It’s hard to write about yourself and something so personal as musical taste, but I continue to do so. FOR YOU!!1! Don’t forget about Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Believe it or not, there’s more to electronic music than just going OONTS OONTS OONTS over and over again. In fact, this is a genre I never thought I’d like growing up; at the time, it just seemed like so much noise. But I’ve developed an appreciation as time goes on.

I’ll repeat: categorizing genres sucks. Luckily this time I have help, in the form of Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music. If you’re curious, have a few minutes, and don’t mind listening to song samples, it’s a great way to pass the time. I was really surprised by how many of the songs I had been exposed to without knowing it. It’s definitely a blast-from-the-internet-past in terms of interface, and doesn’t include newer genres like dubstep, but it’s still useful.

Anyway, on to the genres.

Trance

It’s amazing how encompassing this genre is. So encompassing, in fact, that I really had no idea where to start. Luckily a friend lent me some of her music collection to get me started. For me, this genre includes the more dreamy (trance-inducing, if you will) tracks. You know, music you could put on in the background and just float away with. Or dance to by way of swaying back and forth. I find it relaxing (despite the tempo), yet not sleep-inducing. Artists like Robert Miles, VNV Nation, Front 242, are some of the bands I would include in here off the top of my head. And while it may not be completely orthodox, I’d probably lump Kraftwerk in here as well.

One thing that surprised me was how fond I’ve become of Goa Trance. It’s… trippy. It doesn’t tend to relax me the same way as other Trance music does, and sometimes seems to bleed into the next category.

House

If you lived through the 90s, and especially if you were into martial arts at that time, you probably heard this track. I think of this genre as a bit more “dance-able” than Trance, in that it inspires me to move more. Maybe some jumping up and down instead of swaying side to side (am I even making sense any more? I can’t tell). Artists I would put in this category would be people like Ryöksopp, George Acosta, Deadmau5, and of course Daft Punk

Daft Punk is interesting in how they seem to vary in style between albums. Homework was very funky, while Discovery scratched a lot of the same itch that Disco used to (did you know that album got made in to an anime movie?). Human After All swung back towards the funk, and Random Access Memories back towards disco. Interesting, no?

Chiptune

Oh man, right in the nostalgia feels. You remember the type of music that video games used in the NES era? Well, people are writing new music that sounds like that. Sometimes even using original hardware. And it is awesome. Admittedly, I often have to limit how much I listen to (the lo-fi stylings tend to grate after a while), but it’s a fun genre.

The musical odyssey continues! Don’t forget about Part 1 and Part 2.

This is another wide category, but I’ve chosen to differentiate it from Pop/Modern Rock via both age and intensity.

Classic Rock

Seemingly the gold standard for what counts as Good Music™. It’s what “kids these days” don’t appreciate, myself apparently excluded. Like with Modern Rock yesterday, it would be a bit tough to listen to all the bands and artists I like. I listen to a lot of The Fox locally. But my favorite band has to be Queen.

The guys in my immediate family seem to have a tendency to fixate on one band for some reason or another. For my dad, it was The Beatles. For my brother, U2. For me, it’s Queen. I’ll admit that Wayne’s World had something to do with me becoming aware of Queen’s music. But since then, they’ve become a mainstay of my album rotation. Even if it does occasionally get me weird looks from some of my coworkers.

Metal

DEATH TO ALL BUT METAL! Okay, not really. But the song, while crude, is amusing. I’ll admit that there’s a lot of overlap between this genre and the previous. But I happen to like a lot of classic heavy metal and hair metal. Iron Maiden. Scorpions. Quiet Riot. Metallica. Queensryche. Dethklok You get the idea.

Honestly, this section is feeling pretty short because it overlaps so much with the one above and below.

Power Metal

This is definitely a sub-genre of metal, but one I listen to quite a bit. It tends to be a bit more symphonic or melodic, often incorporating fantasy or sci-fi themes. I came across this genre while in France, as it’s much more popular in Europe than it is in the States. Some bands include Kamelot (I did get to see them in concert), Blind Guardian (they have a concept album about The Silmarillion), Epica, Nightwish, Sabaton, and more.

For me, it fills the niche of something harder but still understandable (both in melody and lyrics). When I was still doing Taekwondo, I had to put together a creative form set to music for my 3^rd degree black belt test. I ended up using “The Bridge of Khazad Dum” from The Lord of the Rings because I wanted something unique that wasn’t techno (this was the early 2000s) but still had a powerful beat. If I had known about Power Metal back then, I probably would have used something more akin to this.

This is a continuation of the series I started yesterday, airing out the embarrassing laundry that is the music I listen to.

Pop

Let’s start with the most generic, meaningless category of all: Pop! I don’t listen to much in this “genre,” and the way it’s defined by popular culture is often vague enough to be useless for categorization. But let’s try.

I tend to shy away from many of the “popular” artists on the radio these days, but that doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally entertain a begrudging appreciation of artists like Katy Perry or Lady Gaga.

As I mentioned yesterday, I went through a phase when I didn’t listen to much else besides Classical music and Disco. Don’t ask me how I ended up with that combination, but there it is. I don’t listen to much Disco any more, but that type of beat does still show up in some of the more electronic music I listen to. During that period I listened to a lot of ABBA.

These days, my somewhat-guilty pleasure has jumped a few decades to 80s Pop for reasons just as unknown. Maybe it’s what I was exposed to as a very young kid? For whatever reason, that synthpop sound really just resonates with me.

Modern Rock

Modern Rock, on the other hand, is defined in my head as “newer music that is Not Pop.” Don’t ask me to define that any more concretely; I did warn you that this was going to be very subjective, didn’t I? One of my primary sources for this type of music is the local radio station Channel 933. Like a lot of people my generation, my tastes skew more towards the Alternative side of things (another useless descriptor. What is it even an alternative to, any more? Pop?). Bands like Yellowcard (reminds me of high school), Linkin Park (the angrier parts of high school) and others often crop up. Mumford & Sons. Florence + the Machine. Barenaked Ladies. Bloodhound Gang. I could go on.

There are a number of bands I was exposed to while studying abroad in France, and I usually associate hearing them with my time there. These include Muse, Interpol, and Starsailor. This is also when I first heard Johnny Cash’s cover of Hurt.

Like I’ve said, these are broad categories. If I listed everything I listened to we’d be here forever. If it’s played on Channel 933, I probably don’t hate it.

Except Jack Johnson. That guy annoys me.

I want to talk more about some of the philosophical points I made last week, but it’s a complicated topic, and the words aren’t coming as smoothly as I’d like. So while I continue to mull it around/procrastinate, let’s take a look at some lighter fare: music!

I think it’s safe to say that almost everyone listens to music of some form or other, and I am no exception. Music can be many different things. It can be background noise. It can be an intense multisensory experience. It can be an intentional soundtrack to your life. It can be a way to drown out the infernal shrieking of the baby in the plane seat behind you. It can be an expression of your innermost personality.

Need I go on?

In other words, there is something very human about music, both in its creation and its consumption. For me, it can be all of these things depending on what sort of mood I’m in or what sort of activity I’m pursuing. As such, I listen to a wide variety of genres and artists, which could be generously called eclectic.

I often half-jokingly say that I’ll listen to almost anything except Country/Western and Gangster Rap. I tend to use music to reinforce whatever mental state I’m in, whether to prolong it or hurry it along to its inevitable conclusion.

So what kind of music do I listen to? Well, I will say I’ve branched out since elementary/middle school; I went through a phase where all I listened to was either Classical or Disco. These days my taste seems to run the gamut from pop to death metal with some stopovers at techno along the way. So we’ll take some time the next few days and look over my MP3 collection, and all the sordid secrets held within.

Also, you’ll get to watch me struggle to try to categorize various bands and artists into subjective, ill-defined categories and genres. Come for the dirty secrets, stay for the angst! Truly, this will be a modern marvel of entertainment! That’s right, it’s time for the return of NOUNS I VERB!

(and yes, this entry is mostly a cop-out to give me more time to do said sorting)

Like many people of my generation, I don’t watch television. I’ve long said that anything worth watching these days shows up online sooner or later,* and the few times I’ve been unavoidably exposed to what fills the airwaves these days has left me lamenting humanity’s future. It seems to be a never-ending sea of banal tripe, with shows like “Honey Boo Boo,” “Jersey Shore,” and “Survivor” that make Jerry Springer look like high opera. Even the shows that don’t automatically insult my intelligence are pretty bad; I recently saw a bit of a cooking show (“Man vs Food Nation,” I think) that make me want to punch the host in the face before drowning him in whatever vat of heart attack he was fawning over.

It’s a good thing I’m not a violent person.

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