examining my own taste in music via iTunes stats

[luckyhoss]

I was recently poking around my iTunes, naming things consistent genres and filling in holes in my collection. I got to thinking about how when people ask me the (now pretty rare) question about what music I listen to, I find it hard to answer. That's probably true of all people with well-rounded tastes, right? But I thought maybe just for my

Comments

[luckyhoss]

Thanks for much for the detailed response! It's so interesting to hear the details. Obviously, I know you're a person with diverse taste, and I know some of the genres that you're a total expert in (the many, many genres!).

Yeah I guess it's still hard for me to know what to say. Haha I like how you put it! "I can find something I like in any genre." I'd hate to say I like "everything" because clearly that's a lie; I hate so, so much.

Everyone who knows me even a little bit knows I love metal, but I think that sometimes that gives the wrong impression and people think I am a metal encyclopedia, or that I keep up with all the new stuff going on in the scene, or that I love black or death metal (I like sooooome of it, not much), etc. None of that is true, and then I feel like I disappoint. Then again, is it one of those "challenge girl nerds" thing where they have to figure out exactly hoooow much I love it? I have experienced two kinds of reactions from metal guys and I think that it might be split by age or (I hate to say it) hipsterness? A lot of dudes my age want to really get into something like my feelings about really specific stuff that suddenly feels like a pissing contest, whereas my older metal dude friends (~40 year olds) are just rapturously happy that they're meeting another person who has even heard of Metal Church.

[jimqueer]

Metal Church's self titled album is one of the best metal records of all time.

[luckyhoss]

And they're a band with the awesome thing where there's the band name, album title and song title that's all the same! Metal Church by Metal Church from the album Metal Church!

[glazomaniac]

a mix of those songs would be incredible.

[luckyhoss]

Holy crap, good idea!

[penguindaimyo]

i tried it awhile back. definitely a concept worth revisiting

[glazomaniac]

is bachelor pad jut another name for space age pop? that is as best as google will tell me.

i'm really not an expert in anything. a jack of all genres, expert in none... but i come close here and there if being able to name bands and draw a little history counts as that.

i hear ya completely on giving the wrong impression. (also, on your chosen subgenres of metal to enjoy. i'm a doom/sludge/nwobhm/standard heavy metal sort of fan.) i don't get challenged so often on metal, but in a general fan of music sort of way it happens every now and then. if i met someone into metal, i might come off as challenging as i try to get a gauge on their particulars, but i generally just want to say "do you love pentagram? me too! do you love sabbath? ME TOO! do you love..." etc. with people.

[luckyhoss]

Whoops I forgot to answer you about Bachelor Pad! Yeah, it's just a genre I created for basically what you identified. I've got some less Western-y Ennio Morricone and some crazy comps like The Haschish Party and St. Pauli Affair. There's a few Latin jazz things I have that could go either way, but I eventually lumped them all into Latin.

Yeah, that is pretty much the metal that I love... nwobhm, heavy metal, doom, some stoner, sludge, some experimental stuff. Sometimes when I'm feeling witchy I'll put on Lurker of Chalice or some other evil, spooky metal.

My friends often do this thing we call Weedian Fridays where they have band practice (it's a "space metal" band), and then we all sit around, drink whiskey and/or smoke weed, and listen to Sleep's Dopesmoker on vinyl. When that's done, we just take turns playing stuff that rules on youtube, like last time I contributed "Leather and Denim" by Saxon and some St. Vitus. It's the beeeeeest. And occasionally someone will randomly drone PROCEEEEDS THE WEEDIANNNNNN NAZARETHHHHH!

Also, the best karaoke guy in town has themes every week at one of my favorite bars... a few weeks ago, the theme was "any British metal." Best karaoke theme night ever! This week's theme is work, labor, unions, etc, and I've already thought about it for way longer than is healthy!

[luckyhoss]

Oh yeah, I saw Pentagram a few years ago. I didn't realize how pervasive that guy's problems are. The show was... well, it was not so great. It was one of the first stops on the tour, and apparently the guitarist had just joined the band, so most of the set was just blues jams. And the singer acting sort of embarrassing. Poor Pentagram!

[penguindaimyo]

with the younger dudes, it's almost assuredly the former... most of the metal dudes i've run into will try and put everyone they don't know through that initial corpsepainted dick measuring contest to prove yourself worthy of talking about emperor or whatever the fuck, it's way worse if you don't look like a generic metal dude.