As I’ve made abundantly clear throughout my columns, I am a huge fan of music. I scour blogs to discover new artists and dig through crates to rediscover the veterans.

When a new Kanye song drops, you better believe I’ll be bumping it on repeat all day — or at least until one of my suitemates finally tells me to shut the fuck up.

All too often, this music super-fandom is confused with snobbism. We all know the type: the hipster whose favorite artist is transient because they all “sell out” eventually. They liked Bon Iver before he was cool. As soon as their darling musical prodigy receives airplay, the relationship is over. “Mainsteam music has no depth.”

This person is a buzzkill. Not all music needs to be enveloped by symbolism.

That isn’t to say I don’t enjoy the poetic side of music. Some of my favorite songs tell stories so beautifully that if the lyrics were written down they could share a book with Maya Angelou’s poetry.

Among them is Outkast’s “Da Art of Storytellin’ (Part 1).” In it, Andre 3000 tells the tale of Sasha Thumper, a childhood friend who loses her innocence as she grows older and succumbs to the harsh realities of drug addiction. His tragic verse includes the line “We on our back starin’ at the stars above/ talking bout what we gonna be when we grow up/ I said, ‘What you wanna be?’ She said, ‘Alive.’”

The earnestness of that answer illustrates the difficulties of growing up in a poor Atlanta neighborhood. While Andre 3000 became a star, Sasha Thumper couldn’t even make it to his show and was instead found “with a needle in her arm, baby two months due.”

Because of verses like this, Andre 3000 is in the upper echelon of lyricism with Bob Dylan and Thom Yorke.

But profoundness and joy don’t always run concurrently. The most mindless of activities can also be the most fun. Why else would college campuses be full of students getting ungodly drunk every weekend?

We need an escape. Studying Hemingway’s flawless displays of literary modernism is rewarding, but taking shots of Burnett’s and making out with a complete stranger has its own appeal.

If Andre 3000 represents the former, DMX represents the latter. In fact, DMX is often the soundtrack to that type of behavior.

Sometimes there is nothing better than ignorant, abrasive rap music. It might sound ridiculous, but I include DMX’s “Get at Me Dog,” “Party Up” and “Where the Hood at” in my favorite songs.

His music is just plain fun. Play “Party Up” at even the most modest of parties and the crowd will roar to life; I’ve witnessed it.

A few weeks back, I was pre-gaming at a friends and the ratio was favorable: probably six girls and six dudes. In the middle of an argument about the greatness of DMX with my non-believer friend, I cut him off, got up confidently and plugged my iPhone into a cheap set of computer speakers. By the time the song was coming to a close every single girl was dancing in a circle and shouting, “meet me outside, meet me outside, meet me outside …” along to the words of the artist born Earl Simmons.

I had the biggest shit-eating grin since I watched Tim Tebow complete fewer passes than Tom Brady had touchdowns in the first half of the Broncos-Patriots playoff game while in a room full of people with deflated Tebowners.

In music and in life, it’s necessary to occasionally let go and have some fun. Even Andre 3000 has collaborated with the likes of Rich Boy and Unk. Lose the musical snobiness and you may just find yourself in a room full of attractive girls jamming out to one of the craziest rappers of all time.