written March 3rd, 2009 · 0 comments

I was just listening to All Songs Considered and they were beginning an interesting discussion on their Blog about why we listen to the music we do. I read through the comments and found that most people were writing about specific examples of what they did and did not like, but not why this was, and many others wrote about associating music with past experiences, making certain music significant for them. I wanted to add my 2 cents.

My Post:

The music that I find myself listening to over and over again includes CDs that my parents played when I was a kid. For instance, I will never tire of Sting’s The Dream of the Blue Turtles, Bryan Ferry’s Bete Noire, or Tears for Fears’ Songs from the Big Chair, no matter how corny they may be for others. However, there were CDs in my parents’ collection that I admired beyond sentimentality and recognized that they had been created by very musical and innovative artists (such as Sting, David Byrne and Elvis Costello) and I continued to discover more of their music.

I believe my musical tastes began their development through the adoption of my parents’ taste, but I now listen to specific artists based on their musicality and their ability to create impressive melodies and complex layers of instrumentality. This affinity for such music is probably because of my background in classical music (studied violin and piano). For all of the reasons above, I have never been a fan of pop or mainstream music that everyone else likes (the music is most often so weak without the lyrics), with an exception for 80’s music (which I enjoy for sentimental reasons), and I would much prefer to enrich my life listening to classical, jazz or world music.