Quick:
What question do you ask the most when you meet someone new? Their name, what they do, where they live... perhaps? Yes yes, all interesting questions, but such chit-chat are mere polite pleasantries, of which content I am most likely going to forget in 5 min. Because frankly whether or not I am interested in even knowing the answer is.. oddly... solely determined by the content of the answer itself. What do I mean? I mean that if your answer isn't totally cool, I won't care to remember it, and I really didn't care to ask it to begin with either.
....However.
There's one question in which I am interested in the answer, no matter what the content of the answer is. "What kind of music do you listen to?"
Why? Because I find it absolutely fascinating to find out what people say.. what pieces of music makes them tick, and why. Like an ongoing survey, I find the answers give me a greater insight into why music works... and it's a mystery that I've even written about professionally and academically because it is a pervasive, yet poorly understood phenomena.
The most common answer I get however, is striking...because not only is it vague, it is incorrect. ( waaaait...How can you possibly be incorrect about your own preferences? ... Well, if Monty Python has taught us anything, it's that your favourite colour is...)
No, in all seriousness, I find that many people say what they really don't mean. By that, I mean these 2 answers:
"I like everything."
"I like **** and ****, and whatever else. I just like good music, I'm really open minded."
Oh, open minded are we? I highly doubt it. You're into indie rock and think you're cutting edge? Do you ever give Justin Timberlake a chance? Or if you listen to everything, does that include rap and country? noise music?
...The claim that people have open minds when it comes to music is highly overused, and rarely achieved. And really, it's a shame, because what is "good" is often lost by the filter of what is preemptively decided upon by whatever sociological forces shaped your preferences.
So.
I've made a habit to collect songs that push the envelope. Pieces of music that show what neat things music can do. Songs in all genres that have points of extreme interest that I believe everyone can respect. Songs that make you say "wtf... wow, that's pretty cool".
That's where this blog comes in. I plan to share them here, mostly because I'm losing track of the long list of bits and pieces that have really shaped my conceptions of music and what it can do. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did when I came across them!
I went to an audition a while back and the singer for the band asks me basic questions, then he says, what kind of music do you like. I told him straight up, most kinds, I'm not a large trance fan, or speed metal, and some death metal. Not a huge rap fan either but I have some, and I'll listen to it, just not constantly, it gets old with me pretty fast.
ReplyDeleteHe asked me what about country? I said what's wrong with a little Brooks and Dunn? Big and Rich? Kenny Rogers? And he mentioned when people say they listen to anything, what they mean to say is they listen to anything on the radio stations they have programmed in their car. They hear a lot of different songs, but the same type. So he always asks, and can tell people don't know what they're talking about when they say "except country". He would ask, what about slipknot, and I was like I love listening to them. He told me to ask about them to someone who says everything but country. Watch them usually go... well no... I don't listen to that kind either.... lol. Black Flag? Me First and the Gimme Gimmes?
ask them about classical, and they're like, yeah, I listen to it (which means, I've heard some of it before) lol, or the always forgetable Jazz, no one remembers this when they're naming off types of music. "Oh yeah, I guess I don't listen to that either"
in conclusion, Monty Python, Chuck Norris, and Images of Welcome all kick ass