Hit shuffle on your music Taste

By Sammi Bosque, 2020

Published 10/01/19

As a piano and violin musician in my spare time, I make it a note in my Spotify library to ensure diversity among the various songs I have downloaded. I’m not necessarily consciously saving songs that vary in tempo and genre, but I do prefer to keep an open mind whether it comes to a singer, a band, a song, or an album. I enjoy sharing music with others and love when others to show me songs because, in truth, many artists are unable to secure a spot on the radio if it isn’t chosen or by someone well known. Luckily, between Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube, the ability to share and listen to songs from everywhere and anywhere has become so much easier.

That being said, it pains me to hear someone say something along the lines of, “Ugh, I hate mainstream music” or, “There’s nothing good on the radio, nobody appreciates classic rock” or even, “Oh yeah? Name five of their songs”.

Regardless of what’s said here, everyone can listen to whatever they so please. Music taste is similar to your actual taste sense and relates to how it makes you feel, so whatever you want to listen to is completely upon you.

Yet sometimes, we’re unaware of how much we could grow to enjoy something when we don’t even try it out. After all, you weren’t aware you liked apples until you took a bite, or even that you didn’t like them. Knowing this, the concept of throwing out an entire artist or genre because it doesn’t fit your normal MO is not only ridiculous but boring. There’s nothing wrong with listening to death metal, but what about black metal, or even stretching out to hard rock? Keeping within the same genre gets so monotone after a while. After all, how do you only listen to one type of music for every occasion?

When I’m sad, I’ll listen to a song with a low BPM or acoustic, when I’m working out I have something electronic with a 125 BPM, and when I’m throwing down at the prom I can assure you I’ll be embarrassing myself and my prom table to something “mainstream”. Variety keeps your mind open and allows you to enjoy the entire world of music while you are out in the actual vast world. Granted, my music taste is unique to me, but I truly cannot imagine being able to run to country or anything indie. Simply being, it doesn’t hurt to give something new a try, as you won’t know how you feel about anything until you do.

Another issue of mine stems from those typical music fans who cling onto a band’s first or second album and hold it higher than a church hymn. One of my biggest pet peeves has to be when a fan of a band or an artist complains about the music changing, or that the artist has become “mainstream”. Certainly it could become annoying to hear the same song on the radio seventeen times in one car ride, especially a song you’ve enjoyed since 2007. Yet, it should induce pride and astonishment for a music fan to finally hear their favorite band receiving proper recognition after all these years.

Unfortunately, with bands such as Fall Out Boy, Panic! At the Disco, Imagine Dragons, and Twenty One Pilots, fans take a more cynical approach to their rising popularity. Simply because their new album doesn’t have the same sound as the last three, their music is suddenly “canceled”. Not only is the notion ridiculous, but redundant. Imagine if an artist stuck with the same BPM, type of lyrics, and overarching theme for their entire career. There would be no diversity among their selections and they’d be trapped in collecting the same types of fans instead of reaching out to new tastes and types. In reality, that’s likely the subconscious debacle going on among these people--an attempt to keep a collection of the same hard rock or indie rock kids that had been around since Blurryface or Smoke and Mirrors. Unfortunately for the closed minded, Beethoven didn’t compose the exact same symphonies for the remainder of his career, nor do any artists plan to do so.

The true heart of the matter is that despite using up all of the characters on twitter, refusing to buy tickets to their next concert, or removing their songs from your Spotify library, every artist is going to continue to grow. Picasso had his own depression and bright periods, just as Mozart varied his compositions between a soft sonata and a dramatic requiem.

If there is any takeaway here, it is certainly to keep an open mind for songs that may stumble into your discover playlist, and to support your favorite bands into their oddest phases, whether they have emo haircuts or bright pink lipstick.