Can you tell something about someone based on what kind of music they listen to?
Some suggested this in response to my post wondering if there were better questions to ask than "What do you do?" when trying to learn about someone.
Cognitive Daily blog suggests that it can be revealing, especially in young adults, who have stronger tastes.
Some readers have emailed me asking what kind of music I listen to — I list books and movies, but no music. I’m not a music buff, which is why I don’t write about it, but I do have some 500 songs on my iPod and listen to a very eclectic mix. Which is, indeed, a good reflection of my overall interests and personality.
I also wrote about this here. While it doesn’t exactly reveal anything, it does bring up a few interesting questions.
Interesting question – as someone who lives and dies for music I find my own immense personal joy there but it doesn’t correlate to connection with other people (except in certains cases…). I’m far more likely to enjoy a person who likes similar books then someone who likes similar music. The caveat is that if someone likes a relatively unpopular/unknown song/cd/artist that I do it will correlate to a friendship much easier. And introduction to new good music is just as powerful for me as introduction to a new good book or movie.
Nice thing abt music is portability, I can fit abt 90% of my collection on my new 60gb IPod… Much harder to take books or movies (and much harder to digitize them in an acceptable way)
The only music I listen to is from DDR.
I’m probably not skilled enough—or fussy enough—about music to make a judgement about someone based on it. However, I am fairly fussy about how someone writes and often make judgements of how well I might get on with that person based on that. It’s not my only test, of course, and it’s far from being foolproof, but those written perceptions are pretty powerful in my book.