Creed and King Crimson. Barry Lyndon and King Kong. Wrong. And Not Wrong. Snob. And Anti-Snob.
Bonus Content For Paying Subscribers: Discussing being a snob and an anti-snob all at once. The right place to aim, I think.
I wrote about the epiphany of listening to Creed on the ferry to Waiheke this weekend. It was both a joke. And totally sincere. That’s my favourite kind of writing. I’m obviously taking the piss. But it’s rooted in something real. That post was an apology, and an absurdity. I won’t like Creed for long. At all. But in that moment the band’s music felt perfect. As perfectly stupid and stupidly perfect as any music can. It was also a chance to dig back to the fact that when I was a gatekeeper, and was dismissing things — like nu-metal — it was often via the extreme prejudice of never really giving it anything approaching a fair go.
Funny thing about writing though. You put something down. And people get to determine it for themselves. I received messages from friends concerned for my wellbeing. As well as messages from friends so sure they were super in on the joke. I received messages from people I don’t know welcoming me to the Creed club. And messages from strangers telling me I’d always had shitty taste, so this didn’t surprise them.
In the writing world, that’s a huge success. Conversation started…
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