“What kind of music do you like?” and “Who’s your favorite music artist?” tend to be the some of the first questions people ask strangers in an attempt to get to know them.
I hate those questions. How do I explain to a stranger that my current playlist of favorite songs has almost 200 tracks and it ranges from a Minecraft YouTuber, Dream, to the rock band Bring Me The Horizon, to the ever-so-popular Taylor Swift?
Alec Benjamin, Lovejoy, ENHYPEN, Chase Atlantic, CORPSE, Coldplay and David Guetta, all of them have a place on that playlist as well. Which means on that singular playlist — and there are indeed more — ranges from indie pop and indie rock, through metalcore, hip-hop to K-pop and pop music and so much more.
How exactly would you sum that up in a sentence?
Even if you somehow managed to do that, it wouldn’t exactly go, so to say, swimmingly. The amount of side-eyes I have endured when I showed my playlists in the past is too high to count.
As a preteen who spent my sleepless nights jamming to Nightcore songs — edited to increase the pitch and speed up the sound material — I really do not have any capacity to judge anyone for their music taste. What I won’t ever understand is why some individuals like to do just that.
People seem to be under the impression that your music taste says a lot about you as a person. Is this really true though?
And why do some seem to treat music taste like a personality test?
What exactly does me yelling the lyrics to “Bite Me” by ENHYPEN one minute and then bobbing my head to Dutch Melrose’s “RUNRUNRUN” tell you about me as a person?
What insight does one gain into my brain when I say my favorite band used to be One Direction but then it was Skillet for a while but right now it’s Lovejoy?
If you have an answer for that please do let me know. Save me the trouble of trying to figure it out for myself.
Scientific research seems to argue with me on this, though. David Greenberg, a psychologist at the University of Cambridge, seemed to find a correlation between the type of music one listens to and what kind of person they are.
“Those who have a well-developed ability to understand thoughts and feelings in themselves and others — so called ‘empathizers’ — tend to prefer mellow music that evokes deep emotion,” John Bonfield writes for CNN. “But the world is full of underlying patterns and systems, and those who can more easily identify these connections are ‘systemizers.’ Greenberg’s research shows they prefer intense music that forms complex sounds.”
Great. Now tell me, where exactly would I fall into that spectrum?
I’m getting analyzed enough by my friends when Dream comes on in my car, I don’t need a random psychologist doing it too.
I cannot count how many times I have experienced awkward car rides because I played music that others didn’t like, especially if the individual judging me happened to listen to music that is widely recognized by the masses.
Is it just a misogynistic thing? Are women the only ones who have this trouble? Because when a man likes Swift’s music, for example, he is regarded as the biggest green flag out there. Women, on the other hand, are ridiculed for being whiny and childish. How is that fair?
My entire point here is that music taste, like fashion sense or even human attraction, is a subjective thing. Everyone is going to have a different one, because everybody is different.
Why does that have to be connected to our deep psychology? Why can’t we just like something because we like it?
In this day and age, we are already being judged daily by our appearance, sexual orientation, relationship status, education, hobbies and so much more. Do we really need to add music taste to that mix?
