Music Preferences Linked to Personality

I love classical music. Funny thing, I could not stand it until I was 26. (How can I be so sure about how old I was when I discovered the classics? There is a story behind it.)

As a younger person, I loved folk music, Greenwich Village, coffee houses, and discussing LIFE. Today, I have little interest in folk music, although I find some Worldbeat music that is very interesting.

For the lighter stuff, I enjoy soft rock and disco- stuff from the 70's and 80's. I know practically nothing of the current trends in music.

My favorite and most listened too is country music. I also like the oldies, and pretty much softer music, which is far from what I use to listen to when I was a teenager. Back in my teens I listened to hard rock such as AC/DC, Led Zepplin, Aerosmith, etc..., but that stuff gives me a headache now. I use to listen to that music as loud as I could get my sterio and I blew every pair of speakers I had back then, lol! My taste is music started to change in my early 20's after I had my son and I wonder if that had something to do with it.

Great question Phoenix ;-)

Every favorite song of mine, from every age, is still my favorite. The songs I loved as a child are, in my view, still excellent choices.

Hi Phoenix:

Diverse music tastes. Classical from an early age. Influenced by Mom. She made no attempt to influence it. When she listened I naturally liked it and listened too. Rock and roll as a teenager. Blues, jazz, country all followed. Only in the last two years have I started singing karaoke. Now the search for songs that fit in my voice range. Voice is melodic but with limited range. One of my friends has a powerful voice and I remeber the first time I heard him sing Neil Diamond's "Holly holy" I was mesmerized. I'd never heard it sung with such passion and volume. As a courtesy if you realize a singer has a favorite or signature song they sing other singers won't sing it so it's not repeated on the same evening. So my pal Jack has his Holly Holy and I have my Unchained Melody.

If you like all genres of music, does that make you bi-polar?

No, omniverous.

...That's what I'm wondering. What if you just like music. In my CD rack for example, I have such diverse artists as: James Brown, Patsy Kline, Izthak Perlman, Mary J. Blige, Creedence Creedwater Revival, John Coltrane, Louie Armstrong, The Swan Silvertones, Barbra Streisand, and gangsta' rappers, Smooth Da' Hustler. and these aren't for show, are company. Depending on my mood, I listen to all genre's, even when alone. Next up. I've got to get something by my man, Mario Lanza. So what does that say about me? Am I a crazy mixed-up kid?

Same here. I have music from musicals, country/western, rock 'n' roll, folk, classical, swing, jazz, calypso, pop. The only thing missing is hip hop and rap.

Bob...Is that something like protestant? (I crack me up)

Edgar,
...I'm going out on a limb here. Are you sure you don't even have any early rap, like Gil scott-Heron, Are Lou Rawls live. Rap was around, decades before Sugar Hill Gang. Even before "The Last Poets". think about it. :wink:

I have music some have called precursers to rap.

Booman you're unique. I won't go out on a limb and say good or bad.

I like prog rock, metal, jazz, really heavy classical, blues, classic hard rock which is different from metal, R&B.

HATE country, bluegrass, polka, and whitebread hymns and worship music. Love black gospel.

Music is so much a part of my life that I don't often separate it into categories. Am a gourmand (as opposed to gourmet). There are so many more musical experiences that I enjoy than unsatisfactory ones that I'd have to tell you what I don't like, and it pretty much boils down to reggae and Tchaikovsky (except for one violin concerto) and "smooth jazz" (ie, not jazz) and faux-folk.

I'm currently into hard-core weirdo contemporary technically classical music; music from Mali; Claude Marti; salsa; Ray Brown and Gene Harris (together, separately); Kenny Barron; Kathleen Ferrier; Poulenc; Lukas Foss; Ralph Stanley; and the kamancheh. (Those are just the ones stacked on my CD player right now.) Don't buy country/western (except Nelson) but listen to it a lot and love it.

i'm pretty much into acid polka and anything played on a zither.

Bob,
... I don't know if you're a politician, or extremly perceptive. I've always valued "unique", among my favorite compliments. ( "I may not be better, but I'm different." )

BPB,
...Looking at the music, you love, I defy you to tell me You've listened to Patsy Cline, or the Oak Ridge Boys, and tell me you hate ALL country. (Here I am, on this limb again. )

Gotta love that limb. Patsy Cline's "Crazy" is one of the songs I sing in my torturing of the denizens in my little neighborhood bar.

Oak Ridge Boys and Patsy Cline are (or were) wonderful people, kind to their mothers and missed by all, but country music still sucks. Sorry, my opinion, I'm not stating it as fact.

Bi- Years ago, I heard a remark that I found very interesting. The person said that country music was the closest thing that we had to the ballads of the 40's -50's- unrequited love, jealousy and all that good stuff!