The title was difficult to word, so lemme explain. Imagine there’s this guy, let’s call him Phil. Phil is your friend and he’s cool and all, makes you laugh hysterically, but he has this one flaw. Phil is an insufferable music snob. Terrible, right? He refuses to listen to anything you try to play for him and thinks the stuff that he listens to is the best, doesn’t understand why you like what you do (whatever that might be). You’re still buds with him, you’ve just realized not to play your music around him. It’s all good.
Now, which would be worse?
A) Phil only has a couple hundred songs in his music library (of whatever genre/s). He’s not interested/too lazy to go search out anymore, or maybe he can’t comprehend how much music is really out there. Whatever. Point is, he doesn’t have much variety.
B) Phil has about 300GB of music. He even carries around an extra laptop everywhere just to hold it! There are dozens (if not more) genres of music, and thousands of albums. He’s got Paula Abdul next to Pink Floyd; bubblegum dance pop next to black metal. He has hundreds of well-known bands and thousands of obscure ones. Doesn’t matter whether it’s Brokencyde or The Beatles, it’s on that laptop. Unfortunately, he listens to approx. 1% of it – say, oh, three thousand songs. See, Phil for whatever reason collects all this music (maybe he’s OCD). He tells others how great it is to be musically broad. If you say "Nah dude I don’t really like dig rap" or "I can’t stand metal, man", he gives you a look and tells you how you’re missing out***. He’s a good friend but he’s not perfect, and you hate his superior attitude. Funny thing is, Phil might hear a song and think "Well that doesn’t sound bad" so he adds the entire discography to his library. BUT, if it doesn’t automatically catch his ear, he never listens to it again. He doesn’t realize this though and continues to add music to his collection and tell people what a wealth of knowledge he is.
Now – which is more annoying to you? In both cases, Phil isn’t the All-Knowing Music Guru that he erroneously believes he is. Which would you prefer him to be out of these 2 options and why?
Try to answer in terms of the question, not in terms of "Well he doesn’t know a lot so I could introduce him to good bands" or "Whoa he’s got a ton of music I’ll never have to pay for another album again!". Thanks. 
***For the sake of the question, let’s pretend that you happen to enjoy the only type of music he loathes – perhaps he was trapped in an elevator as a child and forced to listen to it all day. Poor guy, not his fault really.
Thanks for the answers, I’m just curious as to how others feel on this!
RWPossum: Well let’s try not to get caught up in linguistics :/ I just said "snob" to convey the image of snootiness/smug superiority, not a person who is legitimately interested in music in general.
Well, worse for you as the friend would be if Phil was the second one, because he listens to so much but STILL doesnt like your music, even if he likes lots of others, he shows off, PLUS he doesnt give songs the chance to be heard even if they got epic after the first few lines. The reason the first one is better here for you is because atleast you can justify that the reason he doesnt listen to your songs is because he only likes one genre; when he likes a bunch then you feel that you must have really failed in some way about something you’re really pationate about. He’d also be more passionate about one genre which makes it easier to have different tastes and seperate that from the rest of your friendship, where the second example it seems harder to seperate his habit from his self.
As Phil himself, it would be best to be the second, because atleast he has all those songs as "proof" that he listens to them, maybe he has ADHD and just cant listen to one thing all the time Atleast he has the stuff at his fingertips, and is open to atleast listening to a bit of different styles. The reason the first one would be worse in Phils shoes would be because then he’s so trapped in that one little box that he’s not even willing to listen to the first line of other ones, and thinks he’s superior and is only looking at one part of the entire picture, which isnt a good outlook for him to have in life at all, so it could transfer from music to other areas.
His cockyness could also do that though, and probably not in a very good way 
But hey, if he’s great in every other way then thats good, but it is hard if your passion is music and he doesnt support and/or encourage you in it, and that’s something you’d need to talk with him about, because nomatter what, he should still support and encourage you through the thick and thin, since that is what a true friend is. But everybody forgets sometimes and bringing that up about encouraging could really improve things not only for you, but for him.
February 5th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
too much music can kill a man; too few means he’s specific in what he likes.
I like those with "close-minded" minds in this scenario.
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I, in example, have only 7.13GB in 9 artists; everything else I can listen to on the radio.
February 5th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
to few songs would be worse
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February 5th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
lol wow um….phil with all the music? i love music so we’d be the bestest of friends!!
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February 5th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Haha, I love this. I personally think option B is much worse. If he’s into a specific type of music, even if i hate it, its understandable. Everyone has a little bit different taste in music, and maybe nothing else appeals to him. But if he keeps all that music and doesn’t even listen to half of it, that’s just plain ridiculous and he needs to slim down his itunes. What made you ask this if you don’t mind sharing? Option B is so terrible haha.
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February 5th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
I think A is worse. If someone only likes a couple hundred songs I don’t think I could carry a music conversation with them.
Plus I’m kind of like B, I tend to not listen to a song again if I don’t immediately love it. I wouldn’t mind finding new songs to hear too. Despite how snobby they are, good music is good music.
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February 5th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
I would prefer the first example.
This guy would have to have some other seriously redeeming qualities for me to stick around though!
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February 5th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
He doesn’t sound like a music snob at all. A music snob is passionate about music, and it sounds like his attitude is take-it-or-leave-it. Maybe his cultural interests are elsewhere, like books or movies.
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February 5th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Well, depending on what A listens to, I would say A because chances are the music he DOES listen to is very good. If I didn’t like that genre, then B.
Of course, music doesn’t make the friend though (which I’m sure you already know
).
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February 5th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
Well, worse for you as the friend would be if Phil was the second one, because he listens to so much but STILL doesnt like your music, even if he likes lots of others, he shows off, PLUS he doesnt give songs the chance to be heard even if they got epic after the first few lines. The reason the first one is better here for you is because atleast you can justify that the reason he doesnt listen to your songs is because he only likes one genre; when he likes a bunch then you feel that you must have really failed in some way about something you’re really pationate about. He’d also be more passionate about one genre which makes it easier to have different tastes and seperate that from the rest of your friendship, where the second example it seems harder to seperate his habit from his self.
As Phil himself, it would be best to be the second, because atleast he has all those songs as "proof" that he listens to them, maybe he has ADHD and just cant listen to one thing all the time
Atleast he has the stuff at his fingertips, and is open to atleast listening to a bit of different styles. The reason the first one would be worse in Phils shoes would be because then he’s so trapped in that one little box that he’s not even willing to listen to the first line of other ones, and thinks he’s superior and is only looking at one part of the entire picture, which isnt a good outlook for him to have in life at all, so it could transfer from music to other areas.
His cockyness could also do that though, and probably not in a very good way
But hey, if he’s great in every other way then thats good, but it is hard if your passion is music and he doesnt support and/or encourage you in it, and that’s something you’d need to talk with him about, because nomatter what, he should still support and encourage you through the thick and thin, since that is what a true friend is. But everybody forgets sometimes and bringing that up about encouraging could really improve things not only for you, but for him.
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