Have You Ever Been Accused Of Only Listening To One Style Or Era Of Music?

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I was going to type an anecdote, but I have a headache. Suffice to say that it mystifies me when people get all preachy at me for my alleged preference for music of one era to the exclusion of all others (not true, of course).

― Peanuts (Peanuts), Thursday, 4 November 2004 22:45 (twenty years ago)

"You only listen to brass bands, electronic music and hip-hop"

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 4 November 2004 22:59 (twenty years ago)

yes. indie. it's not true.

― the surface noise (slight return) (electricsound), Thursday, 4 November 2004 23:19 (twenty years ago)

yes it is

― bulbs (bulbs), Thursday, 4 November 2004 23:25 (twenty years ago)

*waves fleetwood mac albums in gazebulbs' face*

― the surface noise (slight return) (electricsound), Thursday, 4 November 2004 23:29 (twenty years ago)

haha people seem to think im a metalhead

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 4 November 2004 23:31 (twenty years ago)

im not really, though i love metal

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 4 November 2004 23:31 (twenty years ago)

its my meshuggah and emperor t-shirts

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 4 November 2004 23:31 (twenty years ago)

Someone at work who had seen me wearing headphones countless times once said to me "So I suppose you just listen to classical music all day." I can't imagine how I could have given that impression, as it's as far off the mark as he could get - I listen to nothing close to that. I think I had a happy hardcore CD in the diskman when he said that, if I remember rightly.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 4 November 2004 23:34 (twenty years ago)

haha Martin you must look like a classical fan! Were you doing a happy hardcore dance at the time?

― bulbs (bulbs), Thursday, 4 November 2004 23:36 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I've had people assume I primarily like and listen to classical music. I think people assume that "intelligent" and quiet translates into "classical music lover."

― Rockist_Scientist (rockist_scientist), Thursday, 4 November 2004 23:50 (twenty years ago)

good grief!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 5 November 2004 00:02 (twenty years ago)

Besides the usual, I've been mistaken for someone who listens to "scenester bands," whatever the fuck that means. And I swear to Christ I don't even dress like that.

― Peanuts (Peanuts), Friday, 5 November 2004 00:08 (twenty years ago)

People think I listen to only goth music. In these cases I am quick to point out my affection for bossa nova tunes like "Bela Lugosi's Dead"

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 5 November 2004 00:28 (twenty years ago)

Some people think I "only listen to weird music", sometimes classical, but it's just relative (even, I think, what people mean by "classical") dismissal or something; usually people who aren't very interested in music.

― Pangolino (ricki spaghetti), Friday, 5 November 2004 00:30 (twenty years ago)

Once got "damn, you listen to a lot of chick music!"

― babyalive (babyalive), Friday, 5 November 2004 00:49 (twenty years ago)

no, but a girl once accused me of NOT loving techno, which is just untrue dammit!

― ken taylrr (ken taylrr), Friday, 5 November 2004 00:49 (twenty years ago)

I've been acccused of only listening to "Punk" (they may have had a point of sorts 25 years ago) and of course "Weird music".

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 5 November 2004 12:04 (twenty years ago)

Some twerp on here concluded I only liked "100 copies self-released indie no-marks" (paraphrasing) which is just baffling. Other than that, not really

― DJ Mencap0))), Friday, 5 November 2004 12:59 (twenty years ago)

I once got accused of only listening to bands with female vocalists, which bemused me.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Friday, 5 November 2004 13:02 (twenty years ago)

I've never looked like I was part of a particular scene. I guess I have that all-purpose collegiate /casual Fridays thing going, because I've been subject to all kinds of mistaken assumptions about the kind of music I like. I remember being at a get-together where a hip-hop DJ/producer had me pegged as a DMB / Phish kinda guy and was pleasantly surprised to find out that I grown up listening to Rakim, EPMD, etc. This kind of thing always happens to me.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Friday, 5 November 2004 16:03 (twenty years ago)

Judging by my posts on ILX, one would probably think that I loved nothing but dronerock.

This is not true. I just can't be bothered to actually post about anything else.

― Masonic Laundry Boom (kate), Friday, 5 November 2004 16:05 (twenty years ago)

I look like the most unlikely dweeb to know so much about hip hop - ever! :-)

More so than than all those Sean Paul-wearing, baggy pants nitwits who seem to think hip hop is more the way you dress than from the attitude within (and from the heart).

Consequently I don't much play from the fly girlies, who'd rather go for the image-makers, but... I do seem to get tagged with ..."oh, lemme guess... you love all this weird, (insert genre) stuff..." as I am the most un-hip-hop-looking character around & I like it that way very much!

― herbaliser12, Friday, 5 November 2004 16:06 (twenty years ago)

Not looking the part = CLASSIC.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Friday, 5 November 2004 16:22 (twenty years ago)

I feel so blessed to have "discovered" - totally by & for myself - stuff from Rakim, KRS, Marley Marl/Cold Chillin', PE, LL, De La Soul, Schoolly D, Ultra Magnetic MCs, EPMD, Stetsasonic, RUN-DMC etc, etc, way back when it was truly an unknown quantity/quality to literally everyone, but felt part of something (an indescribable 'something') that was totally alien to many and faddish.

Never did I have a friend from New Yawk sending me WBLS tapes; never had a posse; never overdosed on MTV; never 'hung' around shopping centres demanding attention; but, alas, was guilty of playing this music loud and often back then!

Loooking from outside in has always been my modus operandi.

― herbalizer12 (herbalizer12), Friday, 5 November 2004 16:52 (twenty years ago)

Well, not by anybody who's known me for a long time. Friends, family, acquaintances: They're all guaranteed to hate no more than 95% of the stuff I like, and they know it. (Unless they hate music entirely.) But sure, there were times in the past when people were truly amazed to discover that I liked the Shangri-Las (or whoever) and not just "all that heavy metal stuff" or "weird stuff".

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Friday, 5 November 2004 17:20 (twenty years ago)

This may come as a surprise, but I listen to lots of music that isn't noize or epic jammy psych.

― Ian John50n (orion), Friday, 5 November 2004 17:57 (twenty years ago)

I only listen to Krautrock

― Soon Over Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 5 November 2004 17:58 (twenty years ago)

Not looking the part = CLASSIC.

Very.

1990, KLA at UCLA, me playing a Bauhaus set:

OTHER DJ: "Is this Bauhaus?"

ME (looking essentially the same as now): "Yup."

OTHER DJ: "You don't look goth at ALL!"

ME: *smirks to self*

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 November 2004 18:01 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I've had people assume I primarily like and listen to classical music. I think people assume that "intelligent" and quiet translates into "classical music lover."

But that doesn't work for me - no one at work would ever describe me as quiet.

I have also noticed that when people (like work colleagues, not ILX people) ask me what I'm listening to and I tell them, most of them assume that is the kind of thing I always listen to.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 5 November 2004 19:04 (twenty years ago)

Banjo techno, like Swamp Thing and Cotton Eye Joe.

― Keith Watson (kmw), Friday, 5 November 2004 19:43 (twenty years ago)

"You only listen to cynical mainstream pop."
"You only listen to weird indie shit."
"You listen to that techno-y stuff, right?"
"I bet you would like this band my friend likes. Neutral Milk Hotel?"

― Atnevon (Atnevon), Saturday, 6 November 2004 05:41 (twenty years ago)

a lot of people accuse me of listening only to 'black music' but i dont really care if that IS all i mostly listen to (with some exceptions). i cant afford to listen to everything under the sun and i cant help it if i have a preference. but 'black music' includes so much anyway, soul, R&B, hip hop, grime, jungle, jazz, reggae, ragga, etc etc etc, i dont see how thats limited or how that should be a bad thing.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Saturday, 6 November 2004 13:48 (twenty years ago)

yeah apparently i only listen to techno shit
and then they do the UNTSS UNTSSS thing

― stomp (+dancefloor), Saturday, 6 November 2004 15:01 (twenty years ago)

yeah apparently i only listen to techno shit
and then they do the UNTSS UNTSSS thing

My college days in a nutshell.

The other thing that people used to do was come up to me and say things like "Yo, dawwwg" in the whitest, most patronizing impression of a black rapper that they could muster. This one still puzzles me, as I a) didn't rap, b) didn't do the white homeboy schtick, and c) didn't make a big deal of the fact that I liked hip-hop.

People had heard that I made my own dance and techno tracks, and that somehow translated into me being an aspiring gangsta rapper. Never mind that at the time I was a house head who wanted to sing like Robert Owens and make beats like Masters At Work. That didn't register. After all, there's absolutely no difference between a shuffly, 4-to-the-floor, 126 BPM house beat, and a straight-16th, 100 BPM, funk-loop-and-808-kick-boom rap beat. NONE WHATSOEVER!

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Saturday, 6 November 2004 15:27 (twenty years ago)

yo dawg, there isnt.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Saturday, 6 November 2004 16:19 (twenty years ago)

Word.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Saturday, 6 November 2004 16:56 (twenty years ago)

masters at twerk.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Saturday, 6 November 2004 17:01 (twenty years ago)

Armand Van Halen?

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Saturday, 6 November 2004 17:02 (twenty years ago)

frankie foxxx? (as in frankie knuckles+freddie foxxx aka bumpy knuckles)

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Saturday, 6 November 2004 17:05 (twenty years ago)

That 'only black music' bit above reminds me of a very funny moment. A friend of mine at university said, with only a little exaggeration, that he was only interested in records by people who are a) black and b) dead. Someone said that was ridiculous, and he said "So name me the great white blues musicians," and was told "Phil Collins! Bryan Adams!" Oddly, he wasn't converted.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 6 November 2004 17:27 (twenty years ago)

no, i dont only listen to dead black musicians, im not some retrophile. i dont like it when people fetishise black musicians.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Saturday, 6 November 2004 17:28 (twenty years ago)

no, i dont only listen to dead black musicians, im not some retrophile. i dont like it when people fetishise black musicians.

OTM.

Likewise, just because I gravitate towards music that grooves (i.e. house, hip-hop, funk, soul, d'n'b, etc.) does NOT mean that I can't get into hard rock, folk, indie, or singer-songwriters.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Saturday, 6 November 2004 18:18 (twenty years ago)

I wasn't suggesting you only listened to dead black musicians, I just meant that it called that to mind. I'm not particularly interested in defending this guy's narrow tastes, which are far from mine, but if you only like old blues and R&B records, finding your tastes dominated by dead black people is unsurprising. He did in fact not stick to those 'rules' at all - Jerry Lee Lewis for instance is neither black nor dead, and he was a big fan of his.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 6 November 2004 20:23 (twenty years ago)

exactly, tantrum, there's lots of rock, folk, indie, etc etc groups and artists i love too. i just tend to have a main, perhaps 'priority' preference.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Sunday, 7 November 2004 22:24 (twenty years ago)

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