I can’t help but wonder what would happen if I mused over whether or not men had poorer taste in clothing than women.
Good thing us chicks are around to help our men dress tastefully.
It’s PC thugs like you who keep the rest of us from landing a husband!
Generalizing madly, of course, but most men I’ve met seem to be a lot more competitive in their approach to music, i.e. gotta know the esoterica, influences, comparisons, etc. In that way I’d venture they’re ruled to a much greater extent by how well they can DEFEND liking something. Gotta admit I’m usually more amused than anything listening to guys going at each other over their chosen passion.
I’m not saying that’s bad but I’m not willing to equate it with taste, either. Sure, I’ve picked up some appreciation of various types of music from guys, e.g. jazz from the Ex and now the blues from a guy I’m dating. I like people who are passionate about things, especially when that passion’s contaigous. But that isn’t taste, exactly: it’s propinquity and knowledge.
Shaky example, but have you ever heard people just trashing the hell outta a popular music–debate, argue, trash–then either a pundit “discovers” it or it gets footnoted enough for legitimacy? THEN groupthink decides it’s suitable to admire. In a lot of ways that’s what passes for taste.
Veb
Rumor has it (I HAVE NO CITES! I HAVE NO CITES!) that a few years ago this sort of bubble-gummy song was making the rounds of goth clubs. The spooky kids (no offense to any goff types out there) were shaking their booties and having a great time…requested it all the time because it was a fun change of pace.
Then it hit popular radio.
The song? “Mmm-Bop” by Hanson.
It takes all kinds, m’friends; it takes all kinds.
Aw…just for old time’s sake, let me throw this in Turpentine:
:rolleyes:
Hey! I’m excited to be a pc thug…do I get a jacket or something? With a patch on it?
jarbaby
I thought a smiley sunshiney German like you would recognize the Simpsons quote.
Dammit Turp! How dare you make me look bad! I’m trying to be cool and callous towards you.
I get it now. Dammit AGAIN! I never miss a simpsons quote. F!
Truce Turpentine…if you’d like any musical suggestions…drop me an email…I’ll find something you like 
jarbaby
I must agree with the folks who say that taste is purely subjective and individual.
There is nothing like working at a radio station in a single-station market that programs radically different formats in different dayparts to satisfy all comers to widen your horizons. If you have to play several hours of country music or classical music, or violin-and-piano dinner music or middle of the road music or kiddie records or rock or even polka music, you will at least form an opinion as to which artists and selections are the least objectionable.
As far as gender differences, I can only speak to personal examples. My late wife was a fan of certain folk and rock and country artists that differed slightly from my favorites. She also was very interested in classical music, which has not been a big part of my life.
My current wife is a HUGE classical music fan, as well as a devotee of eastern european and middle eastern folk music.
I find that exposure to different genres broadens my taste, though I still have music that I react to negatively in any field. I attended a “world premiere” for a piece in the Oregon Chamber Music series a couple of years ago that was the worst piece of nonmusical strident cacaphony - on purpose! - that I’ve ever been subjected to, and people actually applauded.
Love some country artists, cordially can’t stand others. Same goes for rockers, rappers, alternatives, folkies, worldbeaters, jazz players, classicals, etc.
And it was a (female) co-worker who turned me on to a whole class of music – contemporary a capella – that I get a huge kick out of.
YMMV. So it goes.
I have two daughters. The younger’s musical taste is hopeless: Backstreet Boys, Britney, Cristina. Are you done puking yet? The elder one despises her younger sister’s idea of music. She likes death/goth/gloom/whatever on the one hand, and Celtic on the other. Somehow her favorite band is Smashing Pumpkins. Neither one has ever had anything remotely resembling a boyfriend. The younger picked up her taste from other kids in her school and the TV, I suppose. The elder – I don’t know how she developed her taste. She just thinks for herself. Here is a case study of independent female musical taste.
Don’t worry about it, I’ve been called a greasy thug, too.
Ummm…do you know of any Kraftwerk-esque German electronica?
I like Kraftwerk a bunch but I have all their stuff already.
Come to think of it, I discovered Kraftwerk all on my own.
nevertheless, I still think it’s something that all the boys will approve of so i keep it in my “public view” cd collection. {smiley face}
To follow with what Bad Hat said re: girls music relating to ex-BF’s…
This is so true. Interestingly, girls seem to hold on to music tastes of their ex-boyfriends as some sort of mystical totem to clutch to their hearts, weeping over past joys and pains.
Guys, on the other hand, will go to extreme lengths to avoid ANY music associated with their ex’s, throwing away their Ricky Martin CD’s that their GF’s loved, trashing their Kenny J that they swore they loved while dating their GF’s, and don’t get me started on INXS…
Yeah, girls possess no objective taste in musical quality (a dreamy lead singer or a dangerous-yet-vulnerable guitarist is of prime importance). Guys will talk for hours about the way Clapton can sustain a string bend and pour pure emotion from a guitar with a single sustain…girls never.
GargoyleWB:
Way to generalize, chuckle-head.
No objective taste. Interesting. I’ve never had a crush on a celebrity, whether he or she be actor, musician, writer…so I can’t have based any of my musical choices on the supposed emotional vulnerabilities of the musicians themselves.
I can talk for hours about the fact that Kenny G is a talentless hack, and that Sonny Rollins could eat him for lunch. I can understand the difference between Hootie & the Blowfish’s tuneless twanging and Joe Satriani’s screaming orgasm of a melodic line…and I found Satriani on my OWN, thank you very very …little.
Girls never talk about that stuff around YOU, perhaps, and there might be a very good reason for it.
Me thinks maybe its time to remind everybody that we re all talking about generalizations, and while they can get uncomfortable and hit close to home, i think we are mostly talking from our own anecdotal experience.
I know lots of women who will say that a guy wearing great shoes is a turn on. Not ALL women say this, but it happens. The resoan for this i suspect, it that most guys don’t care as much about shoes as girls do. I said earlier that for me a big turn on for me is a girl who can talk music (really talk music). Now if this weren’t relatively rare, i don’t think it would be such a turn on (similarly to the shoe thing). I don’t think anyone here has seriously posited that all girls are clueless about music, not am i suggesting that no guys wear good shoes (I do, generally), just that, whether it be social conditioning or innate, its pretty easily observable that we as genders (again, generally speaking) have a lot of diverging interests.
I’d sound pretty silly if i walked into a doper chick thread about what old-shoe-wearin’, seat leavin’ up, public fartin’ slobs guys are and started defending myself as an individual, and i think that the woman in here getting huffy about this converse generalization may be taking personal offense where none is implied. Clearly, the guys in here who’ve mentioned that girls just generally don’t “get it” (ie: don’t obsess over musical minutae) aren’t makin’ it up. its anecdotal, but IMHO, a fairly valid observation of gender sociology.
CJ