One Year of Snobbery

It was September last year that Cuzomano and Easy C ventured out into the streets of London, in what would be Audio Snobbery’s debut on the intangible Pandora’s Box that is the Internet, to see Destroyer live. Our scrappy amateurism exemplified by our complete ignorance and ready dismissal of support act, Pond, we nevertheless started as we meant to continue: opinionated yet fallible. All we truly care about is that you share in our enjoyment of – and wonder at – that most beautiful human creation: Music.

Live music being the beating heart of that enjoyment, Cuzomano followed-up with a brief but beautiful weekend in Turin for Club to Club 2019, cementing a dismal opinion of Peggy Gou later to be a contested subject between John and Easy C at Primavera Sound 2019, likely our crowning achievement this year in Snobbery.

Speaking of festivals, John also attended Madrid’s Paraiso for the second year running, alongside a litany of others – but writing about all of them proved to be too mammoth a feat for our dear hedonist in year One A.S. (Anno Snobberi).

Back at HQ, however, John was able to get a whole lot of love for Damon Albarn off his chest. It’s quite staggering that such a hedonistic, self-destructive individual could prove so eloquent, but our very own wookie also managed to eulogise Chico Buarque and review Jungle’s sophomore album.

Other record reviews would also follow. Exemplifying our complete disregard for whether or not what we like is Contemporary (why bother, when you have an infinite library of music in your pocket?), El Mascarado’s enigmatic debut came in the form of a love letter to his favourite LP of all time, D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar, and was followed-up with equal passion by a detailed look at Anderson .Paak’s Ventura. 

Easy C, meanwhile, chose to praise Australia’s Parcels and (quite rightly) eviscerate The 1975 before disappearing underneath the Snobbery parapet never (yet) to be heard from again. Perhaps with a new year (and a new decade), we will hear once more from our Compton hat-toting compadre...

Cuzomano, apparently quite keen on reviewing records, attempted to make sure you’re still paying attention to Prince, in spite of his tragic demise, as absolute gems continue to trickle out of his legendary vault. He also couldn’t hold back on Methyl Ethel's utterly superb 2019 album, Triage, and spent (a fair amount of) time contemplating Joseph Mount's rather long-winded latest effort, Metronomy Forever.

We also saw our first guest post from a Disciple of Snobbery who is particularly knowledgeable on Rap, and chose to unveil his passion in contemplating ScHoolboy Q’s Crash Talk. Long may such a trend continue. [Editor’s note: for the love of all that is holy, please reach out to us if you want to write something – we are a friendly bunch and love passion in all its guises.]

And yet we are at our busiest offline and away from the Internet (being the bon vivants that we are). Starting as we began and, with the firm belief that the intangible soul of Music is found in its live performance, we are proud oracles of its potency and Bacchanalian worshippers at its altar, determined that you should imbibe of the same aural pleasures.

We listen to live Music wherever it can be found, be it in on the European continent in Paris, where El Mascarado saw The Como Mamas and Ibrahim Maalouf, or, more regularly, over in the (increasingly dis-)United States of America, where our very own, much-loved, Otacon resides in Cali-forn-I-A (assuming it still exists after all the wildfires).

Otacon has had the extreme good fortune of seeing many a Snobbery favourite this past twelve-and-some months. Starting with The Faint, Otacon would go on to see the utterly sublime Amen Dunes, Mac Demarco (in a double piece that also reviewed his latest record) and SadGirl & The Coathangers (for those DIY Punk Rock fans amongst you). What would prove to be his greatest achievement, however, was succeeding in attending one of the very few performances of the unbelievable Lux Prima by Karen O and Danger Mouse, something which drove your other Snobs quite wild with envy. 

The rest of your Snobs have been London-based over the past twelve months, you see – not that this deters us from seeing live performances in one of the greatest cities in the world for such a pleasure. 

Indeed, variations of Cuzomano, Easy C, John, El Mascarado and you, our dear readers and loving disciples, could be found anywhere and everywhere artists we wanted to see could be found. There was the terrible Polo & Pan at Oval Space; the sensational Revolution in Shepherd’s Bush; Beirut in Hammersmith; Franc Moody at Heaven; the ever-underrated Crazy P in wonderful Islington; and Janelle Monáe in Wembley. And these were just the ones where we could get our shit together and write something in good time. 

God knows how it happened, but one of you seemed to like what you were reading as, amidst all this, your dear Snobs found themselves asked to conduct an interview. 

So it was that Cuzomano, John and Easy C ventured over to Notting Hill to talk to Patawawa and see them perform. A short week later, we were in conversation with the historied Kinobe after a very ‘Small World’ coincidence involving Easy C and a laptop sale. Deerhunter and Metronomy shows at Camden’s Roundhouse followed thereafter, before we closed out the year of live music unbelievably fittingly, seeing Methyl Ethel in Peckham.

There will, of course, be much more of this in the decade to come [Editor’s Note: Stay tuned to see if we can figure out a way to invite more of you to attend shows with us in future.]

Finally, we come to the raw, unvarnished core of what makes snobbery Snobbery: our unbridled passion for select artists and the desire to share it with you. 

Sometimes, we’re just tripping out on something so bad we feel we have to share it with you, gushing all the way. John is particularly good at this, but Cuzomano also felt compelled to spill the beans on his love for niche, German Superhouse. 

Other times, we’ve just got to out-and-out tell you how it is. In what comes closest to encapsulating the essence of Snobbery and where our passion comes from, Cuzomano’s ‘Heroes’ triptych attempts to explain what was, should and could be when it comes to Music.

Less didactically, the other way we love to share is via our (somewhat) monthly playlist releases – compendiums of what we’ve been listening to during this thing called Life. Exemplifying intelligence over algorithm, we gather together and curate our own taste in a futile effort to help you listen to good music before you die. Perhaps we all need to spend some time looking in the mirror, but we’re confident we get it right. Every time.

Since officialising things via the means of this very website, we have released no less than six major playlists (Audio Snobbery IV – IX), each with an accompanying B-Sides. We’ve also compiled our albums of the year for both 2018 and, most recently, 2019. Cuzomano also inexplicably shit all over Valentine’s Day.

And this is where we find ourselves, on the eve of 2020. Our livers barely holding up and our lifestyles undeniably increasingly questionable to our fellow Millennials, we will continue to strive to entertain you in the years to come and convert you to our way of thinking. Music matters, it really does.

A toast to 2019, a farewell to the 2010s, and a very Happy New Year and Decade to all of you, our most treasured readers.

With love, as ever.
Cuzomano, Easy C, John, El Mascarado and Otacon