taste in music

I don't think people really have much choice in their taste in music. Our environment determines what we find pleasing.

Making fun of people's taste in music is pretty much the same as making fun of them for other things they have no control over, like their gender, sexual orientation or skin color.

I have fond memory snippets of listening to ABBA as a wee lad in Germany with my mother and sister. I can't actually recall the actual memories, but when I hear some of those songs I have this odd sense of almost deja vu of being in my Oma's house, her kitchen, for some reason. It's pleasant and I like those old ABBA songs.

Same with something like the Bee Gee's Staying Alive. I remember being in my aunt's house in the 70's with my sister and cousins and we'd listen to that song and dance around with the lack of self consciousness that is reserved for kids, drunks and the insane. I don't dance like that anymore but I still like to hear that song on occasion.

It's popular for some people to bash other people's musical tastes. It usually seems to be a way of attacking another musical tribe. The metalhead might call the Emo kids music shit and the Emo kids will mock the alt-country yokels and the alt-country folks will put down the top-40 country that is heard on the radio.

Maybe in a more primitive society we'd just shoot arrows at each other and try to hack off the enemy's heads, but now we can't do that anymore. And we aren't really allowed to make fun of people because they are a different color either. Or attack them cause they like people with the same equipment as they have. But I suppose it's just part of our human brain (until we all reach some sort of zen like nirvana, as a race) that we have to skag on somebody else. I think by attacking another group we enhance and define our position in the group we have chosen, be it the Metal Army, the Raider Nation or the Republican Party.

It's easier to define ourselves if we have pre-made groups we can latch onto and adopt the mantle of that character archetype as our own. We can mix and match them too, though some types don't go well with others.

taste in music

I don't think people really have much choice in their taste in music. Our environment determines what we find pleasing.

Making fun of people's taste in music is pretty much the same as making fun of them for other things they have no control over, like their gender, sexual orientation or skin color.

I have fond memory snippets of listening to ABBA as a wee lad in Germany with my mother and sister. I can't actually recall the actual memories, but when I hear some of those songs I have this odd sense of almost deja vu of being in my Oma's house, her kitchen, for some reason. It's pleasant and I like those old ABBA songs.

Same with something like the Bee Gee's Staying Alive. I remember being in my aunt's house in the 70's with my sister and cousins and we'd listen to that song and dance around with the lack of self consciousness that is reserved for kids, drunks and the insane. I don't dance like that anymore but I still like to hear that song on occasion.

It's popular for some people to bash other people's musical tastes. It usually seems to be a way of attacking another musical tribe. The metalhead might call the Emo kids music shit and the Emo kids will mock the alt-country yokels and the alt-country folks will put down the top-40 country that is heard on the radio.

Maybe in a more primitive society we'd just shoot arrows at each other and try to hack off the enemy's heads, but now we can't do that anymore. And we aren't really allowed to make fun of people because they are a different color either. Or attack them cause they like people with the same equipment as they have. But I suppose it's just part of our human brain (until we all reach some sort of zen like nirvana, as a race) that we have to skag on somebody else. I think by attacking another group we enhance and define our position in the group we have chosen, be it the Metal Army, the Raider Nation or the Republican Party.

It's easier to define ourselves if we have pre-made groups we can latch onto and adopt the mantle of that character archetype as our own. We can mix and match them too, though some types don't go well with others.