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

[minimalrobot]

This is a good topic. And as you know, I love to give music recommendations. I certainly hope I've never given you any 'tude.

I have a couple of rules I try to follow when giving recommendations to people. First off, I try and recommend things I think they will like, not necessarily what I like, or want them to like. So I will generally ask them a few questions about what they like/don't like, just too see where they're coming from.

Second and most important, if I'm trying to turn someone on to a new artist or genre, I try really hard to recommend the album I think will be the best gateway for that particular person. That means I don't always recommend what I personally think is the band's best work or my personal favorite. You can really turn a person off on a band by giving them an inappropriate first impression. I am always reminded of my high school friend who tried to introduce me to Kate Bush by first playing me "Get Out Of My House" from The Dreaming. That put me off Kate for a good while; I just wasn't ready for that level

[pastels_badge]

No, you've never given me a 'tude. Well, not about music. About my crush on Dan Akroyd or my lack of aptitude for Wii boxing, maybe. ;)

These are all good points about the best way to go about recommending stuff. I'm not surprised that you have thoughtful things to say on the subject since I've always found you to be a good recommender of things. Though I'm thinking, especially after my exchange with Sara above, if you realize how much stuff you've recommended that I found really interesting or ended up getting into. As well as stuff you introduced me to that I find really interesting but just haven't found the time and resources to adequately explore yet, but that I have filed away.

While we're on the subject, I was thinking recently about whether I have anything I could recommend to you and I realized that there are a ton of things I like that I think you might like, but I generally assume you already know all about all of it. (I was thinking about the mix CD trade thing, because I finally burned copies of my mix for

[someplacesimple]

for me, it depends on the friend. almost none of my closer friends share any of the same interests as me, so i don't take their music recommendations very seriously, nor do they take mine at all. i think there is just an unspoken agreement that we aren't to discuss it - i don't care about the new my chemical romance, they don't care about the new project from the guy from kings of convinience, and we leave it at that