MUSIC snobs love to prove their superiority with their ‘challenging’ choices. But be warned – coming into contact with these albums may make you one of them.
Kid A by Radiohead
Thom Yorke’s garbled angst can be excused over proper guitar playing, but only the worst musical contrarian ‘likes’ interpretive dance, ambient electronica and horrible horns. Farting in the faces of fans when it came out, time has been both kind to Kid A and hideously unkind to anyone who’s met a weed guy at university. It’s less divisive now, because it’s universally acknowledged as being for twats.
The Velvet Underground & Nico by The Velvet Underground
Liking proto-punk and Andy Warhol are strong indicators that you might inhabit your own arse. Reciting lyrics like you understand junkie life in 1960s New York is cool for a teenager, but not for an office worker from Swanage who buys posters from HMV. Unfortunately the group opened the floodgates for imitators, creating a never-ending wave of self-indulgent bellends for every generation to put up with.
Hounds of Love by Kate Bush
This art-pop relic is a musical rite of passage for GCSE students who listen to it trying to find better tracks than Wuthering Heights. Most call it a day after the Stranger Things song, rightly baffled by the nonsense to come, but knobs say the deep cuts help to understand the real Kate who likes warbling on about water. Normal people only remember it for the wacky steampunk machine in the video for Cloudbusting. Or possibly Kate’s incredibly bad haircut.
Parachutes by Coldplay
It’s fashionable to hate Chris Martin and his unknown mates, so now is a great time to stand out from the herd by detailing their old indie darling status. No one really believes that Yellow isn’t pure bollocks, only better than their ill-advised idea to inject EDM fun into their brand of extreme boredom. Playing devil’s advocate for Coldplay is pointless anyway when bigger arseholes know more about the Chapel Hill indie scene.
Surfer Rosa by Pixies
Identifying with Tyler Durden from Fight Club is pretty pretentious, but pretending you’re like Pixies-loving Kurt Cobain is next f**king level. So is commenting at length on Steve Albini’s analogue recording and surreal raunchy artwork for Pixies’ second album, which also happens to be their second best. Noone’s impressed that you prefer songs about deformed bodies to the famous one.
The Beatles by The Beatles
Not giving it a proper title, hence ‘The White Album’, is a red flag, so beware the Fab Four’s experimental double-album of bloated crap becoming your favourite. Months of drug-fuelled meditation was always going to produce only three songs that normal people enjoy, and most of the remaining 27 are either parodies or ripoffs. And the record’s historical mystique doesn’t stop Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? being more Chas & Dave than The Beatles, and shit.
