Is the best music an acquired taste?

Subject: RE: Is the best music an acquired taste?
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 30 Aug 03 - 02:37 PM

Most folks I would think except Bulgarians!

Subject: RE: Is the best music an acquired taste?
From: Margret RoadKnight
Date: 30 Aug 03 - 02:05 AM

Bulgarian choral music takes a while for some folks.

Subject: RE: Is the best music an acquired taste?
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 29 Aug 03 - 11:34 PM

Guest, Dale:

Somewhat similiar situation for me. It seemed no one, especially high schoolers in the Chicago suburbs was listening to country music but me in the mid 60's. We had two power house AM stations playing Top 40 and even regional bands such as The Buckinghams and The Cryin' Shames were very popular. I was buying albums by people like George Hamilton IV, Bobby Bare, and Charlie Pride along with Flatt & Scruggs. I bought new Waylon Jennings first album release on RCA in 1966 called Folk-Country and played it for some other people into music. They thought I was way weird for liking that "hillbilly crap." I was also into Glen Campbell and thought Gentle On my Mind was an extremely poetic piece of country music. His records on Capitol were so well produced.

Subject: RE: Is the best music an acquired taste?
From: M.Ted
Date: 29 Aug 03 - 11:24 PM

I didn't care for Richard Thompson for a long time, finally heard him live and it connected. I think that what he is doing is a live thing, not a recorded thing--the dynamics don't come across, or something--

Subject: RE: Is the best music an acquired taste?
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 29 Aug 03 - 09:20 PM

I dunno. When I bought my first Carter Family lp at the Ernest Tubb Record Shop, early 60s, I thought it was crap. Didn't throw it away though. Gave it another listen, liked it better than the first time and so on. I've got the Bear Family set now and some of the transcriptions. Good stuff. Always was, I just didn't hear it that way at first.

Some things were crap when I first heard them and still are. NEVER cared for Bob Dylan, still don't.

When I first heard Glen Campbell's Gentle On My Mind (John Hartford) some weeks, maybe months before it became popular, I knew it was the real thing. Couldn't convince one person of the fact though. It wasn't a hit, therefore it wasn't any good. After it became a hit, it was suddenly "great" to them. They conveniently forgot how I had played it and played it for them without their even bothering to really give it a listen.

Back in high school, a good friend despised country music, while that was my main listening then. One night I had the radio on, and he said, "You know, that isn't all that bad." I even remember the song, In The Jail House Now by Webb Pierce.   The conversion was on.

Subject: RE: Is the best music an acquired taste?
From: M.Ted
Date: 29 Aug 03 - 08:40 PM

I understand completely, K-c. I like lots of different things, from Shape note hymns to Turkish classical music to John coltrane--my wife thinks she likes lots of things, but has been playing the same Annie Lennox CD at our parties since 1994--

Subject: RE: Is the best music an acquired taste?
From: GUEST,K-c
Date: 29 Aug 03 - 04:23 PM

I'll dig out my cassette of the 10,000 Maniacs again, eh ? I also listened to it once.

I have an on-going problem with music and taste because my man and I are from completely different cultures and he cannot stand just about anything I like. Ok, it's mainly my folk music that drives him mad, but even more pop-type-stuff always causes a problem.

I will listen to anything he puts on, and I can enjoy that as much as my stuff. I think he has the problem, not me, because I think I was exposed to all sorts of music when I was young. On the other hand his knowledge of music is limited.

It sounds trivial, but I can assure you it isn't ! Sometimes I would give the world to live with a person that appreciated my taste in music.

Subject: RE: Is the best music an acquired taste?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 29 Aug 03 - 03:52 PM

This is really a complex question. Rather than start a fight, let me just say that the more you know about music and the better you understand it, the more esoteric your taste will probably become.

Subject: RE: Is the best music an acquired taste?
From: Wesley S
Date: 29 Aug 03 - 03:31 PM

I've had the same experience. I remember listening to The Band and wondering what the big deal was. I eventually "got it"

I still don't get Richard Thompson however well respected he is. An aquired taste I guess.

Subject: RE: Is the best music an acquired taste?
From: M.Ted
Date: 29 Aug 03 - 03:30 PM

Sometimes something catches you the first time and sometimes you have to hear it a few times. One of the most amusing examples for me was "In My Tribe" by the 10k Maniacs(not a folk group, I know) which I bought, listened to and almost threw away. It sat for six months before someone asked to hear it, after which I could not stop playing it--of course, there are others--

I have tried to figure this out, and the closest I can get it that sometimes the first time you hear something, you maybe expecting to hear something else, and you are disappointed--the next time, you know what you are listening to so the expectations are gone and you can just enjoy it.


I had a friend back in college who regarded the first listen as something unpleasant he had to out of the way--that way, if it was good, he was one up, and if it was disappointing, he was expecting it--

Subject: RE: Is the best music an acquired taste?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 29 Aug 03 - 03:06 PM

I think there's no way to tell what yer gonna like or not, till it's already too late...

:-)

Subject: Is the best music an acquired taste?
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 29 Aug 03 - 02:32 PM

When I listen to a new CD for the first time, there are inevitably song/tunes that I love on first listen, some that I think are OK and some that I don't like a great deal.

As a general rule, it's often the ones that I didn't like much (or sometimes actively disliked) on first listen that become my long term favourites. There are of course exceptions; songs that I loved on first hearing that I still love, and lots of songs which I immediately disliked and continue to dislike.

Overall though, I say that my very favourite pieces are things that I didn't initially care for.

Curious as to whether others feel the same way.