About my taste in music

{Sorry, I don't do tl;dr.}

Naturally, as a son of a musician, music is and has always been a great influence in my life. It has accompanied me during the brightest and the darkest times of my life, given the many strange things that I've seen/heard/felt some sort of tangible meaning, and made me appreciate the little things in life.

But I've noticed that my taste in music is distinctively different to many people, mostly because it just covers a wide range of genres, eras and styles, and also that I have my set of "rules" when it comes to music. And I've also noticed that people have different ways in which they listen to music. Some people, like me, focus in melody or rhythm, while others focus on lyrics and musical "hooks".

I guess that I might begin with my music rules. Firstly, if the music that I hear has any musical instruments that can be played by a human being (as in, actually play it, tangibly hold the instrument, etc.) then it must not, under any circumstance, be substituted by electronic music synths. I ABHOR listening to a violin, a trumpet, a guitar, EVEN HUMAN VOICE (I hereby declare myself an enemy of any Vocaloid fan/producer/developer/user), that comes from a computer or machine. Not only is it wrong and unnatural, but it is simple torture to the ears. But, hey, I know that musicians who can play those instruments are expensive, so record labels/artists sometimes go the cheap and easy way. Sometimes you can't blame them.


As I mentioned earlier, I've realized that people listen to music differently. First off, I was born and raised among classical musicians and classical music. I wasn't introduced to the real rock stuff until I was like 16 or 17. So I have this tendency to like soft, tranquil and good-sounding music, such as ambient and classical itself. But I have an emphasis on melody and rhythm, so then electronic music kicks in. Hence I like trance (for its soulfulness and progressive inter-melodious-phases (what a mouthful)), techno (rhythm and melody), drum & bass (for their artistic play with all audible frequencies and mostly for rhythm. But since the newer d&b bands are crap I stopped listening to d&b), and experimental/minimalism (this one is for rhythm). Glitch, gabber, happy hardcore and electro-rock/electro-pop can all go to hell. They are the abomination, the sick child of electronic music.

There is also a trend that I have noticed within music that is "commercial", or that which is aired on radio 24/7 and gets tops of sales, and which generally sucks. It's a fact that such commercial music gets sold solely because of the "hooks" that it has. By "hooks" I mean the combination of melody, rhythm and lyrics that sticks to your brain and it just won't let go. "Hooks" are predominantly present in music we consider as cheesy. I am not completely against commercial music, sometimes some songs of such type end up being my favorites. And I admit that a lot of people like music like that. It's just that sometimes that music is just plain annoying and gives me headaches. But I have a tendency to appreciate music that may sometimes has no hook whatsoever. Sometimes when I share my music to people they go: "wow, this is just boring", or "why is there so much repetition in this song? there is no theme or hook to it" or even "I can't believe that this can even be considered as music". Sometimes I listen to music as I would look at a painting by Pollock. Sometimes the art medium may be profusely mixed and messed up, without order, without sense, but I can appreciate such art by ignoring the confusion and the sense of senselessness, and enjoy it in its full splendor without looking at the minute details of its apparently destructive construction. Like, half ignore, half look at attentively. That's how I listen to ambient music, and that's how I manage to listen to post-rock hardcore (although I am still in a training process to fully appreciate such style). I can listen to Philip Glass and still like Alexisonfire, music styles that are completely millions of miles apart from each other.

As an example:




When I share my Philip Glass music collection to people they go: "What the hell is this music? Such repetition is just horrible!" And then I come back with: "Well, that music that you listen too is just as repetitive and annoying!" When people share their hardcore rock collection I go: "What is with this music? All distortion and yelling?" And they come back with: "Well, that music that you listen to is just as senseless and destructive!"

And without hooks, I mean, nothing that a person's mind can grasp firmly and walk along with it. As an example:




The good thing is that I expand my musical collection all the time, trying to put in stuff that I've never listened to before in my life, new genres and new bands. Just recently I've been trying to immerse myself into rock music like never before, to catch up with the stuff that I missed while living in a world of only classical music and techno. Recently, I've been finding things that have changed my musical life by quite a lot.

I love music!
'til later... gotta watch the Endeavour space shuttle lift off, the last one done in the night!