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One of the great things about being very interested in music is the self gratifying snobbery that exists within it. Musical snobbery , disguised as 'taste' or justified as 'better knowledge', is perhaps the thing that puts people off musical discussion more than anything else. It is what being a musical hipster is all about.

I am as guilty of this as most of you reading this. Maybe more. In my defense, and I guess by extension, in yours, it is hard to listen to some music knowing that what influenced it was much better. Knowing there is so much better music out there. Knowing that what was originally ground breaking, has become a sanitized corporate output.

This is how it works.

Great bands, have some, or a lot, of success with an original sound or concept. The music industry says to itself, that is where the latest trend is, quick, we need bands like that, but a bit more radio friendly. Bang, 10 bands sort of the same come out and the public, like the musical sheep they are, lap it up like nice fresh juicy grass.Then something else comes along and they jump to the next thing. Here is a song about it:

There is also another kind, and this is perhaps more the domain of the hipster, snob, geek whatever you want to call me / yourself. . . I call this the ' I was there first' hipster.

Generally what happens here is that a band or artist , comes out with a first album, EP or something similar, and you love them. Something like this

or this:

In both of the above cases I claimed to love the band. Great band, what cool music.

Then, horror of horrors, everyone agreed. Great band.

It can be passed off, they don't really understand, they aren't as clued up, they just like the melody. So by the time the second album comes around, they are the main stream. Think also - Guns'n Roses.

You can't like the same thing that everyone one else does!

Are you mad???

So the second, 3rd, 4th, albums are decried as derivative, nothing like the first one. Success made the band lazy and they lack the punch they had to start with. The thing about this is that most people don't care. It is a little like protesting New Year's Eve and not going out because it is meaningless. The people out enjoying themselves don't care about your protest. For the most part people don't really care about other people's music taste . So you write a blog trying to convince them of how much you know . . .No seriously, when people engage you on it you have to then say, 'Yes, but they were so much better before . . don't you know, I have their first EP. Which I bought at their first ever gig, which was before half of them had met, indeed I introduced them and actually played on this' . . or other complete rubbish . . .

Sometimes you are right. In fact, there are very few bands whose later albums are better than their first few. There are some very notable exceptions. Like the album this comes from:

or this:

Anyway . . . the thing about all of this is despite the front that is shown to the world, you still know, deep inside, that you love the first album. Certainly in the case of Pearl Jam, Oasis and Guns'n Roses I do. So you come back to it after a certain amount of time, sometimes 5 years more likely to be 10 or in fact nearly 20, and you realize that it is still great. You realize that it is alright to love one album and not others. Sometimes you even begin to explore the rest of a catalogue and find some other stuff you like.

No, actually that rarely happens, because they did become lazy, but certainly you listen to the second album. Which is never as bad as you remember it to be, actually it is quite good, but your prejudice got in the way.

The point of all of this is that you believe that you managed to keep your credibility intact. But really, you just managed to convince yourself that you were special, and actually you aren't.

This is a little darker than I usually write, but it is an interesting part of becoming older and looking back. Love for music doesn't change, but your attitude to how it defines you does.

Isn't that interesting.

(Just a quick word on that Tool song, last listed in the you tube links. Listen to the whole thing.  It is a song about the singer's devout christian mother who died after living for 10,000 days with severe complications after having a stroke. Whether you are a musical snob or not that is a powerful song.)