I also own the original cast recording for "Sweeney Todd." So there.

I just read an article through the Quo Vadimus website about "playlistism," the hip, new discrimination technique used by people to disparage others. Apparently, the introduction of iTunes now means that other people will know what sort of music you listen to. The prospect of this scares me, so I will beat you all to the punch and admit it ... I am a music dork. I do not have good taste. My taste is, instead, an amalgam of good and bad music, and I will occasionally listen to crappy music on purpose.

I own the last Britney Spears album. I own the last White Stripes album. I own Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" on CD single. Yesterday, I bought the REM Greatest Hits compilation, and I bought the new Pink album, where she tries to break away from her pop roots somewhat by getting Rancid to play back-up. I listen to Rufus Wainwright. I listen to show tunes, and I have the "Hairspray" original cast recording memorized. I listen to jazz throwbacks, like Michael Buble and the retro Robbie Williams album. I like Britpop and music you can dance to. A good gospel choir can excite me moreso than Jude Law in a swimsuit. I went to a Bette Midler concert when I was a senior in high school, and the girl who went with me didn't even bother calling me a closeted faggot. There, I admit it.

Kacoon, for instance, HATES my taste in music. HATES IT. She bashed me about it on Friendster, for God's sake. She doesn't understand how I could like Dashboard Confessional, which I'm confused by because I actually think Dashboard Confessional is pretty good. She hates Travis, which confuses me because I thought everybody liked Travis. She likes Hole and Courtney Love, and I can only tolerate them. She likes Concrete Blonde, which I only basically understand because I thought they only had one song and it was that one with the scary, angry, off-key chick in dreadlocks. (She told me that was Four Non-Blondes, not Concrete Blonde. Whatever.)

Working in a music store, I do, on occasion, criticize people's taste. But I provide them, if I'm seriously critiquing their choices (like, for instance, if someone's buying a Jewel album), with reasons. Kacoon can't tell me why she doesn't like my music. ("Dashboard Confessional is so whiny ..." she says. "Uh huh," I reply. "So what?")

Once I criticized her husband Mike for liking John Denver, but I didn't really think about my critique of it. I was just feeling anti-wholesome that day, and I said to him that Denver had millions but couldn't bring himself to ever get a decent haircut, which bugged me. And Mike got mad. Really mad. Really, really upset. And I didn't notice, for I thought we were just talking about John Denver, not anything important.

But what he thought was good was important to him. And he was willing to defend it. Though it's good not to get yourself too worked up over it, he has a point. If you like something, you should be willing to defend it.

Who gives a damn if people think my music is bad? Say so. I don't care.

And I guess, to concede this point, I should be nicer to people who listen to Jewel, that poser, bad-poet bitch who tries to come off as deep just because she lived in a van in Alaska. Whatever. If girl ever gets writer's block and needs a song, maybe she can just steal a high school girl's notebook and plagiarize from it.

OK, nevermind.