Growing up in the '50s, my father listened to classical, plus a few musicals. I still have his collection of 78s in the basement. Mom listened (and sang along with) pop, like the Great American Songbook.
I always have my music playing at home. My iTunes has close to 29,000 tracks, and I usually play them randomly. It’s probably 75% classical (including opera), 15% musicals and the remainder classic rock, gay men’s choruses, and whatever else has caught my fancy.
My husband only listens to classical, including opera, but tolerates whatever else I’m playing.
I have music on nearly every moment I am awake. I leave the stereo on when I’m out running errands, at times. I leave a separate iPad+speaker combo in my bedroom on even when I have other music on at my desk (which is on the other side of the house from my room).
If I’m alone, the music is usually at a fairly high volume. I wouldn’t need you to shout to be heard, but conversation isn’t as easy it could be. If I’m with other people, music should be low enough for conversation, unless everyone just wants to rock out to some particular song, of course.
I listen to a steady diet of death metal, grindcore, doom, thrash, bebop, jazz, free jazz, punk rock, noise rock, art rock, funk and old school R&B. I don’t do reggae (unless pre-Marley) or mainstream country music. No pop.
ETA: And when I clean house, I prefer to listen to Violent Femmes eponymous first album.
When driving I like to have classic rock on almost all the time. When at home, I rarely have music on. I make exceptions for cleaning (classic rock or Bossa Nova/MPB) and writing (Classical/Baroque). I can’t tolerate anything with lyrics while I’m trying to write, but classical music seems to get my brain juices flowing.
My father didn’t like the radio on in the car. He sometimes listened to the radio at home, but I always wished he didn’t. His favorite station was easy listening. Does that format even exist any more? My mother liked music on both in the car and at home. She liked top-40 and oldies stations.
I listen to music (various types from classical to k-pop to 80s punk) for 20-30 minutes a day while I work out at home - the days I go running, nope, as I hate running with earphones. I grew up an avid reader in a house full of music lovers, and decades later I still love peace and quiet more than music. I’ll concede that my childhood means I’ve got a handy near encyclopedic knowledge of classic pop/soul music that surprises everyone that knows me, since they never hear me listening to anything. The only lasting side effect is my lasting dislike of Elton John, due to hearing “Benny and the Jets” a dozen times a day for about a year.
A lot of trip-hop and instrumental hip-hop is my daily soundtrack at home and driving throughout the day: there’s a lot of excellent channels on YouTube, and Spotify gives me stuff like Damu the Fudgemunk.
Almost every night I play the Charlie Haden station on Pandora to fall asleep to. I set the timer to shut off after an hour, and it works like a charm.
If I’m home alone, it’s usually metal. And loud. Though sometimes industrial/goth/synth pop. I had a house phase that I sometimes revisit.
The Wife likes grateful dead and garbage pop country, so when we are both home, the compromise is usually classic rock or Fleetwood mac/creedence/Elo/wilbury’s type stuff.
In the car it is almost always npr, but classic rock if I’m not interested in whatever they are yapping about.
And growing up, my parents had honest to god full blown hippie God damn hootenannies!
At home these days, no, and in the car it’s NPR or ESPN talk radio. But in the shop all day I have on the local station that plays World Cafe and stuff like that.
I like to listen to music when I cook and clean. I listen to my Amazon playlists that I titled My Songs and Songs I Love to Sing. The songs are mostly '70’s rock & pop and '90’s. I like classical when I’m driving sometimes. But I don’t listen to music all of the time. I have one talk radio program I like to listen to and I also like to listen to audiobooks.
My mom loves music. She always has a radio on in the house or listens to her CD’s. When I was a kid in the '60’s and '70’s she would listen to her stereo at full volume - when my dad wasn’t home. On nice days, she’d have the windows open and I could hear her music blaring as I walked home from the school bus stop! The Hollie’s, Santana, The Association, Guess Who, The Monkees, and Three Dog Night were some of her favorites. My friends always said that I had a cool mom! And she was.
I usually have music playing while I’m working, driving, and sometimes while doing stuff around the house. My genres are usually pop, classic rock, and Kesha (she’s so awesome, she has her own genre). The last couple months I’ve also been listening to a new throwback jams station (104.3) that plays a lot of Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and the like.
Growing up, we didn’t usually have much music playing around the house, but my parents would play it in the car (usually top 40 and oldies stations).
Usually we don’t have music playing in the house, but since we got an Amazon Echo, we play hot-potato-DJ in the evenings. I play a song, then my husband plays a song, etc. Almost all pop music.
I always play music in the car. It’s my main listening place. Usually a curated playlist to go with the book I’m working on, mostly pop music but some world music and movie scores too.
Growing up, there was a stereo in the living room where we would listen to stuff. It’s where my mom first introduced me to the Beatles and Elton John. Also in rotation was Glen Campbell, Herb Alpert, Mason Williams, Peter, Paul, and Mary, late ‘60s early ‘70s stuff.
Later, we got our own record/8 track/cassette players so the living room scene tapered off.
In the car by myself I listen to a lot of radio, mainly talk and public stations. If I get bored with that I will put on Pandora or blast some thing loud and raucous if I’m starting to fade.
Over speakers we usually listen to music in our ‘music room’ which is a dressing room in our apartment converted to a home office/music studio stocked with a digital piano and guitars, mixer, audio interface, etc.
If not, then we’re on earbuds or headphones around the apartment. There’s never really one thing playing that everyone is listening to, with exceptions of course.
Of course, that makes me feel silly to say because if anything can be called elevator music, the original elevator music was precisely that.
The Seeburg 1000 was a 16 2/3 RPM multi-disc record player that would hold 25 records, each with 20 songs per side (hence “1000”). It would play all of the songs and then start over again. This fancy device was used to provide background music in stores and places of business. Business owners would subscribe to their service, and once a month they would receive some new records to replace a few in their current stack. They were a competitor to Muzak, with the distinction of the music residing on site rather than being piped in.
Much of it is nice light jazz with fun bass lines, and it doesn’t intrude.
I either listen to podcasts or music I have stored on my phone when I’m in the car. Sometimes audio books. At home, when I’m trying to write, I’ll put on music from my phone on a Bluetooth speaker if I’m home alone or put headphones in if it might disturb my wife or kids. Helps shut out the distractions.
The music I listen to is pretty diverse, but my favorite is 70s classic rock and modern alternative.