No one ever got laid because they liked Grizzly Bear.
When it comes to musical hook ups, the worst of our taste is often far more important than our best.
As someone who has been judging other people since Britney and JT were wearing matching denim to the American Music Awards, I can say with some authority that the music you put on your Facebook profile is nothing more than a qualifier.
Sure, it’s nice to know that you appreciate Arcade Fire, but if you want to take off your pants and jacket, you have a much better shot with some Blink 182.
So what? You like Death Cab For Cutie. That tells me almost nothing about you. We build so much of our culture around music that it’s no surprise that favorite bands are more of an audio dress code than a personal fashion statement. The “Garden State” soundtrack is pretty choice. Good observation on your part, but if you want to get to know me, let’s talk about that Mariah Carey Christmas CD your mom plays on repeat for the majority of December. Better yet, let’s talk about how surprisingly catchy an R&B version of “Santa Baby” can be.
I don’t want to know about your favorite song or the songs you love to hate. I want to hear about the songs you hate to love. I want to catch you singing “Girlfriend” in the shower and hear you hum Sugar Ray at the grocery store. I want to have a serious discussion about what you thought Fall Out Boy was saying the first time you heard “Sugar We’re Going Down.” I’m not proud to know the words to the bottom half of whichever Hawthorne Heights album has “Decembers” on it, but I’ll never rid my head of those lyrics. This is the history we can’t erase, the tattoos on the inside of our heads we can’t escape.
When we curate our music tastes, we are inventing ourselves. From pregame playlists to the tracks that hide in “Naked Shower Power 2: NOT FOR WHEN ROOMMATE IS HOME,” we are creating something that reflects a part of ourselves. We are accentuating and accessorizing, coloring our lives the way we wish it could be. But for every carefully selected indie love song on a mix tape made before I was old enough to drive, there is an off-kilter Wombats track nestled between tracks 9 and 11 in the hopes that no one would notice it.
Show me that. Show me the things that are a part of you in a way you can’t control. Share with someone what gets under your skin and sticks between your ears. There’s nothing impressive about having good taste when taste is so subjective, but there is something brave about deciding that it doesn’t matter. If this is who we are and this is something we choose, let us choose to be real, even if it means listening to Angels and Airwaves every once in a while.
Headphones are funny things. They let us hide in plain sight, rocking out to “Toxic” on the way to class in the comfort of our own heads. There’s nothing wrong with a little privacy when it comes to guilty pleasures, but this is very much a case of nothing ventured, nothing gained. Sure, an indie rock album and cherry red pair of Dr. Dre beats look so cool with your leather jacket, fresh for fall.
But love is weird. Life is weird. People are weird. Why should your music be any different?
