I thought you ought to know.

https://www.facebook.com/seaninsound/posts/10153363754171113

Disliking and dismissing music are two very different beasts. One is taste, the other is snobbery.

It's 15 years today since I signed up for the DiS domain, and I'm listening to Chromatics for the bajillionth time on a slow train home to celebrate.

It dawned on me recently that I feel like 15 years of running DiS has been a series of 1000s of people pre-emptively trying to make listening decisions for me, and being totally wrong about what I/we'd exclude. They almost always think I'll love mediocre things and fear me /DiS hearing stuff that has any hint of aspiration.

At 15 I started a pre-DiS fanzine - named The SS (Sean and Sian😇) wiSiân Wynneeee, then renamed The Last Resort when she did her GCSEs. It was a friendship that began on the Reef forum, with a shared love of Mtv2's "oeuvre", partly because most of the bands I/we loved were disliked by everyone but a few Melody Maker scribes and Lamacq (thank yRoddy WoombleeeRod Jonessss & co for not being as beloved by everyone you should have been) (and yes, and you tSom Wardnerrrr - most of our DiS co-founders were from your My Vitriol forum as well as Radiohead's).

Meanwhile, I'm texting about the joy of Gwen Stefani and Carly Rae Jepsen after chatting about Wolf Alice, LA Priest, and Father John Misty for most of today... I also realised today how important Epitaph was to me. That sits nicely with the Stereophonics and Travis epiphanies I had watching TFI Friday.

What I'm trying to say is that I don't know what my taste is or isn't so how can you? I don't expect to love Garbage or Uffie or Nils Frahm... Despite the endless emails that go replied to, I'm not a closed book. Setting an edge to your taste seems to be the beginning of the end. It's sitting in a bath and not wanting to get out, even when it's gone cold. I'm not there. Not yet. Especially not when Deftones, Metric and School of Seven Bells have albums due. And Chromatics.

Here's a question I've asked for 15 years or more: Why are so many people so entrenched in their niches? It seems especially bonkers in a time of infinite jukeboxes, where every syllable could be a "this way" arrow. Why bother to publicly 'shut down' a recommendation without a counter argument or link to something better? Then again, there's a lack of counter melodies to great big hooks... People don't seem to know how important being contrary can be, as they're so afraid of being disliked in an era of like buttons when your "love" can be deeply uncool.

I bet almost no-one can correctly guess my 15 favourite albums of the past 15 years. Go ahead punk, make my day.