatever reason it’s cool to say that certain bands suck. In Britain, I’ve found that band to be Coldplay. It seems all musicians and music lovers hate Coldplay. This is completely new to me, because in Norway most music lovers seem to like Coldplay.

Maybe it’s just trendy to be negative. People who just go around enjoying music for what it is aren’t particularly interesting. People who have objective discussions about the technical merits of a band aren’t interesting either, though being that person can occasionally make other people’s blood boil too. It’s the ones who have very strong opinions, who just LOVE this band and simply DETEST this one, who are interesting and who set the standard for everyone else.

Perhaps it makes us feel superior, to hate something with a passion. Maybe we feel like we’re better than other people if we just don’t like their music. You frequently hear the words, “They’re just too mainstream”, as if many people liking something makes it automatically worthless. It’s a kind of musical elitism that, the more I try to understand it, the more baffling it becomes.

What I do know is that there are some bands that I find I like “against my better judgment”, so to speak. No matter how many times other people tell me that this band is bad, that they’re not authentic enough, that they’re commercial or whatever other reasoning they may have for it, I still tap my feet and grin when I hear them. And, after all, isn’t that what music should be about? Just enjoying it? Does it, then, really matter who performs it?

I don’t think so. Of course, I still cringe every time someone plays a Glee version of just about any song, because it hurts my soul. But you go ahead and listen to it. Apparently, some people like having their brains bashed in with a flat, “perfect” mix and sugarcoated vocals.

I wonder how many people I offended with the last comment…