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Music tastes and wider tastes

Another one of those conceptual MD threads.

Basically, I've been thinking about how our music tastes fit into to our wider tastes, and whether tastes in other areas influence what we enjoy in music.

I'm sure plenty of exceptions will crop up in this thread, but for me it seems there is a general correlation between the kind of things people like overall and what they like in music. Specifically with how lowbrow/highbrow their tastes are. I can't, for instance, imagine someone who has generally highbrow tastes, reads Proust, watches Bergman movies, likes abstract visual art and then listens to happy hardcore. Where as your stereotypical college student who likes touchy feely liberal things generally seems to gravitate towards blog rock, and your no-nonsense trash-TV loving folks love their disposible, digestible pop music.

These are obviously stereotypes but I do find there's a general bar of artiness/depth/subtlety in people's tastes, and that carries through into their music. I can't think of any incongruity in my own tastes.

Do you think there's a case here? Do we look for certain properties in all art and entertainment, or are our preferences compartmentalised, with what we like in music completely divorced from what we like in other areas?

I think this is more or less true. I would fall into the blog-rock listening inquisitive type, but even my guilty pleasures are consistent in some way. Mandy Moore and the Ghostbusters movie - pop culture for the greatest common denominator.

WOOHOO HAPPY FUCKIN HARDCORE

Yeah, I generally enjoy stuff that's off the beaten path. I follow this forum quite a bit, so immediately my tastes in music are difficult for most to relate to, but I really can't stand blockbuster movies, I don't watch television (don't even know what's popular anymore), and I could go years without following the local sports teams here in Detroit.

I'm just a rock climbing, trance listening, classic novel reading chemist.

I think it's probably because some people have a desire to seek out weird/unusual/different things, and other people want to have the same thing for lunch every day.

On a related note, it's interesting to see how good indie movies usually are but how much indie music usually sucks.

Hm, I don't really know how to answer this.

My musical tastes are so widespread it's hard to try and link it to any other taste of mine. Then again, I've always found hard to find a "favourite" in anything (movies, food etc.) so I suppose your theory sounds about right.

Re: Music tastes and wider tastes

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J I can't, for instance, imagine someone who has generally highbrow tastes, reads Proust, watches Bergman movies, likes abstract visual art and then listens to happy hardcore.

*raises hand*

This must-read explains it all.

quote:

Originally posted by d-miurge This must-read explains it all.

Sounds like straightforward Marxism to me, although admittedly that's going on the Wikipedia write-up alone.

Mr Mystery: maybe you shouldn't think of your musical tastes in terms of genre but rather think about what you generally like in music. When I was listening to your classics mix, even though you dropped some varied tracks in there, they didn't seem wildly disparate, and I could hear you like certain things in your music, regardless of genre.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Mr Mystery: maybe you shouldn't think of your musical tastes in terms of genre but rather think about what you generally like in music. When I was listening to your classics mix, even though you dropped some varied tracks in there, they didn't seem wildly disparate, and I could hear you like certain things in your music, regardless of genre.

I guess one could look at it that way but then again there's a million tracks that didn't make the cut that thickens the plot even further

quote:

Originally posted by Mr.Mystery I guess one could look at it that way but then again there's a million tracks that didn't make the cut that thickens the plot even further

Of course. I'm not suggesting there's one broad thing people look for in everything that unites all their tastes.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Of course. I'm not suggesting there's one broad thing people look for in everything that unites all their tastes.

I see.

I do believe our musical preferences overlap with our other preferences but you can't really draw any direct comparisons from it.

What the fuck is blog rock?

I've always found it peculiar how most of the teens in America are into hiphop/rap when their lifestyle is the complete opposite of the music they listen to. It's the funniest shit when I'm in the car with friends and they can recite an entire song from Wu-Tang, etc.

quote:

Originally posted by osterzone What the fuck is blog rock?

http://hypem.com/track/955997/Bon+I...s+Barfod+Remix+

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Sounds like straightforward Marxism to me, although admittedly that's going on the Wikipedia write-up alone.

It was a debate in the 70s in France... This question is scholastic. The system created by Bourdieu is inspired by various sociologists, thinkers, philosophers, that sometimes are fundamentally opposed: Marx & Mauss, Durkheim & Weber, Cassirer & Wittgenstein, Husserl & L�vi-Strauss, Merleau-Ponty & Austin, Bachelard & Panofsky, etc.

wiki

I'd say I have a lot of weird instances of highbrow vs. lowbrow tastes, so this is definitely not true for me. Don't want to make this thread about me but I really can't find a lot of consistency and a common thing to the stuff I enjoy.
But I agree that this theory is true for most people. Maybe that's because a lot of them model their taste after an image they have of themselves.

quote:

Originally posted by Meat187 I'd say I have a lot of weird instances of highbrow vs. lowbrow tastes, so this is definitely not true for me. Don't want to make this thread about me but I really can't find a lot of consistency and a common thing to the stuff I enjoy. But I agree that this theory is true for most people. Maybe that's because a lot of them model their taste after an image they have of themselves.

I think this is true for a lot of people.


I mean think about all the people on this site who read the world's greatest philosphers and then listen to tiesto.


I think that most people put all their eggs in relatively few baskets as far as digging deeply or expanding their knowledge. I think some people just aren't as interested in some things as others. Many people simply haven't the time to be equally interested in everything, so they grasp only the most accessible forms.


I think taste may be universally described (tongue in cheek) as 'someone's current level of ignorance regarding a certain subject'

and by that basically what I mean is your taste will constantly change, even if it's very subtle - what you 'like' has to do with what you know. For instance, a lot of people get in electronic music through baser, more popular forms such as arena trance, and then once they start realizing that other things exist, their taste begins to evolve. IMO the same thing happens with film, food, fashion, etc.

(Note: I'm not making a comment on musicality or talent or anything here, so please don't take my comments the wrong way)

It also has to do with conscious ideological positions - someone who is adamantly anti-intellectual or has hipsterphobia may consciously skew their tastes to either prove a point to themselves or reinforce their aversion.

Not sure if I entirely understand your point, but while I agree that exposure is important it's of course not the whole story.
Take a typical ghetto wanna-be gangster who listens to Soulja Boy. Now you can expose him to, say, Techno all you want, he'll never like it. That's because it totally contradicts the image he has of himself and what he connects with Techno. But if you give the same guy a well paid job in a bank where he has to wear a suit every day and can't uselessly hang out with his wanna-be gangster friends for hours, then I think there's a good chance his taste will change. Soulja Boy won't be that cool anymore and the guy might start liking, I don't know, Kings of Leon or something like that. He might even try and read a book for once.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec I mean think about all the people on this site who read the world's greatest philosphers and then listen to tiesto.

Can you have "taste" in philosophy? It's not really a question of aesthetics, is it?

quote:

Originally posted by Meat187 Not sure if I entirely understand your point, but while I agree that exposure is important it's of course not the whole story. Take a typical ghetto wanna-be gangster who listens to Soulja Boy. Now you can expose him to, say, Techno all you want, he'll never like it. That's because it totally contradicts the image he has of himself and what he connects with Techno.

yeah one of the things i said was

quote:

It also has to do with conscious ideological positions - someone who is adamantly anti-intellectual or has hipsterphobia may consciously skew their tastes to either prove a point to themselves or reinforce their aversion.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Can you have "taste" in philosophy? It's not really a question of aesthetics, is it?

well for one, i don't think some people don't see the 'beauty' of it.

also, i think philosophy certainly comes down to taste. there have been countless fashions in philosophy. maybe you personally are so objective that this isn't a part of your own experience, but the rest of the world, for better or for worse, runs on trends.

anyways, philosophy was only one example. one could easily compare jk rowling to seneca or tom clancy to hesse.

but, as i alluded to earlier, i don't think taste is strictly aesthetic. I think there are many cultural factors that go into it.

n

quote:

Originally posted by Meat187 Not sure if I entirely understand your point, but while I agree that exposure is important it's of course not the whole story. Take a typical ghetto wanna-be gangster who listens to Soulja Boy. Now you can expose him to, say, Techno all you want, he'll never like it. That's because it totally contradicts the image he has of himself and what he connects with Techno. But if you give the same guy a well paid job in a bank where he has to wear a suit every day and can't uselessly hang out with his wanna-be gangster friends for hours, then I think there's a good chance his taste will change. Soulja Boy won't be that cool anymore and the guy might start liking, I don't know, Kings of Leon or something like that. He might even try and read a book for once.

This.

Remember Music is nothing but vibrations. What if you couldn't perceive these vibrations and assimilate such as 'sound', then that 'sound' becomes something else. Perhaps looking into this would be of great interest to do research on. The synaptic connections and the interpretation of noise and sound into music, etc. What if these vibrations could be seen instead of heard, or even both...

it makes you wonder about people's perceptions of what is considered intellectual and what isn't. for example, consider an individual who graduated top of his class as an English Major. He's certainly well read; he's also efficient and adaptable to the system. But while individual A contemplated the material he was fed by the institution, another "unconditioned" young man is already writing a novel which will change the way society views the world. the ingenious kid who never went to school was able to learn on his own without being a product of a system. in many ways, humans can be simplified to lab rats. point being, taste is conditioned.

You really are a pretentious twit, Winston.

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