Hi, I'm Jabe. I'm a music major at Cal State Northridge. I play multiple instruments. I'm fascinated by music and its innerworkings. I have committed thousands of hours of my life to music, and if all goes according to plan, there will be thousands more. I listen to music and I enjoy music both inside and outside of the academic context.
But I have no idea what my music tastes are.
Like all of you, I listen to music in the car. When I find a new song that speaks to me, I put it in my playlist. And yet, I don't have a favorite genre or style. I don't have a favorite artist or musical group. I don't have a favorite decade or period or era.
If you've seen my Spotify playlist, you know how much of a beautiful disaster it is. There's some Sammy Nestico, Rhett and Link rap battles, Bill Wurtz, and Bo Burnham. There's also some Weird Al, Cuphead, Louis Cole, and Tchaikovsky. But as far as any sort of consistency goes, that's about it. The rest of the playlist is filled with songs that each are the only representative of their respective artist. A single Laufey song. A single High School Musical song. A single Jacob Collier song. A single ABBA song. A single Vulfpeck song. A single Frank Sinatra, Jamiroquai, ELO, Silk Sonic, Frank Zappa song.
Every person that I've shown this playlist to can't resist laughing. And like, I suppose I can see the humor in it. It's a seemingly insignificant jumble of randomly-selected songs that have no apparent or meaningful correlation to each other. But to me, it's not particularly funny. These are the songs that I like, and I listen to them happily. When I decide I don't like a song anymore, I remove it. It's a good system.
But it leaves me with questions. Is the way I consume music and art fundamentally different from my friends'? Or am I just a closed-minded person, refusing to allow myself to explore the nuance of new music, with standards so high that basically nothing stands a chance?
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When I say I don't have a favorite artist or musician, it's not because I "like every artist" or have any hatred for a particular artist. It's because I genuinely don't feel like an artist exists where I like even half of their discography. Bill Wurtz might come close, but it doesn't feel like his music is that much of a step up from the rest. Rather, it just feels like he got lucky. He just HAPPENED to make a lot of music that I enjoy. And this is where I feel I must ask you, the blog readers, what you think of this. Are there any artists that, if you were to play a random song of theirs, you'd probably like it? What do your playlists look like?
The story is very similar when it comes to genre. My playlist is an absolute mess of genres. Some classical, some jazz, some game music, some Bubble Guppies (I'm serious), musicals, parodies, funk, acapella, rock, fusion, latin. And just like with artists, I don't feel like I have a favorite genre. Crucially, this isn't because I "like every genre", it's because I don't personally feel that a song's genre has any impact on whether or not I'll like it. Again, I feel like a total outsider here! People always talk about how they "can't stand jazz" or "love all country music", and yet, I don't really think this even applies to me! I'm capable of liking and disliking any song from any genre no matter what. And this is something I find very confusing.
Some of you might be thinking the following: "Why are you thinking so much about the things you like? Why don't you just shut up and enjoy them?" Well, for one, if there anything you can trust me to do, it's consistently overthink things that would probably be best left unthought about. There's another side to this discussion, though, and it circles back to the title of this very blog: there's a lot of music I like, but I don't know why I like it. Almost every time I discover a new artist and poke through their discography, I am consistently let down, as nothing is ever as good as the song I discovered them through. The same phenomenon applies to genre, style, and time period.
And this is really, really frustrating. I know for a fact that there are thousands of songs currently in existence that I would love and allow into my elusive Spotify playlist. The problem is that I don't know why I like the music that I do, and that makes it impossible to discover new music that I actually like. Some music completely blows me away, leaving me fascinated, with the song stuck in my head for days. And yet, it feels almost random. Like lightning in a bottle, the universe handed me a win as I wade through a sea of losses. It feels good, but it won't strike the same place twice.
My Spotify playlist is chaotic and disorderly. It makes hardly any sense why those songs should be next to each other. And yet, there's still a strand of similarity that connects them. It's like looking up at the stars, seeing a cosmic jumble of glowing spots, seeing the lines that could connect them but unaware of the greater shape they could create. I am no robot. I am a human with complex experiences, unique opinions, and a personal outlook on the world that is shared by nobody. So of course my music tastes aren't "random". There's a strand of something that connects them, I just don't know what it is. And until I figure it out, I'll still be left wondering what could be.
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So what the heck am I gonna do about it? Well, I want to listen to more music. I have to. Even though it can be uncomfortable to branch out, it's crucial in forming an educated and enriched opinion on the artistic world.
But I'm also gonna keep listening to the music I already enjoy without feeling bad about it. My tastes in music, though I can't explain them, are mine and mine only. It doesn't have to mean anything.
Oh, and I'm also gonna ask YOU lovely people what you think about all of this. Mostly, I just want reassurance that I'm not the only person with this issue. What are your music listening habits? How do you consume and relate to art? Share your favorite tunes, or what you're interested in at the moment. I want to heeeear iiiiiit!
Until next time!
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