question

[pastels_badge]

What's your policy when it comes to getting music recommendations from friends? Do you avoid them, take them when they come, or seek them out? How effective do you think friendly recommendations are for finding stuff you're really going to like? Do you ever feel self-conscious about getting into stuff because other people introduce you to it,

Comments

[chaptal]

It depends on who the person doing the recommending is. Having the cred is important. I've had some excellent recommendations from a few of my LJ folks.

[pastels_badge]

Well, sure, you can't get advice like that from just anybody. Though I find that almost everybody has something they can teach me about. A lot of the best stuff I've found out about from friends has been from people who don't think of themselves as having any musical cred.

[chaptal]

I find good music or books just by reading comments around here!

[pastels_badge]

You know, I've had that feeling myself that I'm "following someone around," but I've never thought of you as doing that. I guess I'm probably just not as aware of times when you found out about stuff from me as you are, which makes me think that other people (including you) probably don't realize how much stuff I've found out about from them.

I think I'm pretty similar when it comes to adopting music from boyfriends and such, just letting it depend on the person, but I always feel a tiny bit weird about it. I mean, it would really bug me if I ever thought people perceived me as getting into everything through my partner. I haven't really had a problem with that in any of my major relationships, but I could imagine it happening given my propensity for liking music dorks.

[minimalrobot]

I don't see how it really matters how you find out about something. You've got to hear about first from some place, don't you? It shouldn't matter if it's a blog, a friend, the radio, or a tv commercial. I suppose there's some hipster hierarchy of sources that places a premium on more obscure self-guided ways of finding out about music (might be interesting to try and create this list). But really all that matters is keeping your ears open. After all, nobody finds out about music by having somehow magically beamed into their brain--they heard about it from someone who "discoverd" it first.

As for the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing, I think it only becomes an issue if you're glomming onto their music taste just to make them to like/respect you more.

[pastels_badge]

I think that the boyfriend/girlfriend thing is more of a sensitive issue if you're a woman in a relationship with a man. Because the sad fact is that a lot of people do take men more seriously when it comes to music. They may not even notice the assumptions they're making. It makes me think about when I was at Bard doing entertainment committee (booking bands and putting on shows for the students) and when I would work the door at shows and stuff like that, people (usually guys, but not always) would always talk to my committee-mate Joel and refer to me as his "girlfriend." Just assuming that if I was working on the shows I must be dating a committee member instead of being one myself. I've run into this with people who actually were my boyfriends, too, more often than I care to remember. People regularly asked me if I got into music through Steve (when they didn't just assume it), though I think he probably ended up finding out about more favorite records through me than vice versa. It's not true of everybody, but there are

[pastels_badge]

Bah, joyless hag, schmoyless hag. I think I know what you mean, even though I haven't been in the exact same situation. During my last serious relationship (which spanned the greater part of my 20s), I got way out of the habit of listening to new stuff, but my boyfriend didn't. There are a lot of reasons this happened which are probably really different from the reasons you've gotten out of the habit while Robert keeps trucking along with his old time country and heavy metal about hobbits. But the end result is complicated. Of course you're hearing some stuff from him that you really love. But sometimes if that disparity gets bigger than it used to be, it feels weird. For me, it was tough, in part because I had always seen myself as a music person but I was losing track of that while my partner wasn't. I think you've got a lot more exciting, fulfilling reasons for putting music on the backburner than I did (e.g. that adorable baby), though maybe that just seems important because I'm not you. But even if you're ok with not

[lostpositive]

I wrote a post about losing my *ears* when I was with my ex so you know I can relate to what you are talking about here. I'm really happy to be recommended/find out about stuff from anyone who is interested enough to offer...

Em oxo

[pastels_badge]

I forgot, I also wanted to say that I think it's really cool that Robert was able to pick out something he thought you'd like that you'd never heard, and you really did. It's partly a testament to his abilities as a recommender, but I think mostly it's just a good sign that he really knows you and thinks about your perspective on things. I mean, if he can buy you new music and shoes and do a good job on both--that's love.

[pastels_badge]

Good point about the "x sounds like y" formula--that usually is a bad sign.

I don't know how you're supposed to find out about stuff without getting information from friends, but I've definitely run into people who almost never admit to having found things that way. It's silly.

[handwriting]

when i become interested in a person, i become interested in their taste in music, film, etc. even if their music isn't really my style, and i've never taken issue with that. music reminds me of my friends and i'm always curious about what drives them. matt is responsible for almost all the new wave in my collection, nation of ullyses, afghan whigs, 3 mile pilot and all sorts of bands i never would have heard unless it was for him, and i like having these associations for the most part, except when i had to drive back solo from chicago after he passed and absolutely everything in the car could be traced back to matt so i had to sit there in silence.

[pastels_badge]

I think what you're describing is a big part of why you have such an interesting, wide-ranging knowledge of stuff. Which in turn helps you relate to a lot of people about music--I've always appreciated how you seem to be able to find at least a little bit of musical common ground with most people you meet.