Music Snobbishness

There are many times when I wonder whether I am being musically snobbish especially after seeing some of glastonbury on BBC 2 this weekend when I have no interest in U2, Coldplay or Beyonce.
Of course I have my music vices but largely I like to think that the music i like is of a decent standard. This doesn’t help me in pub quizzes in music rounds when I have no idea what Adele song is playing or even that it is Adele because I have no interest in the artist.
That being said, the one thing that always reassures me is that there are people more snobbish than me and that is epitomised in a post i read on metafilter 7 years ago:

“We Built this City” is a great song with a great hook by a band that had no right have such a terrific hit that late in its alcohol-sodden, drug-dulled career. “Corporate” (Blender’s comment) my butt. How anyone could call “We Built this City” a bad song while there is the whole catalog of Wilco to draw from is beyond me — not to mention every song by Tom Waite, Randy Newman, every rap and hip hop singer who ever lived, the entire “alternative” and grunge movement, Nine Inch Nails, Supergrass, “Peg O’ My Heart,” the theme songs from “Friends” and every other sitcom, the symphonic output of Anton Bruckner, fully three quarters of Bob Dylan’s work, one-quarter of Bruce Springsteen’s, every song on the Outkaast album except “Ai-Ya,” “Wipe Out,” every song by James Brown, two decades of jazz-rock fusion, everything by Joni Mitchell after and including the album “Blue,” “Symphonie Fantastique,” Sting, reggae, any song that’s used in a car commercial, anything involving Brian Wilson after “Good Vibrations,” anything on the Beatles “White Album” (except “Oh-Bla-Di” which the bozos at Blender are not hip enough to like), any song by John Lennon after meeting Yoko Ono, any song (it goes without saying) by Yoko Ono, anything by Paul McCartney or the Rolling Stones issued in the last 25 years (except for “My Brave Face”), fully three-quarters of Elvis Costello’s recorded ouvre, all contemporary classical music since Stravinsky, anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber, anything by Fabian, anything by Philip Glass, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” everything by Prince except “Raspberry Beret,” I could go on…
posted by Faze at 1:53 PM on April 23, 2004

Parts of it I do agree with, but a lot of it is excessive, especially the part that says every song by prince except raspberry beret – can’t agree with that. On the other hand the classical stuff and andrew lloyd webber – have no objections.
It’s a shame the article on blender the comment relates to no longer exists, even on waybackmachine but hopefully the general gist comes through.

Government Coalition NHS U-turn

Finally, it sounds like the news is out on what the coalition is going to do with NHS Commissioning.
Following the post election promises that the NHS was safe from radical reform the government unleashed a white paper that had more change than had been seen in 20 years. The big change being that Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), the guardians of the funding used to treat patients would be abolished following a period where many were in heavy debt (millions of UK£’s), and would be replaced by General Practitioner (GP) Consortia. These consortia would be set up from scratch and represent several GP Practices, predicted to total more than the number of PCTs.

The problem with this is that many GP practices did not want the responsibility of holding the purse strings, whereas others were keen. On top of this, the coallition government are very keen that the patient’s best interests are represented. The new U turn has yet another radical change to the commissioning of health care. Meanwhile, the PCTs are consolidating their debt by merging – something the former labour government recommended as part of their proposals. And while they do so more money is being spent on organisations which appear to have a limited shelf life.

We await to see what the full proposals will be and what they will yield.