For me, we stream a couple of jazz radio stations all day long. On Sunday, I like to put on world music, primarily West African interspersed with Afro-Cuban, Brazilian and some others. When I’m in the car, it’s classic rock.
Growing up, my stepfather hated music. He was a bartender by trade and I think just got burned out on it. Or maybe he just didn’t have an ear for it. The only song he ever admitted liking was Ghost Riders In The Sky. My mother had been quite a party girl in her youth and liked pretty much everything, including that new-fangled rock & roll. She would always try to dance with me in the kitchen, where there was usually a small radio on. I had one in my room, and had a record player also.
After leaving home and getting married, I always had music in the house and car, and my kids grew up with a deep appreciation and love of music. My daughter sang, and my sons played clarinet, sax, drums and guitar at various times. My ex hated most of what I liked (Joplin, Hendrix, etc) and preferred easy listening stuff.
Mom would put on a Santana record, for example, when it was House Cleaning Time on Saturday. The volume would be just loud enough that you could hear it, but quiet enough that you could talk over it without having to raise your voice. Same with the car - she’d turn on the radio (usually the Adult Contemporary or Oldies station) but it was intended as backup noise, she’d only turn it up if a song came on. Actively listening to music was something that required effort and attention; Mom would sit me down at the record player and we’d play songs and sing them together.
Mrs. Homie and her family, on the other hand, always had/have music playing. And by “playing” I mean “fucking blaring.” So loud that you have to scream over the top of it to be heard.
This plays out in the form of much drama and aggravation in the car. I maintain Mom’s attitude - music is for background noise, but we should still strive to hold conversations, at normal volume, over the music. Mrs. Homie cranks it up to 11 and expects me to scream at her in order to talk.
When I first started working doing Web development I listened to music constantly while at work. At the time I was working in my business partner’s home in a shared room. Now that I am by myself and working from my own home, I rarely have music on during the day while I’m working. I find it pretty distracting, mostly because I want to listen to the music and not pay attention to what I’m doing. So it’s actually pretty silent around here most of the time. I do of course listen to music in the car.
However…
I put on music when I clean. I have a broad mix of stuff I love on my Amazon account and I tell Alexa to play my list called “Stuff I Love.” I think it has about 10 hours worth of music on it.
I put on music at night when I’m getting ready for bed and showering. If it’s not the “Stuff I Love” list then it’s this hip-hop hype playlist that I made last summer when I was trying to hype myself up for something. I extra-love all the songs on it.
If I leave the house for a while I usually put on a playlist I call “Music for Dogs” which is a compilation of about 3 albums on Amazon that are titled “music for dogs.” I play the music for my dogs.
Growing up, I don’t remember music at home but we certainly had it in the car. I remember my mom bought Sgt Pepper and a Chicago album on tape to listen to in our first car with a tape player. I always listened to music when I was mowing the lawn. If we did any projects together as a family we’d listen to the local oldies station. I actually still do that, especially if I’m painting.
Growing up I would say we never had music on in the home. (other than my stereo in my room) My parents had some folk type records in a big piece of furniture that had a turntable on built in that I can recall them using approximately one time in their lives.
Now, we have a nice sonos sounds system throughout the house (and outside). We probably use it 5 to 15% of the time we’re home. Generally I’ll put on a pandora station of Van Morrison/Elton John/70s type of music.
I’m more ‘occasionally’ in the house and ‘usually’ in the car. I grew up the same way.
Growing up, we had The Carpenters, Freddie Fender and Chicago type pop, Elvis and 50s oldies in general, and some classic country (Willie, Waylon, Johnny Cash etc). Music in the house and car was very common.
Now, I always have it in the car (mind you, my commute is under 10 minutes), unless I’m listening to NPR, but only have it on at the house for a couple of hours on the weekend, when I’m puttering around the house. I’m one of those people who loves and craves silence, so I need large chunks of time with no tv or music when I’m home.
As for the what? Currently my main playlist is a lot of alt-country (Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, The Woods Bros), and Ryan Adams, Paul Westerburg/The 'Mats, Grace Potter and The Pernice Bros to name a few.
I swore it would never happen to me, but my tolerance for loud has decreased (I’m in my late forties), so the above is a lot more mellow than it would have been a few years ago.
I nearly always have music on in the car, sometimes in the house, but not as much. Pretty much any type of rock…hard rock, heavy metal, classic rock.
I grew up with folk music, gospel, folk rock, 50’s/60’s/early 70’s stuff. I feel like there was nearly always music in the house/car, unless the TV was on.
Oh man, we had one of those huge consoles. It had a radio that tipped out, and a record changer that slid out. Records were stored in the bottom of the unit. There was an odd and eclectic collection of LPs down there that in my memory were never played by anyone other than me. One record had a bunch of oddball classical cuts on it like Manuel De Falla- Ritual Fire Dance and Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain. As a kid, these were fascinating pieces.
Yes, exactly. I also was fascinated by it. It was heavy wood, with carvings of some kind. My parents had things like the Smothers Brothers and Patula Clark (but never listed to them). My dad even put colored tape on the edges of the records to indicate genre. He must have spent the better part of some Saturday afternoon on that project.
It’s always on in the car and almost always in the apartment and pretty damned often at work. I listen to two local Americana/Alternative stations so it’s Shaky Graves, John Prine, Shovels and Rope, Father John Misty, Nikki Lane, Gary Clark, Jr., etc. One of the stations has three programs I listen to as well. Monday nights is Blue Monday, Sunday afternoon is Dance Halls and Last Calls (old time cryin’ and drivin’ and drinkin’ and cheatin’ country) for an hour, and Sunday nights is Across the Pond with Irish, Scottish, and English folk music.
About three times a year, I make a 700 mile round trip drive to west Texas which requires a soundtrack all its own. Basically, four or five hours of tunes I can sing along to so I stay awake.
I like to download prime music to my kindle and play that on the bluetooth feature of my car.
I didn’t listen to the radio for a long time. There were talk stations which just tend to make me angry. there were the rock stations and alternative rock stations which seemed all geared towards 18-25 year old males. Main stream country was never in the race. so I was pretty excited five years ago to find a non-profit stations geared for adults who weren’t into so-called easy listening. What’s so easy about listening to Mariah Carey or Celene Dion rattling the rafters or breaking glass anyway?
I used to listen to the Classic Rock station on Comcast while doing homework, until I began to focus on the music more than the material. I switched to Jazz, which I wasn’t a big fan of, but sounds pretty good while reading.
When I’m alone or at work, always. It just helps me focus, somehow. I used to really love classic rock but as I’ve gotten older I’ve grown cold on it, although masterpieces like Quadrophenia can still bring me to tears. Over the past 15 years or so I’ve gradually gravitated to punk. I tend not to listen at home because I like it loud and nobody else there cares for my playlists.
Growing up Mom would play Elvis or Andy Williams when she was doing housework. Pops would amuse himself with Townes Van Zandt, Lyle Lovett, Leon Redbone, Leadbelly, Bob Dylan, and various specimens from the hippie folk genre. That stuff is all fine and is colored with good memories, but it doesn’t speak to me. It’s just a bunch of noises for the most part.
Most of the time, when I’m not watching televiion, I have WNED (classical music out of Buffalo, NY) on either the TV or Internet. I even leave it on (quietly) when I go out to keep the cat company.
When I’m in the mood, I’ll listen to a variety of other music over the Internet. I can’t take the adverts on commercial radio any more.
Lately, I have been listening to a lot of 90s music on Sirius XM. I was a teen in the 70s, so by the time the 90s rolled around I was too buys with work and such to pay much attention to rock and pop. Turns out I missed some really cool music.
I usually don’t play music as muzak–I prefer to sit down and listen albums all the way through. That’s especially true for classic rock albums that have been re-issued with surround mixes.
When I was growing up we listened to particular albums, and never had the phone (it did 78s also) as background.
When I was commuting I’d listen to some of my CDs, which range from Captain Beefheart to Beethoven with all stops in between. On the radio I listened to the classical station. Now that I don’t commute, and don’t put CDs in the car, I listen to the classical station.
At home we don’t do music as background. I do listen to my collection ripped to my phone when doing my 3,000 piece puzzle.
