Musical Range
The iPod tossed up Pink's "Get the Party Started" today on shuffle play, and then after that an Old 97s song, which contrast amused me and then got me thinking: what two songs represent the widest range of my current musical taste?
I think "Get the Party Started" holds down one end pretty well. I have some other hip-hop-ish stuff (such as the recent purchases "My Girl Josephine" by Super Cat and "Here Comes the Highstepper" by Ini Kamoze-which last has been stuck in my head since I made this icon over the weekend), but they're from high school and college when my tastes were a bit broader. The Pink song is newer and not played on alternative stations, unlike, say, Emimem (I vividly remember "Lose Yourself" coming on the radio while I was driving to the first day of the bar exam).
I'm having a bit of trouble deciding the other end, though. I initially thought "country," but I have very little in the way of classic country twangyness, for the good reason that I don't much like it. I'm currently leaning toward something "old timey," like "Baby, Now That I've Found You" off Alison Krauss & Union Station's live CD set (it seems a bit unfair to use something from the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack proper, but "Down to the River to Pray" would also do nicely).
(This is not the same as cognitive dissonance; two songs in the same genre could generate whiplash from their content or just the way they open and close.)
Anyway, that's the range of my musical taste, from Pink to Alison Krauss & Union Station. What about you?
[Edit: I should probably have said what my taste passes through in-between, as well. The bulk of my listening is on the alternative side of pop-rock; my oldest favorite song is the Gin Blossom's "Hey Jealousy," we played Del Amitri at our wedding, and a very quick glance at the "five star" playlist turns up multiple songs by John Hiatt, the Old 97s, Fountains of Wayne, Counting Crows, U2, and the Indigo Girls. Of course we also played the Afghan Whigs covering "Lost in the Supermarket" at the wedding (probably my second-favorite song), and 1965 is up there in my book with the Wallflowers' Breach on the list of albums that should've sold a million copies.]