Analyze your own tastes! What makes your favorites... your favorites?

most songs under 2:30

Do you generally only like records that remind you (vaguely even) of your all time favorites?

They don't remind me of them if the melody is different. I only like music within genres I either already like, or genres that remind me of the good-old genres (like, 00s electropop is very similar to 80s synthpop, for instance, which is why I also love 00s electropop)

geir, do you love the new teenage fanclub album? you must. i just heard it the other night. sounded lovely.

Well I didn't mean down to the melody, but yes genres basically.

geir, have you heard violens? i'm looking forward to their new album. probably the only indie-rock album i'm looking forward to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKdNhPVnK3Q

Evan, I guess it would have to be for a nostalgia of times I never experienced (except Floridian/Athenian indiepop, which was alive and well while I was there).

It's funny, because now that I DJ, I tend to like songs with a consistent thread throughout. Which may be why I, like Sebastian, dislike herky jerky, inconsistent music like math rock, Mr. Bungle, Frank Zappa... but it's really hard for me to say. I think

I'm convinced that a lot of it is non-musical, or if it is musical it's on such an abstract level that I can't begin to figure out what it is. That's why I'm suspicious of things like Pandora that seem to work off of a "sounds like" template. I do believe that there's some sort of spiritual link between Lisa Suckdog and Scarlet's Well and Men Without Hats and Fleetwood Mac and Game Theory, but someone smarter than me is going to have to find it.

― dlp9001, Wednesday, September 23, 2009 1:59 AM (8 months ago) Bookmark

was pretty OTM. Why I dig certain happy hardcore tracks or drum n bass or Dutch prog or Taylor Swift is impossible to say. It's pretty inconsistent taste, but that's what makes my shelves of records so enjoyable for me to dig through all the time. It also is hard to say why I like one track off an album, but none of the rest of the album. Shouldn't the same person or group of people be able to find that thing that makes something my "favorite" more than once?

I wrote a huge post, lost it, but am glad because this thread brought me to a flyer of my first real rap show:

http://www.fresh-force.net/downloads/GetFresh.pdf

I would put the performance of one Lady C up there in my Top 10 of things that shaped me forever.

not sure this goes here, but nostagia factors into my tastes, and one thing i loved about 80s pop -- epic choruses with rising vocal harmonies (e.g., journey) -- is still kind of lacking in a lot of modern rock. oddly enough, a band i think can achieve this is grizzly bear, but they have to loosen their turtleneck sweaters, write more like while we wait for the others, and get michael mcdonald to permanently front the band.

in a parallel world contenderizer&I are arguing about this til the end of time

Man I'm sure there's some secret to the melodies and chord progessions that set me off but damned if I know what it is. Something like the chorus to Suzanne Vega's Luka, damn that gets me every time, and I ain't no musicologist but when I look at a tab and it tells me asus2 -> bsus4 I'm like BUT WHY? That same chord progression even happens in the verse without half the affect!

Damn, isn't it so true. Thats why I can't get my head around it. I just want to know what the formula is. I want a scientific explanation with charts and diagrams of my brain and lines drawn that show the history of music I've loved during great times in my life that have lead to what I love the most now. If I don't keep talking about nostalgia, I have no other context to measure my favorites with. I don't believe I was just born with a preference for a certain sound, so I've been obsessed with looking back (an obsession that goes beyond music as well).

for the longest time, my magic formula was I hated anything my parents liked and loved anything that would make them uncomfortable, although I hope I've grown past that at this point. they listened to nothing but the most innocuous, noodly, blandly ahistorical Scottish & Irish traditional music, with the occasional bluegrass, folk, and inoffensive mainstream rock thrown in. I like rhythm, hedonism, obtuseness, variety, novelty.

I'm an oddball that has been keeping track of whatever album, cd etc. since Oct 1st 1996. 24 years, I'm totally insane. Kind of started in an odd way as I was working as a temp at the freaking Farm Coop headquarters in Indianapolis doing some type of temp stuff. They were laid back as it was all getting shipped to Illinois or somewhere at the beginning of the year. Pretty much your usual late 90s, recent collge grad situation...anyway this lovely lady that was a retiree teacher doing temp work for pocket money loved talking to me about the CDs I had in my book bag I was always listening to on discman headphones. She said, "you have too many child, you cannot listen to them all" and got talking to me to keeping a list to see that I actually listened to what I was accumulating. I started the list, but the accumulation never really stopped. ;) The list evolved and is in a Excel spreadsheet and Word document that was originally created on a out of the trash Windows 3.1 box. It's been saved and converted over the years, but there is probably some weird artifacts for a file going through that many different application versions. Nurd, i know.

These are the records I have listened to the most from the 90s, not repeating any other by the same artist.

Boards of Canada- Music has the Right to Children
DJ Shadow- Endtroducing
Tortoise- Millions Now Listening will never die
Shellac- Terraform < I've listened to all their records a bunch, but this might be there as it came out new right after I started the list.
Queens of the Stone Age- S/T <<<< This one is from driving. Last listened 2017.
Underworld- Dubnobasswithmehead
Slint- Spiderland
Fugazi- Steady Diet of Nothing
Jesus Lizard- Liar
Soundgarden- Badmotorfinger

These are the records from the 80s that have the most listens.

Motorhead- Ace of Spades
Joy Division- Closer
Sonic Youth- Daydream Nation
Jane’s Addiction- Nothing’s Shocking
New Order- Power, Corruption & Lies
Deep Purple- Perfect Strangers < This one kind of surprised me. I had a CDR in the truck for a long time, has to be why.
The Minutemen- Double Nickels on the Dime
AC/DC- Back in Black
Big Black- Songs about Fxxxing
Soundgarden- Louder than Love

I guess I'm a beer drinker but not a hell raiser. I have listened to 'other' music, I know I have listened to over 4000 different records since I started the list.

Yeah, I bought a few issues of Spin.

solid list there, a foundation for living