Perfect birthday or Christmas gift for her: a music player (iPod, tablet, whatever) and a set of compatible noise-cancelling headphones. She can listen to whatever the hell junk she wants, you can listen to good music in the car, and you’ll still be together for the sake of the kids! Bonus: with this arrangement, it’s impossible to get into an argument – she can’t hear you, and if Springsteen is cranked up loud enough, you can’t hear her either! 
I wish it was that easy. It’s “her” car. I drive a company car. Whenever we drive together y let her drive unless she asks me to. Noise canceling headphones would not be good.
Although she’s Mexican American you would never know it. She is fluent in Spanish but has zero accent in English. She’s actually lighter skinned than me and and not dark complexioned. Her name was screwed up in the hospital when she was born and sounds more Italian than anything.
I’ve brought her a long way over the years but the struggle continues.
I won’t rip on Springsteen, he writes good songs. But what the hell is up with his band and album orchestrations sounding like glockenspiel concerts? Those bells make me stabby, hate them so much, and on arguably good tunes.
My wife listens to I guess what would be called current pop music (Sirius Satellite Radio: The Pulse). It is the default setting in her car. I have a pre set for that in my car just for her. Mostly, I am not a big fan but it is not intolerable for me.
Having the same tastes, including musical tastes, is overrated. As long as your tastes don’t inflict pain on your spouse, it’s all good.
Having the same moral and cultural values is way way more important.
My husband and I share very little in terms of tastes, except we both like it quiet. That’s good. Neither of us listen to popular music at all. We have managed all right.
Just to make it confusing and fair, there was an Adam and The Ants as well.
After nearly 20 years of forced countrification I am finally free to listen to Metallica, Slayer, Heilung, when where and however loud I want. And explore and discover new singers and groups like Ivy Levan or Sam and The Womp for a couple of examples.
I didn’t realize…
Never give up of hide your music
You gotta fight, for your right…
See, now that’s a good excuse!
Really, the thing is that my husband’s seventeen years older than me. We both lived in the same country and the same state during the eighties, but worlds apart. I forget that sometimes.
Although I’ve heard the three songs being discussed and was alive during their airplay, I didn’t hear them until the 90s or maybe the 2000s with the exception of Keepin’ The Faith which I still have not heard on the radio and only heard it because my brother had the album.
Obligatory XKCD.
Yes, though that was Adam Ant’s band before he dissolved the band and became a solo act, so it’s not unrelated.
Nearly zero. She’s about a year older. The most adventurous she ever got in all those years was Abba. Long car trips were an agony of The Statler Brothers, Roger fucking Whittaker, etc.
I feel your pain, man. Family first.
My wife went with me to see Aerosmith. I then went with her to see Elton John. I will never take her to a concert again if I have to go to a concert with her.
I like that XKCD! Not a music revelation, but a while back I finally got around to reading Of Mice and Men, and told the SDMB how much I loved it. Someone replied back that they were jealous of my first reading of that particular book.
So I will attempt not to make fun of people, and try to turn them on to whatever it is they don’t know, like the Coke and Mentos example.
were there kakapos? please, tell me there were kakapos!
once mtv and vh1 stopped showing videos, i have no idea what is out there. my favourite music station changed formats, so i mostly listen to classical, or folk.
We are dancing around the real reason:. Inertia.
Lotsa stuff becomes explicit when you factor in the pain in the assishness of the alternatives.
PackerMan, you say that your wife doesn’t recognize a (fairly common) musical reference like “Born to Run” or a (fairly common) literary reference like Jekyll and Hyde. Presumably you’ve known about this for all 22 years of your marriage. Why are you only worrying about it now? Presumably you’ve been able to make your marriage work reasonably well up to now, since only about half of all marriages (in the U.S.) last that long. For that matter, how did you two happen to get married or even date for a reasonably long amount of time without having a lot of interests in common? How did you two meet? How did you decide to get married?
First of all, this entire thread was intended to be humorous, which most of you got. It’s the kind of funny story I would joke about with my buddies at the bar, if that were possible, and wanted to share it with someone.
Second of all, I do love my wife and we do have a lot in common. She is caring, kind to a fault and a great mother. We enjoy spending time together but each also have our own interests.
Honestly, if she had just said I don’t like that song, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Her response just surprised me and I guess, on reflection, made me remember how different our life experiences were before we got together.
Yes, there were in fact Kakapos. I was involved in the first transfers between Stewart Island and Little Barrier Island where I worked. I got to handle about 10% of the known world population at that time (only 50 birds in all). (I also heard them on Stewart Island and Fiordland, but didn’t see any there.)
Definitely worth missing out on the career of Adam Ant.
Yes, I figured someone would come up with the ONE exception that proves the rule. I thought of Jimi’s “All along the WatchTower” cover, but I like Dylan’s version as well. Dylan wrote hundreds of songs and only one can be pointed to that some say the cover version may be better. And its not that Hendrix just sung the song better, he put a completely different spin on the music. His cover is much more than just a better vocal.
Black Flag kills ants on contact (just to see if anyone gets the reference)