Music Banter - View Single Post - Why do others call my musical taste boring?
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Old 07-26-2016, 05:58 AM   #12 (permalink)
Terrapin_Station
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Join Date: Nov 2015
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It seems like you're thinking that dull has something to do with whether music is memorable. Memorability is something different, and it's relative to individuals' experiences, tastes and knowledge.

What folks would mean by saying that one's tastes are dull is that especially given knowledge of one's socio-economic status, age, locale, etc. one's tastes are very predictable or typical.

The more important issue is whether it matters if someone's tastes are dull. I don't think it does. The game isn't to impress other people. It's to listen to music you like.

There's often some good-willed even if misconceived pressure to make sure that people are exploring their options, but even after they do, they might prefer predictable/typical artists. For example, progressive rock is one of my favorite genres, and I've explored hundreds of progressive rock artists, but my favorites are still Yes, King Crimson, ELP, Genesis, etc. (sticking to artists who are non-controversially considered prog). When I list my favorite prog artists, a lot of folks probably figure that I'm not very familiar with the genre outside of the relatively mainstream stuff. That's not true. It's just that the relatively mainstream stuff just so happens to be the stuff I like the most. That's true for me with many genres, actually. I like a lot of obscure stuff, too, but often not as much as I like the more well-known stuff in a genre.

However, when it comes to albums I prefer from particular artists, that's a different story.
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