Is anyone else unable to pinpoint what makes them like certain music but not others?
 

I know the kind of stuff I tend to gravitate towards. But often when looking for new artists, 99% does jack **** for me, and then these handful of artists come along I like and I instantly know I will fall in love with those if listened more. Then there's often more which I only start to like if I force myself to listen to them more and remember the songs, but I don't know this prior. Then I always start to wonder, why are these artists doing something for me but others not? How can I recognize early on which new artists to skip and which I should hold around when there's so many bands and time is easy to waste?

Often when I come up with some kind of characteristic that makes me like them over the others, some kind of other artist comes up that contradicts that statement. In Video Games, I know exactly what kind of things I like and don't like, and can easily differentiate different kinds of execution and contexts. In them I can analyze them and describe what is going on and easily see differences between games. In Music, I understand jack ****. It clicks or it doesn't, but I rarely know what to invest time into so it clicks later. Most of the time things don't click right away and need to grow. But most bands are so meh that if I keep looking for more music I often turn overexposed and get mad when I hear any kind of music for a while.

Trying to find new music can be a pain in the ass at times.

Not really. There are a bazillion things that can make me like music and only one thing that can make me dislike it—and that one thing is blandness. I'm always on the lookout for new stuff. Sometimes it's something I hear in a movie or in an ad or playing in a store. Sometimes it's something someone tells me about. Sometimes it's something I read about—often an entire genre heretofore unexplored by me. There are so many decades of amazing recorded music out there and so much interesting new stuff coming out every year that my list of music I want to check out is pretty much never ending.

Hmm. There's some pretty bland and repetetive music I've liked. Banner Pilot basically has the same pop punk song over and over. And it seems like bland depends on what I have already heard before and how much.

There is a ton of different kinds of music out there but I 95% of the time don't feel like listening to them as they don't do it for me as much and instead want more that's like what I already like but not too much. So I stick to rock genres while occasionally stepping outside an album or two.

Surely it's not bland to you though, even if it's not especially groundbreaking or original. There must be something about it that grabs you if you like it.

That seems like a tall order—and one that would continuously get harder to fill the more music you're exposed to.

We definitely have very different approaches to music. For me, if there's a style of music that I haven't really given much of a chance, I'll try to find that one artist or album that clicks with me and use that as my gateway into the genre. Sometimes it doesn't take me very far, but sometimes it leads me into a whole new world of amazing music.

I have to like the voice of the vocalist before a band has any chance with me.
The singer has to have a voice that I feel is very characteristic and if I feel like a singer is one dimensional in range and delivery, that will usually kill my interest in the band/artist right then and there.

Aside from that, I suppose that I'm a big fan of structured songs that really flow without feeling like parts have been forcibly stitched together. Prog usually bores me because I feel like very few prog artist are actually good songwriters, but instead just resort to throwing together a bunch of random ideas until they arbitrarily decide to end the song.

Another few things I seem to gravitate towards:

- solo artists, more than bands
- female vocalists
- guitar playing that doesn't just rely on strumming, palm muting or power chords
- I really like pianos, drums and bass
- instruments like mandolins, bagpipes, accordions, harps, violins, cellos and horns are more than welcome
- I like beautiful music with interesting use of melody and chords
- melodic singing, rather than traditional rock-style singing, growling or rapping
- I increasingly like music with an 'ethnic' feel to it
- I like music to feel lively and expressive. Like the artist really means it and is into it

I don't worry about what genre it is, it just has to speak to me on some level.

I'm not sure what it is that grabs me about banner pilot. I just logically feel like if it was any other band, I'd write off most of their material as mediocre.

My music approach kinda sucks I guess. There was a point I wanted to check out top artists of a buunch of genres but I got lazy. Did get to know a sweet bebop song tho.

Anyways, man.. I thought that prog rock would be THE genre to have more of what you're describing, but.. no? So, what's so progressive about prog then? I do know I dislike it when songs are complex but just feel like a ****load of ideas mashed together which makes it hard to let any of them sink in.

Speaking of expressive music, it's odd to me how when I hear more expressive artists people sometimes say they're cheesy.

I like how you like beauty, because I recently learnt I love weird dissonant distorted guitar parts (especially if contrasted with pretty parts), haha. I'd like them to be used in songs with actual nice songwriting tho, but most of them tend to just go for a more atmospheric /texture focused thing with repetetive rhythms :(. Your guitar strumming also goes completely against my love for punk guitars, and I've loved many vocalists that suck at singing.

Exploring for new music is something I seem to do more and more as time goes by. Not every month though. It comes in these big waves where I just go crazy and check out a hundred different things. It takes time and a willingness to stay a while around things that wont necessarily pay off, so I understand the temptation to stick to one's favorite styles. I think I'm more curious by nature than the average person, so that helps me, since I don't have to force myself to try new music.

I would have thought so too! The thing with prog is that there's usually some critical thing wrong with any given artist that turns me off their material. Commonly one of these things go wrong:

- dull, overly measured and dispassionate delivery
- aimless songwriting
- silly sounding vocalists
- ugly music that's less concerned with feeling than with being technical
- too much of a focus on typical rock or metal instrumentation
- when using classical music elements, they often aren't done well

So... you could say that I want to like a lot of prog bands, but can't.

I feel like it's pretty common among music nerds (not used as a derogatory term - I consider myself a big time music nerd) that more sincere or straight forward emotional expressions in vocal and lyrics isn't appreciated as much as more obtuse/opaque delivery and sentiments. Take that observation with a grain of salt though. It's a poorly worded attempt at explaining a thing I don't quite have a good grasp of.

I like a lot of ugly, dissonant music too. My favorite band is after all Dir En Grey :)



There are always exceptions to the things I said I like and dislike. PJ Harvey, for example, fits right in alongside a million different typical rock music characteristics that I don't like... but I like it when she does it for whatever reason.

An example of a song that ticks off several boxes of what I like, as I described it above, is this Cristina Branco song:

Can never be sure what I'll like, but for whatever reason I find that music made by people with some combination of subpar musical ability, low IQs, and a complete lack of class is like crack to me if they have some kind of unique aesthetic. From Manowar to Ke$ha to ICP to Nazi punk, it all calls to me to an extent that baffles me at times.

Maybe you just have a big heart - like the sort of person that when given a choice of which kitten to adopt, takes the cross eyed, retarded one with lumpy fur and three legs.

I think at least partly it's more that I'm pretty anti-social and enjoy poking polite society in the eye, so on some level I can relate to music with little connection to mainstream social norms and a (lack of) maturity level approaching my own. Sometimes I feel like I'm simply too smart to be the trailer trash wannabe that I am.

So, thoughts on Kid Rock? As a non-American, I always imagined that would be the definitive trailer trash music. For the record, I can't stand Kid Rock. I think his music is terrible and dumb, so maybe right up your alley? :p:

I actually listened to one of his albums the other day cause I thought the same thing. Meh. I like his singles for the most part, but after that he can't really keep his persona as "charming", and the songs aren't really there either. Unless I'm just not giving him enough of a chance he seems like the kind of artist who shoots his wad on a few songs and then produces steaming piles of filler.

I've only bumped into his music occasionally but there didn't exactly seem to be a lot of variety to it.

While on the topic of somewhat cheesy/"uncool" music that won't generally find an audience on MB, here's a few things I like a LOT.
I don't expect you to check it all out, nor to like any of it, but I imagine you would be the only other person on this site who could even possibly see the appeal:

Hey now, Kylie gets a lot of credit around here.

As for the OP, I used to have an issue with communicating how I feel about music to myself and others but the more I tried to fix that and practice it, it became easier to identify what it is that I don't like about a song, artist, or album. I still have a lot of room for improvement on that though. Just keep trying and if people ask you what the hell you mean by something that you said on an artist, that's an opportunity go deeper into how you really feel about the music that's being discussed. This can be a rabbithole towards argumentative close-mindedness though, so proceed with caution.

And never be afraid to sound like an idiot. If you hold back cause you're self-conscious about sounding like you don't know what you're talking about then you'll probably ignore the best bits.

I, too am largely mystified by what exactly causes me to love certain things and be utterly ambivalent toward other artists, even those which seem to have all the qualities I should like based on my other favorites. I may just be a picky curmudgeon who wants to listen to the same 30 songs over and over, though.

Kylie!
Kylie >>>> Madonna
It always irks me when people-- outside of this forum, anyway-- always credit Madonna as the most important pop (mainstream pop) innovator while ignoring people like Kylie Minogue. Though I hear she's much more appreciated outside of America.

I, too like a great deal of uncool music (I have a deep and undying fondness for failed early 2000s girl bands + bad french snythpop) but I couldn't possibly fit all of it in one post.

Madonna never really did it for me. I don't find her all that good of a singer. Especially not during her breathy, sexed-up 90's time.

Bad French synthpop is a genre I have yet to explore. I'm sure I'm missing out, big time!

Why must we choose between Kylie and Madonna? Both are ace and I would sex up in their primes.

I like different kinds of music for different reasons, but one quality that sticks out for me is what I call "color" in music. This is found most readily in certain kinds of classical music - particularly Debussy, Ravel, Satie, and the other "French impressionists" - as well as psychedelic rock.

To me, the following two pieces of music are really kinda the same. They're both extremely "visual" in a way that's hard to describe, unless you simply "get it."

I guess I get what you mean, they both give off a similar feeling through a different type of music, similar to how you can look at two horror paintings with entirely different art styles and content that still give off the same creepy vibes.

You are! I'm a longtime unrepentant Depeche Mode fan, so I can tolerate quite a bit of cheese and synthesizers.


Because Kylie is objectively better. I admit I like some songs from the Erotica era, though.

So do you also have mild synesthesia then? I don't find that certain genres are necessarily any more colorful than other ones. But I'm often drawn to certain artists for the same reasons, especially if many of their songs tend to be overwhelmingly blue/indigo (like The Durutti Column and John Cage--there's also lots of dark green, black and dark blue there-- and Julee Cruise)

I could totally get into this! Sometimes, it sounds uncannily like circa Construction Time Again era Depeche Mode, even though it's from 1998 according to Allmusic. Definitely going to return to this a bunch more times and see how much I get into it.

I've been a fan of Depeche Mode since Ultra, which was the first album I got from them and the first time I even heard any of their songs. I have basically all their albums now and I like most of them. The two first albums aren't great and I'm not a big fan of Sounds of the Universe either, but most of their albums have plenty of solid songs. Despite a couple silly sounding tracks, my favorite remains Some Great Reward.

Yes, definitely; it's oddly charming.

Ultra was probably the first album of theirs that I became truly obsessed with, although Black Celebration was my first favorite. I don't listen to their newer albums much, honestly; I tend to just play Black Celebration, Violator, Ultra and Songs of Faith & Devotion on repeat. I'm fond of Some Great Reward too, though. "Blasphemous Rumors" was on allll of my angsty mix cds as a teenager.

No, I didn't mean "colors" literally. I don't associate particular sounds with certain colors, it's just that the word "colorful" is the best way for me to describe some forms of music. Some forms of music are just more "visual" to me. When I listen to Bach, Beethoven or, say, most Led Zeppelin, as much as I like their stuff it isn't really "visual" music. But when I listen to most Tame Impala, Debussy and Ravel, the characteristics of the music have me imagining all these visual things going on. It's like there's this whole other dimension to that kind of music. For example, the video I posted of the Tame Impala song is the kind of thing that will be going through my head while listening to the song even if I'm not watching a video. But that video is perfect for the song. The song just naturally seems to lend itself to all kinds of imagery like that. Same with the Debussy piece.

But of course there's also borderline stuff.

I only like music that is fast, midpaced, slow, or tempo-less

Here's some unwoke whitified stuff to ease you into listening to the blacks being allowed to make music. I don't care though, shouting into a well is an unrewarding hobby.

While I like their newer material quite a bit, I think the last truly excellent album was Exciter. The newest one, Spirit, also really grew on me after a while, but they will definetely never recapture that vibe they used to have in the early 90's and the 80's.

I like Black Celebration a lot too. "Stripped" and "Here is the House" are two of my favorite DM songs. "Blasphemous Rumors" too! :) It's quite overdramatic, but I love those synth lines. There's just an atmosphere to that track that will always amaze me.

I do a lot of browsing and often skip a band after 5 seconds of preview. My main turn offs are mediocre vocals and style clones. I tend to seek novel experiences rather than someone trying to emulate a band that's already played a style of music better than them.

Usually, for me, what the main "grab" is, is usually vocals that grab my attention. If the vocals sound, in my opinion, mediocre, or just doesn't seem right, that's when I turn off the song. Also, If there's a ton of swearing every 3 seconds, that is sure to make me skip the song

But what's also important is the backing music. I like pretty much anything from relatively quiet to medium loud. If it's too loud or too quiet, I usually just skip the song.

If I'd judge a song this quickly I'd skip 99% of the music I listened to. Unless I don't want a particular sound or am looking for something unique

I think I understand my own taste in music. I go for music with simple, up-tempo and in-your-face melodies. The kind of melodies which attach themselves to your mind after just hearing the song once.

My first major love in music, when I was nine years old, was The Dave Clark Five and the Beatles. Later I became fond of the Beach Boys, Herman´s Hermits (only when I was a kid, I grew out of it), the Kinks, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream. And still later I developed a deep love of Blue Öyster Cult. During the 1970 I also dug Steely Dan, Yes, Deep Purple, Budgie, Led Zeppelin, Kiss and the Village People. During the 1980s I liked Madonna and the Pet Shop Boys. Artists from the 1990s which I have become fond of were Army of Lovers, Aqua, the Queers and
E-rotic.

As you can see I have dug a lot of crassly "commercialistic" artists. I suppose that is because the artists with simple, easy-to-comprehend melodies tend to be the most successful, commercially. My taste in music tends to align with that of "the crowd".