Rain Dance in Traffic: Radio Makes You Lonely

Hey everyone!

Here is something interesting about music that I have been trying to track and explain for many years now.  Preference is a hard thing to define, especially in music where genres and styles mix, blend, and form completely knew genres all together.  A person that likes blues music will also like jazz, classical, and the standards of rock 'n' roll because all of them share a similar root musicwise.  Of course, no one person on this Earth is that cut and dry about preferences.  We all have guilty pleasures or surprising favorites that seem to defy any sort of previous preference they we have established for ourselves.

This is why, say, making a playlist for a friend of music that you think they will like is such a demanding and complex.  (Note, this is not an excuse for me taking so long to make a playlist for you if I have indeed promised so.  Just so you know, I'm having a killer time doing it!)  Each and every song that you put on that playlist for a friend is colored by not only your own preferences but your own expectation of what your friend will like. Just because I like a song a lot and it fits into a genre that my friend likes does not mean they will enjoy the song.  A number of other things have to be put into consideration, such as lyrical content, complexity of music, and overall talent of the artist.  For certain friends, I put much more stock in the lyrical content of a song before putting it on a playlist than the quality of the guitar playing or the inclusion of a bagpipe in the background of the song.  For other friends, it is exactly the opposite.

A person's preferences also have a lot to with the music they listened to growing up.  Take me for example, both my mom and my dad love James Taylor, Glenn Miller, Garth Brooks, Hootie and the Blowfish, and Stevie Ray Vaughn.  That collection (along with my dad's fondness for Van Halen, Earth Wind and Fire, and Chicago and my mom's love for Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston, and every love theme for an 80's romance movie) made quite an impression on me.  To this day, I can't hear Your Smiling Face, Pride and Joy, or September without a wave of proud nostalgia washing over me.  Now, how exactly this translates in the music from NEEDTOBREATHE, The Wonder Years, and Four Years Strong that I enjoy so much is hard to nail down exactly.  But, due to the high value we put on nostalgia these days, I have no doubt my parents' mixtapes played a huge role in defining my Spotify playlists.

So, why does all this word vomit matter anyways?  Well, in my mind, I think all of this is proof that we can't just write off an artist or genre just because we are not fans of the music we hear coming from them.  I know I certainly took a while to get into music like rap, house electronic, and post-hardcore, but each genre has become an important stepping stone to me trying to define and mature my taste in music.  Now, I know most people don't put as much effort into "maturing their musical taste" as I do.  But, look at all that goes into your specific preferences in the music you listen to.  Is it too hard to imagine that a rap song or a country will hit those same targets just as well as your classic rock and your sugary Top 40 radio pop?  The world of music is large, much large than what can be defined by popularity and the radio.  Finding something completely new to listen to is one of most satisfying feelings that I can experience.  I think it's worth you giving it a shot.

Thanks for reading everyone!