I’ll be the first to say that I don’t understand music people.

This is probably because I never was one. When I was in middle and high school, and my peers were watching MTV and going on dates, I was doing homework and watching ESPN. I never started listening to music until, at the age of 17, I acquired my first vehicle.

Suddenly I had both a reason and a time to listen to music. I started out listening to classic rock, moved on to angry, 99.7 the Blitz-type rock for a regrettable summer, and then became the alternative rock fan that I am today. Through it all, I still don’t understand music people.

And you know what I mean by music people. Music people are the people who judge music not by sound but by its “idea” or “meaning” and generally look down on people who happen to like popular music.

Now don’t get me wrong: popular music sucks. Actually, it’s abominable. But that doesn’t give you sanctimonious indie bastards the right to get all smug about it.

It’s that smugness that makes music people (a.k.a “Music Nazis” or “hipsters”) so unlikable. They take their holier-than-thou sentiments too far and apply it to things that they really don’t need to be bashing, but they can’t see that through their cloud of pretentiousness.

For example, The Killers is one of my favorite bands. I like almost all 11 songs on “Hot Fuss,” which is a pretty amazing feat given how picky I am; my computer’s playlist consists of 80 songs, six of which came from “Hot Fuss.” It also includes “Under the Gun,” which is better than anything on “Hot Fuss.”

Anyway, back in December, as I was looking on amazon.com for CDs that I might like for Christmas, I saw numerous reviewers ripping the band. One obvious Music Nazi called the music “nothing even remotely original.”

Ah, there’s that word: Original. This is where these music people are missing the point. I don’t listen to music because it is original. I listen to music because it sounds good, and I listen to The Killers because I enjoy their songs.

But this is not enough to music people. To them, not being original is a sin. This viewpoint is total crap. Original does not equal good. In fact, 95 percent of the time, something is original because no one would ever want to hear it, and thus it has never been done before. If I were to release a CD that consisted only of me banging my hands on a table, it would certainly be original. It would also blow.

Another way that music people amuse me is when they talk about bands that have sold out. For example, Modest Mouse sold out, apparently, when “Float On” made it big. This is despite the fact that if you walked up High Street and found ten random people that say they like that song, I would bet you that nine of them couldn’t name more than three other songs off “Good News for People Who Love Bad News.” Does this sound like a band that sold out? Of course not. They just got lucky and made one popular song.

A former Lantern editor, who for anonymity I will call Nen Banamaker, once told me that Weezer sold out with the song “Photograph.” This made me like the song even more, as though it had more meaning, even if I find it hard to believe a band can sell out halfway through an album. Of course, he was the type of guy that wrote a column about how embarrassed he was when some people found out he had Counting Crows on his iPod, so who knows.

Anyway, this whole “liking music because it sounds good” thing means that I am comfortable liking songs from bands I generally do not like. I happen to agree with Chuck Klosterman when he says that Coldplay is the worst band that he has ever heard. In fact, when I often surf the homework-delaying morass that is Facebook, I shake my head when I see people list Coldplay as one of their favorite bands and wonder if that person and I could ever be friends in real life.

Despite that, I will admit that I like “Speed of Sound.” Why? Because the song actually sounds good, unlike the rest of Coldplay’s mind-numbingly drab repertoire.

I get the odd feeling that most music people would not have the ability to do this. Either Coldplay will be lumped into their good category and feted over like it’s a pair of women’s jeans that they can fit into, or it will be tossed into the dreadful U.K. trash pile. Meanwhile, I’ll continue looking for songs that I actually enjoy, originality be damned.

Jeff Svoboda is a senior in journalism and political science. His lack of music knowledge makes it all the more amusing that someone let him write a column about the subject. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].