The OP did say they enjoy silence, so that may actually be it.
I have a wide range of responses to music–I have some very strong likes and dislikes. My love of Ke$ha’s songs is well-known on the SDMB by now, but I can just as easily be put in a bad or angry mood when I hear a song I hate. I’d absolutely hate to work in a place where music is constantly played, because more often than not, it’ll be songs I don’t like. I’d get especially violent around Christmastime if I had to work in a store.
Well Frank my man, Since you’ve just told me I’m lying about my own experience because you can’t relate to it, I’m not sure if there’s much point in discussing it with you. Some female jazz vocalists are ok, they are the least worst form of “jazz” but usually boring to me after a bit. Like Ella’s great for two songs then I’m bored.
But yes, any miles davis gives me major agita, or any sort of squeaky brass really. He’s just a famous example that people are constantly amazed to hear I don’t like. Too squeaky!!! Too erratic!! argh, make it stop!!! It’s true I haven’t listened to it, because it caused me physical pain to listen to it. Minor pain (skin crawling with disgust feeling) but still. I’ve been exposed to jazz plenty, I assure you.
But since you are so hot to know about my musical preferences, presumably to further impugne my taste and/or sanity: I like most folk and roots rock, some rap , some that’s arguably country : Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Mark Knopfler’s solo work, Leonard Cohen, Scott Miller & the Commonwealth, Gordon Lightfoot sometimes, Bob Seger sometimes, the Chili peppers, REM, Guster, They might be Giants, the Fugees, dr. Dre… Dar Williams, The Indigo girls, Emmy Lou Harris sometimes, and Dolly Parton (only when shes old-timey) are exceptions to the male preference. Usually I prefer narrative songs with a strong POV but not always.
I wouldn’t say that I don’t like music, but I will admit that I don’t at all understand the love and passion for it that **Steophan, Snowboarder Bo and Peremensoe ** describe.
To me, it’s something that’s better than listening to road noise, or whatever racket is going on outside, but actually sitting and listening to it as an actual activity in and of itself is perplexing- it’s so… passive. There are any number of other things I’d rather be doing than hanging around listening to something. I have artists I like and others I dislike, and songs I enjoy hearing, but it’s not really anything transcendent like others describe. I probably have owned less than 18 CDs in total, and have about 5 gb of mp3s, some proportion of which are of those 18 CDs that I ripped.
That’s not to say that I’m mocking or denigrating that experience for others in any way- I just don’t personally understand it. I think a lot has to do with how we learn- I’m a very visual learner, and primarily deal in concepts instead of details, so something auditory and detailed just usually turns me right off, but visual things such as sculpture just amaze me.
I have to agree with Hello Again. Modern jazz makes me nervous. It isn’t right. It feels wrong. There is no symetry or balance to it. The beat has the wrong rhythm.
Ain’t Misbehavin’ isn’t modern. I love the old stuff
Just out of curiosity, have you ever had your pitch abilities tested?
I ask because I had a friend, a musician I used to play with, who had perfect pitch. I felt bad for the guy because he was always bitching because everything was out of tune. It drove him crazy. He was knowedgeable enough that he could explain exactly what was wrong. The radio would drive him a little nuts, he’d go off about how a vocalist was a bit flat here or a bit sharp there.
If you are hearing things slightly out of tune it can cause anxiousness because the notes aren’t quite right. Or it may frequency issue. There are certain freqeuncies that, if they stand out in a mix a lot, drive me crazy. For me it is a certain mid range area. A band called the Jon Spenser Blues Explosion that mixed their albums with the freqs that drive me crazy all cranked up. When I had to listen to it, i wanted to kill.
Slee
I have worked in music my entire adult life, as a sound engineer and more recently as a videographer shooting concerts. And while I love some music passionately, I dislike a huge amount of music. Entire genres don’t appeal to me. So if I had never had the chance to hear a lot of different music, I might never have discovered the music that I love.
And it is nothing to be ashamed of. Nobel winning theoretical physicist Richard Feynman famously disliked music, but loved rhythm, playing the frigideira in a Brazilian samba band.
There is music I love, but there is no music that is better than silence.
I am not all the way across the dial like you, but trust me, I sympathize with you entirely.
Paradoxically I would suggest “heavy” music for you to try out. Symphonic, operatic. If Mozart sounds like tinny little richochets try Beethoven; if he sounds ponderous split the difference with Verdi. (I can’t imagine not loving Verdi, but that just means he’s my sweet spot.)
We live with ubiquitous, mass produced Product that is passed off as music – the “music” that’s on post-1955 movie soundtracks or any television is horrifyingly bad, and the music that gets pumped into public spaces (clubs, malls, elevators) is famously terrible.
The War on Quiet is just part of the larger War of Quality that’s been raging since the beginning of consumerism, but don’t mistake hating what’s put out there by the corporations as hatred of music. It just means you have taste.
I missed this the first time through. “Anxious” is a very interesting word. There actually is a recognized anxiety disorder involving tension from noise. Also, an aversion to noise and “busyness” in general is characteristic of introversion. Maybe it’s not shitty music at all – you may just be “born that way.” 
(It’s no sin. I am, too.)
Read “This is your Brain on Music” by Daniel Levitin. It’s a great read regarding how music acts on our brain and evolutionary reasons for music.
Yeah, I’m not huge into music either, which seems to be a prerequisite for dating in the 20s and 30s scene. You’ve got all these kids saying silly things that they actually mean like, “We can’t date if you like So and So.” Whatever. I used to be some huge dork about that kind of thing when I was 19, but I just don’t care about music anymore, not even good music. Yes, when I hear something good, I like it, and will sometimes search for a song on YouTube if it’s in my head, and yes there are some songs that are better than Prozac and put me in a damn good mood, but I don’t seek out music and I don’t really care about it either way. When I need something to do on the weekend, I don’t look for “shows” unless they’re of the comedy variety. I look for places to eat or drink or check out the improv theatres are doing. I’ve seen two live shows in the past two years, and each time it was because my friends had extra tickets. I liked the shows fine, sure, but that’s not something I would have picked out to do on my own.
I suppose I’m not in the same boat as the OP as music doesn’t make me feel “anxious” or “annoyed,” and a lot of it makes my ears happy, but I’m a long way from being passionate about it and am by no definition a music person.
Ditto this; word-for-word.
I’m a lifelong professional musician, and your OP makes me want to cry a little. At first, I thought your problem was that you were trying to listen to rap music.
Then I read the rest of the thread, and I see there is a more sinister, invasive issue here than just one undeveloped ear for music. Threads like this make me want to lose faith in the Humanity of humanity.
I have only one thought to offer. I know my exposure to music began in the womb, as both my parents and my older brother loved music and listened to it very often, and would sing out loud at random times of the day or evening just to entertain themselves. I was lucky my mother liked classical music, and also knew the Great American Songbook inside and out.
She loved traditional Jazz, and knew all the hits by Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Ella, Sarah Vaughn, and every other artist who performed Standards or Jazz … and my dad, an ex-trombone player, loved Big Band music and knew every tune by heart. I heard great music from embryo to adulthood, every day of my life.
Perhaps there is a connection with exposure to music as a child, and influences from family and friends, that, if not encountered early on, or in some supportive, nurturing way, can lead to a deficit such as you’ve described. It sounds to me like some kind of “Music Asperger Syndrome.”
I’m wondering if the OP enjoys movies, as there is usually some music going on in the background of most scenes.
And, of course, there is the huge orchestral swells that accompany the big dramatic moments.
I went through this phase, although I have been listening to more music (sometimes, specific kinds that I like, at appropriate times) lately. I’ve always had taste as far as what I like, but I don’t feel the need to listen often. I usually use music to entertain myself when I am doing a task that prevents me from being entertained by anything else, like cleaning or cooking. But I’m just as likely to listen to the radio news or a podcast or something.
I have some auditory processing issues, so I often get stressed by noise and sounds including music, and the less ambient noise in my environment, the happier and better able to concentrate I am. I like quiet and prefer my home to be completely silent whenever possible. I used to be INCREDIBLY stressed by noise but over the years I’ve learned to better cope and ‘tune things out’ to reduce anxiety.
I don’t much enjoy movies or tv, either, and I especially hate having it on the background constantly.
ETA: I believe my hearing weirdness is the main reason for my ‘not really liking listening to music or watching movies’ weirdness and my ‘refusing to talk on the phone’ weirdness. I’m pretty sure, based on research I’ve read, that my mom scrambled my brain by being an organist with a gigantic, super-loud organ, her entire pregnancy with me. Loud noises and high levels of ambient sound are very bad for fetuses in utero.
There are some passages in either old or more recent music that makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise and dance. The really good ones will not only do it every time, but the tingles will spread either over my shoulders and down my arms to my fingers, or down my spine and legs to the soles of my feet. This is a good thing.
A lot of songs call up an awareness of where I was and what I was doing the first time I heard them. Or if I played it repeatedly in a certain situation, I’ll remember that.
If I just have music on in the background, it’s usually pretty easy to ignore it, for a bit. Then a song I haven’t heard for awhile, or one that I really like, will come on and my focus will be pulled away from whatever I was doing. Could that be part of what’s making you anxious, Fossil? If I really need to concentrate, I have to either turn off the music or make sure it’s really innoccuous.
Just out of curiosity, bump, do you like music better if you’re dancing? Some music makes me itch to move. I’ve even heard of someone asking for nominations for a mix tape of music that could get you speeding tickets. (That was back in the old days before the internet.) I contributed “I’m So Excited” by the Pointer Sisters.
A great musical experience makes me feel ecstatic. Whether it’s playing with a band, playing along with a recording, being awestruck at a concert, listening while driving in my car, sometimes I get this overwhelming euphoria.
Most of the time, though, I just plain old enjoy it.
You sound like the listener who called a classical music station after they played a famous piece by Mozart and said, “I’m inclined to knock music, too.” 
As a lot of people have stated, I think the older we get the less passionate we are about music.
I was so passionate about it that I used to write a for a rock tv show about bands and their history and discography.
Now I need music in the background and different types of music depending on what I’m doing, cleaning, studying/reading or meditating… but I really don’t care anymore about bands or which type of music!
Too funny.