It took an irish comedian for me to finally realise this. I have always been very biased in music. I used to even judge people for liking music i thought was crap.

Then I realised just about every community does this. I was never angry or hateful like some people can be.

I also started to realise how stupid it was to judge people on noise...... That is all any music is. Of course when it is something you enjoy it isn't just noise. Music happens to have some of the most hardcore alienating people of anything on the planet. Just because you may or may not like the noise the person next to you listens too.....

Dylan Moran talking about fatboy slim?
I tend not to judge people based on music, or at the very least : try not to, or anything that is just a matter of taste and not something you have any real control over, film, music, games, books, the kinds of people you find attractive etc.

I couldn't tell you why I like the things I like, I could list you dozens of positive aspects of them, but are any of them the reason why I'm drawn to them? I don't honestly know.
I don't think anyone should have to explain why they like things, generally speaking, people should just accept others as they find them.

I follow in line with Milky. I try not to judge people based on the music they listen to... unless they put themselves waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out there and who are the fans whose entire personality revolves around defending one particular music artist and won't allow for any sort of criticism. That can be really annoying, but I don't troll on other people's musical taste.

It's funny, because people usually use music as a conversation started - or an argument accelerate - but I rarely do. Probably because me and my friends have very low music compatibility so we don't even bother. That, and for some reason, I can't even explain what music I listen to. I just tend to say, "stuff that isn't on the radio" when people ask me what music I listen to. I possibly do it to avoid people who would judge me on the music I listen to.

Another funny thing is that I'm suppose to be carpooling with one of my school-friend-mates today and she asked me for music suggestions.... but after seeing the bands I listed on my FB page, she quickly retracted it. >.< Oh well. I have my iPod.

"At the end of the day it is still just a bunch of noise"

Isn't that like saying that books are "Just scraps of paper with random letters stamped on them"?

I don't think I judge people based on what books they read, or music they listen to; but I would be tempted to do so based on what they think about what the media is saying.

Honestly you can use that to explain anything. I was just using it as an example since this is a goth forum. Alot of people including goths or not. Base their entire friend base on music though. Well the way a person dresses first. Then what they listen to second.

I try not to get caught up in all these subculture barriers that attach dress with what genre you listen to.

I'm a morbid pan-underground dark music fiend. I love music that evokes that certain feeling and impulse within me that furthers my existence-long spiritual quest into the bottom of the abyss.....

As for others' music tastes, I never let that get to me, as even those among my friends who have some common ground with me in music, rarely ever have EVERYTHING in common with me...... my goth friends hate metal, my metal friends rarely listen to anything gothically inclined, and only my industrial/rivethead/experimental music friends care at all about dark ambient/noise, etc. yet their events tend to focus more on psychedelic aesthetics, and not the dark occult imagery I crave, so it's really a split world with me, my music taste, and socializing.

I generally hate people who are just so hooked on one thing, that they have this really arrogant ignorance towards everything else.....
Generally goes with my hatred towards narrow-mindedness and people who think they know it all when they don't.....

^This. I admit I find it irksome when some people refuse to get past their own comfort zone to discover something new. They're missing out when they stick to their own narrow mindedness.

Not just that, but those who stick to their comfort zones and act like stuck-up know-it-alls on top of that.....
Those who only stick to the most commercial, best known bands in a genre, and truly believe their taste to be better than everyone else's, even going so far as to belittle others for THEIR music taste..... even if they've been into music a lot longer than they have.

I ran into such an irritating personality last weekend..... she obviously had a few drinks, and thought my being polite was an excuse for her to go on this epic rant about how this whole underground music scene sucks, bash my friend's band,　talk shit about my friends who were organizing/DJing that night, and generally boasting about herself and being disrespectful while at the same time claiming the only "gothic" music worth listening to is Nightwish and Rammstein......
I can only be polite to stupidity for so long before turning violent...... it was a good time to break for the restroom as an escape excuse.....

If you want to stick to your comfort zones, that's fine, just don't be an officious prick about it, especially when you're a newcomer(aka guest) to the scene..... and when you're lucky just to HAVE a goth event due to the organizer being one of the only goths gracious and motivated enough to fork over the cash and put it on once every three months, the least you could do is show some respect!!!!

I feel those who come to events just to boast about how much better the scene in their country is should be bounced.....

Cool link, Gath.

Extra points if (without using Google) someone can tell me who did the song entitled, "Who Makes the Nazis?"


And learning to separate people from the music they listen to is a quantum leap of maturity. Good work, folks.

I have to separate the people I love in real life from the music they listen to, otherwise I'd be alone.

I agree. I've met people who'd rather just stick to what they feel comfortable with. One guy I know doesn't listen to much besides rock (or sub genres of rock), a little bit of metal, and jazz. But mostly rock in general. He's very, very picky with music and sometimes it gets to me, but it's his problem if he doesn't open himself up to more music out there. When you mentioned people who think the mainstream stuff they listen too is the best thing ever, it reminded me of these "classic rock elitists" who seem to think all older rock bands from the 80s and previous were the best things since sliced bread and it's always the same "top 5" or so.

Amen, Wolfie. My husband is about as square as they come, and I can never understand why I'm subjected to 70's easy listening music when we're in the car, yet he rolls his eyes if I want to listen to Bauhaus or Siouxsie. A true case of "my mp3 player saved my sanity".

I don't disagree, it's just that whenever you have a medium that's being used to say something whether it's music, visual artwork, or writing; that medium is not insignificant whenever it has a relationship with the way people think or act.

To put it another way: you could say that we shouldn't judge people for what they read, and I would generally agree with that. But it's more difficult to say that books are just "scraps of paper with random letters stamped on them" because you have those occasional pieces that inspire, influence, direct changes in attitudes or practices. To use a literary example: the importance of Uncle Tom's Cabin wasn't so much in the book as a literary work [its not like it was some major innovation in how we write] but in the greater picture of what goes on inside peoples' heads. Whenever music gets someone to just stop and think, it cannot be "just random noise" as far as I am concerned. The genre? The genre does not matter in this sense.

For me, I love dark music, of all forms and genres.
The emotions it makes me feel, the thoughts and inspirations that come from it, be it goth rock, black metal, dark ambient, etc.
But for many of my friends, it's not so much about the darkness as just the structure of the music, the tempo, the lyrics, whatever...... and they listen to a lot of other unrelated music I just can't get into.
Musical common ground for completely different reasons.

Ledge, I feel your pain, hun! If I didn't have a phone that was also an mp3 player I'd have to bang my head against a wall, strangle people or jump out of windows*.



*exaggerations....maybe.....