The Small Print

One of my least favourite questions is “What type of music do you like?”, like we need to have a type and limit ourselves into these little neat boxes. The only thing more annoying than that is the look people give you when you say “everything”. Like your some sort of particularly slow child who didnt quite understand the question.

I don’t see what’s wrong with having a wide variety of music. Its like your mood. It can change rapidly several times in a day - in an hour even. Why can’t what we listen to be the same?

For example, if I put my iPod on shuffle the first 10 songs that play are:

1. That’s What You Get - Paramore
2. Beautiful - Glee Cast (Christina Aguilera cover)
3. Jack Sparrow - Hans Zimmer (Pirates of the Caribbean score)
4. New Born - Muse
5. Don’t Rain On My Parade - Glee Cast (Barbra Streisand cover)
6. Time Warp - Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack
7. Introducing Me - Nick Jonas (Camp Rock 2 soundtrack)
8. Lothlorien - Lord of the Rings score
9. Teardrops on my Guitar - Taylor Swift
10. Untouched - The Veronicas

It ranges from classic musicals to country to top 40 just within 10 songs. And I don’t see whats wrong with that. We are constantly being encouraged to widen our horizoions - try things we’ve never tried before. Why should it be any different for what music we listen to? How do you know you don’t like a song or a genre even until you’ve listened to it?

Which is why it particularly irritates me when people mock or even criticize what music I listen to. Or what concerts I go to. The last 5 concerts I was at were Darren Criss, Glee Live, Taylor Swift, The Pretty Reckless and Paramore. All very different styles of music and all just as entertaining as each other. Maybe because its not something that’s heavy in drum and bass and therefore not acceptable as a music choice.

Take for example the last concert I was at - well more of a gig really, since 600 capacity venues are neither here nor there - Darren Criss.

Whilst being more famously recognised for his part in Glee, he is also part of a small theatre company known as Team Starkid, who’s most famous play was A Very Potter Musical, which as it sounds, is a parody of the Harry Potter franchise.

Now when you tell people you’re going to see a guy who plays a character in Glee its bad enough - when you add in that you’re hoping he plays songs from his musical about Harry Potter - lets just say people tend to not be so accepting of this.

But the whole point of music is (aside from profit) is entertainment. And who are others to say what does and doesn’t entertain you?

And I’m not sure what’s more entertaining than 600 people singing along to a song titled “Going Back to Hogwarts”.

So next time someone asks “what type of music do you like?”, my suggestion is just roll your eyes and walk away. Because really, its not worth the effort explaining it.