my wife likes most of my music and attends concerts with me from time to time so she's pretty cool. music definitely is not as important to her as it is to me and she is not as opinionated as me either.

ditto

call me obscene, shallow, whatever... but whoever i date HAS to have similar taste/interest in my music. and not just rock, he has to like drum n' bass, techno, house, etc... or at least be open-minded about it. i'm in my mid-twenties so right now, i'm in party mode and my whole social life is based around music. that is why i pursued a job in the music industry. most of my friends are music geeks, dj's, promoters, etc. so majority of what i do when i go out involves music.

perhaps things will change when i get older and am ready to settle down. but not now.

Uh, I might be misunderstanding you here but.... isn't the fact that she has a boyfriend a bit more of a deterent than her musical tastes?

I think it's a myth that you have to date people who had exactly the same tastes or interests as you.

Sometimes too it can be cool to go out with someone who has complimentary tastes & interests. Like in my case I'm the music girl and he's the film guy--we overlap a lot but we can also teach eachother stuff.

Polly "Wordy" Six

My wife is fairly knowledgeable about old modern rock late 70's-early 90's, But she can't stand songs that mope, squeal, howl, banshee, noodle or navel-gaze and she loathes nasal, freak-folky voices. I also like a lot of alt-pop artists who utilize brass, hammond, wurlitzer, etc and have a 60's singer-songwriter melodic-but-fey feel to them. She doesn't have much patience for Robyn Hitchcock, Jazz Butcher, Felt or newer acts like Belle & Sebastian or Lambchop.

She loves Lush-Ladykillers type songs. Chumbawamba/Garbage/Curve 90's stuff and of course 80's new wave. We agree on acts like Talking Heads, but she's bigger into Blondie/B-52's 80's stuff than I am. She hates Mountain-Goaty type things.

She's wanted Neil Young dead for most of her life but loves Peter Gabriel.

So I realize she's aware of a lot of music but is pretty much irritated by it and finds it an intrusion into her need for calm and silence.

We both like a lot of Crowded House-type indie pop, though. And we both like ambient, downtempo instrumentals.

My wife of 25 years and I have distinctly different favorites, but enough overlap that we can find middle ground on road trips etc. She is perpetually stuck in the '70's and would be there still if I hadn't bought concert tickets for the two of us to see The Clash, U2, Joe Jackson, Midnight Oil etc. etc.

She has little interest in exploring new music, but will definitely latch on after witnessing a dynamic live set.

Early on I really got a kick out of turning her on to new sounds and watching her leap about at a live show to a band she had been unfamiliar with minutes earlier. I have to arrange these kind of outings as a surprise now. If I tell her we're going to see, oh I don't know, The Kaiser Chiefs or Black Rebel Motorcycle Club she'll say "Take your brother, I don't want to go." If I surprise here and take her out for dinner and a concert she'll come away with a new found musical treat.

We're quite different in this area. I continually explore and like to hear new shit. She would be content if no new music ever entered her sphere. We're both OK with that.

*thread hijack*

Hey frostin'... so... have you had any luck stocking Mr. Sylvian yet?

I do find it a little suspicious that you are both ex-prettyboys, both live hidden away in the woods in the same vicinity of the US , and are probably around the same age and have similar tastes in music. Is there something you're not telling us?

We also both used to look like Nick Rhodes but now look more like Nick Nolte.

(I assume you meant "stalking," unless you meant did I hang Dave from a hook over the fireplace mantle this past Christmas)

Polly - Shoegaze, Dub and Gainsbourg fan? Hott.

My last true love said I was a "reggae Nazi".

Oh... um... YES. That would be the fast typing and leftover holiday laziness.

I do believe I am turning into such a thing.

you people are all crazy.

Relationships tend to change more often than musical tastes, I've noticed.

music taste has always been a huge qualifier for girls I've dated. Considering how huge of a part of my life it is, it's "obscene" be interested in someone who couldn't give a fuck about your biggest passion.
Luckily, my girlfriend is very open minded about music. It probably helps that she was the MD at her college radio station, but I love that we can go to shows together and jam out in the car to the new Tom Vek or DFA1979 discs. Makes the relationship that much more fun when you share common interests.

Exactly. If I fell for a girl and was completely head over heels for her and it turned out she only listened to Eminem and Il Divo, I'd be disappointed but I wouldn't end it for that.

I don't think it's ridiculous or stupid to look for someone with similar taste in music. It doesn't have to be exactly the same, but similar is good.

Finding out a girl only listens to Linkin Park and Thrice is just another way to turn me off. It's the same as if I found out she smoked. If I'm really interested in her, it's not going to change that. But if I don't really know her, it's enough to make me not bother pursuing her.