when the one cd a year brigade ask'what music you into?'

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Ok, they can talk great share options, claim that the workplace is golden and profess that Weller is God, but most of the time I get myself into a right tizzy, when asked this question on works' nights out etc.
Usually I'll say something lame like 'I just 'Love Music' ', but i always feel like i've been innacurate and they leave me thinking like I'm an Andrew WK fan or somats.

I hate talking 'music' on these socials

Tips welcome, other than'stop being such a fucking snob!'

― panico (panico), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 01:09 (twenty-three years ago)

I usually say something like "lots of stuff, mostly rock", as if that narrows it down.

― Sean (Sean), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 01:24 (twenty-three years ago)

"I like that which is good"

Although I've already been called a music Nazi twice today for slagging off 99% of UK indie releases in 2002.

― Charlie (Charlie), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 01:46 (twenty-three years ago)

If one's taste runs broad or deep, this kind of question can be traumatic. My typical answer is similar to Sean's, but I'll name-drop maybe one or two artists (some recognizably safe veteran, say) as a point of conversational entry. "I've been listening to Prince for a long time" seems to work for me.

― briania, Wednesday, 13 November 2002 02:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Ususally it's something like: "Well, lately I've really been into [not too out-there artist that perhaps they've heard of]... I don't know, I go through phases, ya know?"

― Clarke B., Wednesday, 13 November 2002 06:21 (twenty-three years ago)

I always have a pile of CDs on my desk at work. Sometimes people pick them up and ask about the music. Sometimes people pick them up and ogle Trina's furry bikini or the arse on the front of Booty Bounce. Either way they get the general idea. The very nice Dutch bloke I sit next to got very animated when I finally brought in a Beatles CD!

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 10:05 (twenty-three years ago)

"Oh you mean there's MUSIC on those CDs I buy? Shit, I am a plastic fetishist."

― nathalie (nathalie), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 10:14 (twenty-three years ago)

I doubt that someone who buys one CD a year cares very much about music (unless they're into downloading, or they listen to their old records but don't buy new ones, or the radio really means a lot to them). So I fumfer my way through a half-assed response ("oh, you know... whatever, it's all good") (which isn't true, obviously, but I'm usually anxious to change the subject).

Actually, I feel put on the spot when ANYONE asks me what music I'm into. Even if it's someone who's very knowledgable, I never know how to answer that question.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 10:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Hey I prefer this question to my opinion of sporting events I am almost entirely ignorant of.

― tigerclawskank, Wednesday, 13 November 2002 10:52 (twenty-three years ago)

As Tag will testify, a very lame "I like everything" (albeit this is true, in a way)

― Jeff W (Jeff W), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 10:53 (twenty-three years ago)

I look at them very, very slowly from under my black beret, light a Canadian gauloise and say 'I'm glad you asked that. Godspeed you! Black Emperor havent been the same since they moved the exclamation mark'. Then I blow smoke in their face and go back to my Will Young cd.

― jon (jon), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 10:56 (twenty-three years ago)

I say dance music, and then "oh I like other stuff aswell, just mainly dance these days".

― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 11:17 (twenty-three years ago)

Doesn't this thread assume that someone's love of music is only confirmed or validated in terms of their consumption of music. Surely this connection is bogus.

― alext (alext), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 11:47 (twenty-three years ago)

I doubt that someone who buys one CD a year cares very much about music
On what basis do you decide that? Maybe he/she isn't brainwashed like us lot, maybe s/he isn't into music as a commodity. ;-)

― nathalie (nathalie), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 12:14 (twenty-three years ago)

yeh, it depends WHAT that one CD was...

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 12:17 (twenty-three years ago)

I scream 'fuckkk youuuu' and go to work on their eyeballs with the first blunt instrument that comes to hand before headbutting them to death.

― Roger Fascist (Roger Fascist), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 12:26 (twenty-three years ago)

I've actually started saying that I like the Meatls and Meatls offshoots. I reckon it's best to tell them something that leaves them confused.

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 12:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Pull your David Brent baseball cap on backwards, and reply "MC Hammer Shit". Don't tell them that you spend your evenings listening to Disinformation's hi-fi recordings of electrical static and radio noise.

― Andrew Norman, Wednesday, 13 November 2002 12:46 (twenty-three years ago)

I resort to hand-waving 'this and that' movements, if they probe further I bore them senseless with passion du jour, if they don't I go to the bar.

[If feeling evil say: 'Wht about you?' and then smile in a polite way and say 'oh' and look all innocent, so that they wonder at the inner-workings of my brain.]

― Anna (Anna), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 14:47 (twenty-three years ago)

i just tell people i like music that was released between 1975 and 1985 and anything from later years that sounds like it might have been released during that decade ...

or i exhale deeply and tell them what happened to be on my stereo that day, combined with an adjective that incorporates the word "fucking."

for example, yesterday:
"the higsons. they're afuckingmazing."
and today:
"swervedriver. unbefuckinglievable stuff."

― tony bleach (blackshoeswhitesocks), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 15:25 (twenty-three years ago)

I usually hem and haw sheepishly before changing the subject.

― mike a (mike a), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 15:38 (twenty-three years ago)

The best of everything. Absofuckinglutely.

― nickalicious, Wednesday, 13 November 2002 15:38 (twenty-three years ago)

I usually say something ridiculously inflamatory like "I tend to like music that kicks you in the teeth and drags you around the room by your scalp, not the sonic Soylent Green that you busy yourself with."

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 17:22 (twenty-three years ago)

I say I like mellow acoustic stuff mostly and you'd probably hate it or want to hang yourself.

― Chris V. (Chris V), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 17:39 (twenty-three years ago)

I like pop and rock.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 17:43 (twenty-three years ago)

I used to say "I like the best of everything." But then I realized who the fuck would say "I like the worst?"

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 17:43 (twenty-three years ago)

I say I listen to just about everything, and then if they press further, I just spew, naming genres in a kind of backwards chronological order. If I feel cordial towards the person asking, I'll also ask what they like, and try to find a few broad areas of semi-agreement ("Carly Simon? Well, I like some of her early stuff fine...the Grateful Dead sometimes intrigues me, but I haven't really had the chance to investigate...oh, I just think it's sad that Whitney Houston has been wasting her talent.") Otherwise the aforementioned genre-spew scares them off, as intended.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 18:07 (twenty-three years ago)

"punk"

― Jonathan Williams (ex machina), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 18:14 (twenty-three years ago)

I just wanted to mention a brilliant line in Spinal Tap. When the band goes to play the Air Force base their liason (the actor's name escapes me at the moment) meets them. "I just want you to know that we're big fans of your music and all your albums," he says. "And when I say 'you' I don't mean you particularly, just the whole genre of rock and roll."

I want to use that in a real conversation somehow.

― Yancey (ystrickler), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 18:15 (twenty-three years ago)

Yancey: Also -

"We love both kinds of music - country and western"

from Blues Brothers

― Jonathan Williams (ex machina), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 18:18 (twenty-three years ago)

pop, rock, jazz but never classical

― ddd, Wednesday, 13 November 2002 18:29 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't tell them.

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 18:31 (twenty-three years ago)

I doubt that someone who buys one CD a year cares very much about music

On what basis do you decide that? Maybe he/she isn't brainwashed like us lot, maybe s/he isn't into music as a commodity. ;-)

Did you see my parenthetical thought right after that?

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 13 November 2002 20:51 (twenty-three years ago)

I usually mention three or four bands/artists that I like but which have no connection to each other. "Oh well, I like Betty Boo, XTC, Gerogerigegege, Daniel Johnston..."

― Chriddof (Chriddof), Thursday, 14 November 2002 00:09 (twenty-three years ago)

I usually say "whiny white guys with guitars", because that covers a good 95% of my collection right there.

― Nick Mirov (nick), Thursday, 14 November 2002 01:07 (twenty-three years ago)

I just name made-up bands.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 14 November 2002 01:09 (twenty-three years ago)

I say, "I'm just a run of the mill music dork"
If they mention a famous band that I like, I probably seem like I really like them, even when I don't that much, it's just that I like music a lot in general and I jump on that. e.g.
person: "Do you like No Doubt?"
me: "Oh, yeah they're great. I love Rick Ocasek or Jerry Harrison's production work with them. They've got a little bit of the Cars and Talking Heads in them after all."
person: "I like Gwen's hair."

― A Nairn (moretap), Thursday, 14 November 2002 04:32 (twenty-three years ago)

http://www.beefheart.com/zigzag/pictures/MortonDeath1.jpg

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Thursday, 14 November 2002 07:07 (twenty-three years ago)

....talk about whatever Cd they last bought.

― nick.K (nick.K), Thursday, 14 November 2002 07:22 (twenty-three years ago)

"the stereophonics"

― ko hsüan, Thursday, 14 November 2002 07:56 (twenty-three years ago)

David Gray

― James Ball (James Ball), Thursday, 14 November 2002 10:31 (twenty-three years ago)

Good thread. It's a nightmare eh. Sometimes I name a genre, but I hate pigeonholing my tastes, eg "Well I like punk/ soul/ pop when you're into all three/ hate stuff from all three as well. Even worse is saying, as there is a tendency to, "eh ... I'm into all sorts", it's like saying you like any old guff. It's the difference between liking any old crap and being a discerning fan, cherrypicking the best in each genre.
But I also love being able to find 'common ground' on nights out with workmates or whatever, normally in the form of 'proper' pop like early Madonna or Wham or Dexy's or whatever.
Colleagues normally pick up on what a music geek I am after a while - when I come in at lunch clutching an Uncut, MOJO or whatever, and the Belle and Sebastian mousemat is a bit of a giveaway.

― Paul Cunningham, Friday, 15 November 2002 20:48 (twenty-three years ago)

its a giveaway that theyre free to pick on you, not that youre a music geek

― Chupa-Cabras (vicc13), Friday, 15 November 2002 20:57 (twenty-three years ago)

I try to say something like "Oh, loads of stuff - old soul, drum & bass, pop, hip hop, rock, country, techno..." but I'm usually interrupted by people who want one answer, and then stop listening. I heard one colleague talking to another a while ago about what I was listening to all the time, and one said I was a hip hop fan, and another said "No he isn't, he listens to drum & bass".

However, the important thing is to disabuse the common notion (I am middle-aged, wear a suit at work) that I listen to classical music, as anything bar that and opera is liable to be accurate some of the time.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 18 November 2002 23:28 (twenty-three years ago)

I used to say 'techno' because that was fairly accurate even though it got me stuck in a lot of horrid awful conversations with Oakenfold fanboys.

Nobody asks me that question anymore. They just look at the CD cases at my desk, or in my room, and go 'I've never heard of any of this'. And this used to make me kind of happy inside when I was a smug collegiate/high school-age fuck but now I just want to be loved.

― Tom Millar (Millar), Monday, 18 November 2002 23:45 (twenty-three years ago)

i say "it's all awful and always has been — but this is about to change" and start yelling in a high voice

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 19 November 2002 00:02 (twenty-three years ago)

I say to them, I says, "Anal Cunt."

(which is a total lie, but it gets them fuck off most of the time.)

― Ian Johnson (orion), Tuesday, 19 November 2002 00:05 (twenty-three years ago)

"Jay-Z and Fairport Convention, and nothing in between": obviously this is a lie but it gets people INTERESTED in me (the key factor)

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Tuesday, 19 November 2002 00:06 (twenty-three years ago)

its a giveaway that theyre free to pick on you, not that youre a music geek

Same thing!

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Tuesday, 19 November 2002 16:16 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes, indeed Jeff did give that most frustrating of answers ("I like everything") when I asked him what sort of music he liked. I should've known better as I find it damn near impossible if people ask me.

Anyone who answers with a lofty "Oh, you wouldn't have heard of them" deserves to be treated with utter scorn. Working in an office has kicked most of the snobbery out of me, although I still get the "oh Tag won't like that, it's popular" routine. It's all good-natured though. One guy at work regularly wanders over to look at whatever CDs I've brought in that day and dismisses each one with "More of your wacky music". It's a tradition we have.

― Tag, Tuesday, 19 November 2002 16:47 (twenty-three years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.