I recently realized something. Musically, I am a hipster. While this doesn’t carry over into other aspects of my life (at least as far as I know), it greatly affects my feelings on music.

My favorite genre of music is alternative, specifically alternative rock. While I’m not necessarily into all those “hipster bands,” I do have a hipster outlook on music. Basically, what this means is that I don’t like it when music gets popular that I was listening to “before it was cool.” And, of course, this most often happens with alternative rock music. Take Bastille for example. Their song “Pompeii” has recently become very popular on pop radio. However, I was listening to that song ever since the end of summer. The song was even released well before that, in February. Yet people are just now hearing it, even though they only care about pop hits.

Now, of course I’m glad that alternative music is gaining exposure. After all, everyone deserves to hear good music. However, a radio station can’t find a song eight months after it comes out and play it over and over, or else that makes it repetitive and annoying for those of us that already knew about it. And almost anyone can vouch for me on this one: pop radio does make songs annoying.

So, while it is great that people are listening to new and cool music, they shouldn’t do so just because it’s popular. Take the five minutes it requires to find cool alternative music, and listen to some that you like. Don’t wait for pop radio to show you an ancient alt rock hit, find your own.